Day 4: Devoting to one project at a time
Woke up early, went walking, did some house chores. Cleared the deck by taking care of my emails, which took about an hour.
I had some time while I was in the bathroom (ahem) so I looked through my past Toggl time logs. I use Toggl.com to track when I start and stop working on each project, so I can see how much time I spend on each project during the day, week, month, etc.
I noticed that I had lots of days this year where I worked less than 5 hours a day. I can’t be sure but it might partly be because at the time, I was trying to do a little writing and editing each day, and I think I’m just not productive or focused unless I clear the decks and devote myself to one project at a time.
It was also obvious I didn’t want to edit Lady Wynwood 1 (as I mentioned yesterday, I detest editing) because I only did an hour or so each day.
In May, when I was focused just on the furigana for Sushi for One, or just on doing my self-editing busy work (also not my favorite task), I could work 6-8 hours a day, easily. What I had done was plow through all the little tasks on my to do list that I could do right away, until I had nothing extraneous to do that couldn’t be put off for another month. Then I felt my brain cleared enough to be able to focus on the one task at hand.
I’m working longer hours per day now that I’m still plotting my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, since I really enjoy this part of the process. But later, how will I motivate myself when I have to go back to editing volume 1? If I finish all my small tasks first, will I be able to focus and work on the editing for long hours at a stretch, like I did with the self-publishing busy work? I hope so. I guess I’ll try it and find out.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m still on Stage 2 of my book creation process. Today I’ll continue outlining my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series. I’m going to focus on applying step 4 of the Snowflake method (writing a one-page synopsis) to the rest of the books in that series. I finished volumes 4 and 5 yesterday, so today I’ll start on volume 6.
***
I decided to revise the plots for books 6 and 7 and instead combine them into one book, and so I re-did Snowflake step 2 (1-paragraph summary) on the new combined volume 6/7, then did Snowflake step 4 on that book. The new book will be volume 6.
But in the process I also realized that yesterday I had forgotten a plot thread in volume 5, so Snowflake step 4 wasn’t entirely completed on that book. Tomorrow I will have to finish volume 5, then continue doing Snowflake step 4 on the other books in the series.
Time spent writing: 5 hours, 31 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 2 hours, 19 minutes
My takeaway for today: I am able to focus for longer hours on a project when I first get done all the little tasks on my To-Do list that I can do right away. Then I am able to concentrate on the one project and be more productive.
I had some time while I was in the bathroom (ahem) so I looked through my past Toggl time logs. I use Toggl.com to track when I start and stop working on each project, so I can see how much time I spend on each project during the day, week, month, etc.
I noticed that I had lots of days this year where I worked less than 5 hours a day. I can’t be sure but it might partly be because at the time, I was trying to do a little writing and editing each day, and I think I’m just not productive or focused unless I clear the decks and devote myself to one project at a time.
It was also obvious I didn’t want to edit Lady Wynwood 1 (as I mentioned yesterday, I detest editing) because I only did an hour or so each day.
In May, when I was focused just on the furigana for Sushi for One, or just on doing my self-editing busy work (also not my favorite task), I could work 6-8 hours a day, easily. What I had done was plow through all the little tasks on my to do list that I could do right away, until I had nothing extraneous to do that couldn’t be put off for another month. Then I felt my brain cleared enough to be able to focus on the one task at hand.
I’m working longer hours per day now that I’m still plotting my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, since I really enjoy this part of the process. But later, how will I motivate myself when I have to go back to editing volume 1? If I finish all my small tasks first, will I be able to focus and work on the editing for long hours at a stretch, like I did with the self-publishing busy work? I hope so. I guess I’ll try it and find out.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m still on Stage 2 of my book creation process. Today I’ll continue outlining my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series. I’m going to focus on applying step 4 of the Snowflake method (writing a one-page synopsis) to the rest of the books in that series. I finished volumes 4 and 5 yesterday, so today I’ll start on volume 6.
***
I decided to revise the plots for books 6 and 7 and instead combine them into one book, and so I re-did Snowflake step 2 (1-paragraph summary) on the new combined volume 6/7, then did Snowflake step 4 on that book. The new book will be volume 6.
But in the process I also realized that yesterday I had forgotten a plot thread in volume 5, so Snowflake step 4 wasn’t entirely completed on that book. Tomorrow I will have to finish volume 5, then continue doing Snowflake step 4 on the other books in the series.
Time spent writing: 5 hours, 31 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 2 hours, 19 minutes
My takeaway for today: I am able to focus for longer hours on a project when I first get done all the little tasks on my To-Do list that I can do right away. Then I am able to concentrate on the one project and be more productive.
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