Day 121: Shorter sprints = faster writing pace?
One of my writer's Facebook groups today posted an old article on Time Management. That seemed very appropriate since I'm trying to get better at managing my time during the day and be more productive.
I liked how the article talked about "learning to focus" and identifying the 20% of your activities that produce 80% of your results. I think I started doing that earlier this month (or maybe it was the end of last month) when I pared my Goals list down to only 3 goals for the quarter. (I blogged about this earlier, but I adjusted my 3 goals slightly a few days ago.)
Those 3 goals are my most important goals in terms of financial or personal success. They've forced me to only focus on writing my Regency series, narrowing my social media posting to a certain theme or style, and working on the Japanese translation of Sushi for One.
The main goal I felt God giving to me for my writing was in having my books translated so that Japanese women could read it, but the English version of the Regency series will hopefully earn enough money in the US to pay for the translation. The Sushi translation project started earlier this year and I'd like to eventually get that released because once it's out there, I don't have to worry about the next book until my translator finishes it. And lastly, my social media output has to be more focused in order to attract the kinds of readers I want for my books--earlier, my posting was all over the place. This will hopefully contribute to more financial success for my book sales.
Everything on my To Do list has to do with only those 3 goals, and anything I could do that doesn't fall under those 3 goals gets shunted into a "Later" list.
It's made my To Do list a LOT shorter. I keep the 3 goals at the top, and that reminds me in case I'm about to add something to the list that doesn't fall under those goals. It's also caused me to not participate in some promotional opportunities that come along because they don't fall under those 3 goals, and that has freed up my time a lot.
I've also been trying to put my most difficult tasks first, which for me is exercise and email/social media. If I don't do them first thing, they never get done. I've noticed that my email/social media has started to take less time (usually this is true, but there are some days I'm more interested in some conversation thread and I have to learn to restrain myself).
The article also talks about analyzing what you do during the day that tends to waste time and why that happens. I feel like I've been doing that for the past couple days since I've been more detailed in my bullet journal about writing down what I do.
Yesterday, I analyzed my bullet journal for the day and found out that I waste time by: 1) spending too much time blogging and 2) taking too many long breaks. I also suspect that I take too much time looking up words in the thesaurus or etymology while I'm writing, which might be making my writing pace slower, but I'm not 100% sure if that's true, because my writing pace earlier in the month was higher and I was doing the same things. So I'll need to do more observation and analysis for that last one.
I don't want to eliminate the blogging completely because it has been extremely helpful. Blogging makes me write down what I observe about myself and come up with ways to improve. I need to come up with ways to not spend as much time blogging, but I do still consider that an important activity, at least for now while I'm trying to improve my productivity.
I need to figure out how to reduce my break time, because while I need the breaks to give my ankles a rest from my standing desk, I don't want to take several 20 minute breaks every 60-90 minutes. That adds up during the day.
I wondered if maybe switching up my writing place might help reduce my breaks. Just moving to a new place might take the place of a break since I can rest my ankles at the same time. This may be where I can use my Alphasmart to best advantage. I might be able to take my Alphasmart and iPad to the table outside and do work for an hour there to rest my ankles. The iPad can have 4thewords.com open so that I will have my blocking notes there as reference while I write on my Alphasmart. I could also try writing on the iPad, or even on my other laptop, but the keyboard for the Alphasmart is most like the mechanical keyboard I use for my computer, which enables me to type faster and smoother.
I think I will try that today to see if that will help reduce my breaks.
The article also mentioned looking at what you have difficulty keeping focus on and figuring out why that is and how you can fix that. My most difficult task is self-editing, hands down.
The article suggested tweaking the job to suit you better, because we can only work effectively if we're motivated. If I apply that to my self-editing problem, then the simplest option is making cleaner copy so the self-editing is easier. I could also hire out the self-editing (or at least the etymology research) but that takes money which I don't have.
I will have to think about this more to see if I can come up with ways to tweak the self-editing to make it less difficult, because otherwise I'll just procrastinate when I should be editing my manuscript.
***
I did do my experiment to try to curb my long breaks by switching from standing to sitting and back again rather than standing all day and taking a break to rest my ankles.
I didn't write on my Alphasmart today, I ended up writing on my other laptop at my sitting desk because I realized I prefer writing within the 4thewords window on my computer. My blocking notes are right there in the screen, and I can delete them as I finish them so the next notes are right under where I'm writing the prose.
Even though I didn't write on the Alphasmart, it still did help my ankles to write while sitting. Also, when I took a break, I moved from the sitting desk to my standing desk and went right back to work rather than taking a long break. So I think I will continue to try to switch desks.
I also tried self-editing right after finishing a scene. This is the second time I've tried this. The last time wasn't very successful, so I wanted to try it again. I didn't have the same procrastination problem I had last time, but I did find my self-editing to be rather half-hearted, which was the same as last time. I think I do self-editing better when I am reading the entire scene more slowly and carefully. So my experiment about self-editing right after writing the scene ends here. I don't think it's a good idea for me.
I looked at my old writing time records to try to see if I could spot why I had a faster writing pace earlier in the month, even though I was still editing-as-I-go. My sample size is a bit small, and the numbers were kind of all over the place, but I noticed that my writing pace was a tiny bit faster when my writing sprints were 30 minutes or less. When they went up to 45 minutes, they were a little slower, and when they were an hour, they were even slower than that.
Shorter sprints, however, means more breaks. I am notoriously bad at spending too much time on breaks when they should be only 5 minutes, but maybe I need to spend more effort to work on that. I have to try to figure out how I can limit my breaks, even when I'm in the middle of a long word count monster.
On the plus side, my writing pace was a little faster today even though I was still editing-as-I-go, and all 3 sprints where my writing pace was the fastest were less than 30 minutes long. The sprints were cut short not because I consciously stopped it, but because I was interrupted. They were important interruptions, so I didn't mind, and they enabled me to see the difference between my hour long sprints and my shorter ones.
However, I didn't have as much time for writing today as I had yesterday. Also, I had to spend about an hour doing some needed research for my book, which also cut into my writing time, so my word count is a little lower today. I'm still happy with it, though.
Writing: Time spent: 5 hours, 41 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 3651 words
Writing: Average speed: 1211 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 6 minutes
My takeaway for today: My writing pace might be faster with shorter sprints, but I need to make sure my breaks are short, too.
I liked how the article talked about "learning to focus" and identifying the 20% of your activities that produce 80% of your results. I think I started doing that earlier this month (or maybe it was the end of last month) when I pared my Goals list down to only 3 goals for the quarter. (I blogged about this earlier, but I adjusted my 3 goals slightly a few days ago.)
Those 3 goals are my most important goals in terms of financial or personal success. They've forced me to only focus on writing my Regency series, narrowing my social media posting to a certain theme or style, and working on the Japanese translation of Sushi for One.
The main goal I felt God giving to me for my writing was in having my books translated so that Japanese women could read it, but the English version of the Regency series will hopefully earn enough money in the US to pay for the translation. The Sushi translation project started earlier this year and I'd like to eventually get that released because once it's out there, I don't have to worry about the next book until my translator finishes it. And lastly, my social media output has to be more focused in order to attract the kinds of readers I want for my books--earlier, my posting was all over the place. This will hopefully contribute to more financial success for my book sales.
Everything on my To Do list has to do with only those 3 goals, and anything I could do that doesn't fall under those 3 goals gets shunted into a "Later" list.
It's made my To Do list a LOT shorter. I keep the 3 goals at the top, and that reminds me in case I'm about to add something to the list that doesn't fall under those goals. It's also caused me to not participate in some promotional opportunities that come along because they don't fall under those 3 goals, and that has freed up my time a lot.
I've also been trying to put my most difficult tasks first, which for me is exercise and email/social media. If I don't do them first thing, they never get done. I've noticed that my email/social media has started to take less time (usually this is true, but there are some days I'm more interested in some conversation thread and I have to learn to restrain myself).
The article also talks about analyzing what you do during the day that tends to waste time and why that happens. I feel like I've been doing that for the past couple days since I've been more detailed in my bullet journal about writing down what I do.
Yesterday, I analyzed my bullet journal for the day and found out that I waste time by: 1) spending too much time blogging and 2) taking too many long breaks. I also suspect that I take too much time looking up words in the thesaurus or etymology while I'm writing, which might be making my writing pace slower, but I'm not 100% sure if that's true, because my writing pace earlier in the month was higher and I was doing the same things. So I'll need to do more observation and analysis for that last one.
I don't want to eliminate the blogging completely because it has been extremely helpful. Blogging makes me write down what I observe about myself and come up with ways to improve. I need to come up with ways to not spend as much time blogging, but I do still consider that an important activity, at least for now while I'm trying to improve my productivity.
I need to figure out how to reduce my break time, because while I need the breaks to give my ankles a rest from my standing desk, I don't want to take several 20 minute breaks every 60-90 minutes. That adds up during the day.
I wondered if maybe switching up my writing place might help reduce my breaks. Just moving to a new place might take the place of a break since I can rest my ankles at the same time. This may be where I can use my Alphasmart to best advantage. I might be able to take my Alphasmart and iPad to the table outside and do work for an hour there to rest my ankles. The iPad can have 4thewords.com open so that I will have my blocking notes there as reference while I write on my Alphasmart. I could also try writing on the iPad, or even on my other laptop, but the keyboard for the Alphasmart is most like the mechanical keyboard I use for my computer, which enables me to type faster and smoother.
I think I will try that today to see if that will help reduce my breaks.
The article also mentioned looking at what you have difficulty keeping focus on and figuring out why that is and how you can fix that. My most difficult task is self-editing, hands down.
The article suggested tweaking the job to suit you better, because we can only work effectively if we're motivated. If I apply that to my self-editing problem, then the simplest option is making cleaner copy so the self-editing is easier. I could also hire out the self-editing (or at least the etymology research) but that takes money which I don't have.
I will have to think about this more to see if I can come up with ways to tweak the self-editing to make it less difficult, because otherwise I'll just procrastinate when I should be editing my manuscript.
***
I did do my experiment to try to curb my long breaks by switching from standing to sitting and back again rather than standing all day and taking a break to rest my ankles.
I didn't write on my Alphasmart today, I ended up writing on my other laptop at my sitting desk because I realized I prefer writing within the 4thewords window on my computer. My blocking notes are right there in the screen, and I can delete them as I finish them so the next notes are right under where I'm writing the prose.
Even though I didn't write on the Alphasmart, it still did help my ankles to write while sitting. Also, when I took a break, I moved from the sitting desk to my standing desk and went right back to work rather than taking a long break. So I think I will continue to try to switch desks.
I also tried self-editing right after finishing a scene. This is the second time I've tried this. The last time wasn't very successful, so I wanted to try it again. I didn't have the same procrastination problem I had last time, but I did find my self-editing to be rather half-hearted, which was the same as last time. I think I do self-editing better when I am reading the entire scene more slowly and carefully. So my experiment about self-editing right after writing the scene ends here. I don't think it's a good idea for me.
I looked at my old writing time records to try to see if I could spot why I had a faster writing pace earlier in the month, even though I was still editing-as-I-go. My sample size is a bit small, and the numbers were kind of all over the place, but I noticed that my writing pace was a tiny bit faster when my writing sprints were 30 minutes or less. When they went up to 45 minutes, they were a little slower, and when they were an hour, they were even slower than that.
Shorter sprints, however, means more breaks. I am notoriously bad at spending too much time on breaks when they should be only 5 minutes, but maybe I need to spend more effort to work on that. I have to try to figure out how I can limit my breaks, even when I'm in the middle of a long word count monster.
On the plus side, my writing pace was a little faster today even though I was still editing-as-I-go, and all 3 sprints where my writing pace was the fastest were less than 30 minutes long. The sprints were cut short not because I consciously stopped it, but because I was interrupted. They were important interruptions, so I didn't mind, and they enabled me to see the difference between my hour long sprints and my shorter ones.
However, I didn't have as much time for writing today as I had yesterday. Also, I had to spend about an hour doing some needed research for my book, which also cut into my writing time, so my word count is a little lower today. I'm still happy with it, though.
Writing: Time spent: 5 hours, 41 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 3651 words
Writing: Average speed: 1211 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 6 minutes
My takeaway for today: My writing pace might be faster with shorter sprints, but I need to make sure my breaks are short, too.
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