Day 372: Extra Japanese study
Today didn’t start off too well. I woke up with another headache, so I had a slow start after getting up. I also had more messages to answer on Facebook so I went ahead and did that to get it out of the way.
As part of my clearing the decks ritual, I’ve been doing my Japanese flashcards before work, but today I decided to spend a little extra time on it. I had been thinking of restructuring my Japanese learning for a while now, so I went ahead and organized my flashcards for kanji, vocabulary, and also grammar.
A part of me worries about taking too much time to do my Japanese before getting to my writing work, but I know that if I don’t do it before work, it’s never going to get done. And the Japanese learning is important to me personally. I would really like to be proficient enough one day to be able to translate my fiction into Japanese, and maybe only needing an editor to smooth it out. I’m really far from there right now, but I hope I can get there, if I study diligently.
***
Just when I thought I’d figured out how to reduce my distractibility, I have a day like today! After doing my Japanese, I went for a walk (since I wasn’t going to go later if I didn’t go then). But after I got back from my walk, I got totally distracted. It started when I was making some alarms on my phone to remind me to do chores. I recently got a bunch of songs that were the inspiration for the story ideas I had for my other Regency series, The Gentlemen Quartet, and I suddenly decided to make a ringtone with one of the songs. I ended up spending almost 2 hours making ringtones from my new songs and then trying to figure out how to put them on my iPhone, since the method changed (my Google skills are pretty subpar, I only got old articles that didn’t work). I can’t believe I wasted so much time! I wasn’t even aware I was wasting time until after I was done.
I just don’t understand why or how I was so easily distracted! And for so long! I feel so lame!
It’s now rather late in the day, but I will buckle down and get back to reviewing the synopsis for my Lady Wynwood’s Spies side novel. After getting an overview of where the series is going, I will hopefully know how I can fix some plot problems I noticed in book 4. After I do that, I can start blocking book 4.
***
When I started looking over the synopsis for the Lady Wynwood’s Spies side novel, I realized that I hadn’t solidified the timeline of the other books well enough. This was important because this side novel occurs between books 6 and 9, and I need to know how much time passes in those books so that I can do the timeline for the side novel accordingly. In looking through my timeline, I also spotted a rather large problem with book 4, which would impact the next two books, so I spent time trying to figure that out.
When looking at my Toggl timer today, I saw that when I factored in the 3-ish hours I spent doing my Japanese, I managed to do about 6.5 hours of work total. I would have gotten more done if I hadn’t wasted time with my ringtones and phone, but 6.5 hours is still a pretty good work day.
Outlining: time spent: 1 hour, 46 minutes
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Total number of words: n/a
Writing: Overall writing speed: n/a
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 55 minutes
My takeaway for today: Don’t get too proud and think you’ve finally conquered your ability to be distracted! Be vigilant about being disciplined!
As part of my clearing the decks ritual, I’ve been doing my Japanese flashcards before work, but today I decided to spend a little extra time on it. I had been thinking of restructuring my Japanese learning for a while now, so I went ahead and organized my flashcards for kanji, vocabulary, and also grammar.
A part of me worries about taking too much time to do my Japanese before getting to my writing work, but I know that if I don’t do it before work, it’s never going to get done. And the Japanese learning is important to me personally. I would really like to be proficient enough one day to be able to translate my fiction into Japanese, and maybe only needing an editor to smooth it out. I’m really far from there right now, but I hope I can get there, if I study diligently.
***
Just when I thought I’d figured out how to reduce my distractibility, I have a day like today! After doing my Japanese, I went for a walk (since I wasn’t going to go later if I didn’t go then). But after I got back from my walk, I got totally distracted. It started when I was making some alarms on my phone to remind me to do chores. I recently got a bunch of songs that were the inspiration for the story ideas I had for my other Regency series, The Gentlemen Quartet, and I suddenly decided to make a ringtone with one of the songs. I ended up spending almost 2 hours making ringtones from my new songs and then trying to figure out how to put them on my iPhone, since the method changed (my Google skills are pretty subpar, I only got old articles that didn’t work). I can’t believe I wasted so much time! I wasn’t even aware I was wasting time until after I was done.
I just don’t understand why or how I was so easily distracted! And for so long! I feel so lame!
It’s now rather late in the day, but I will buckle down and get back to reviewing the synopsis for my Lady Wynwood’s Spies side novel. After getting an overview of where the series is going, I will hopefully know how I can fix some plot problems I noticed in book 4. After I do that, I can start blocking book 4.
***
When I started looking over the synopsis for the Lady Wynwood’s Spies side novel, I realized that I hadn’t solidified the timeline of the other books well enough. This was important because this side novel occurs between books 6 and 9, and I need to know how much time passes in those books so that I can do the timeline for the side novel accordingly. In looking through my timeline, I also spotted a rather large problem with book 4, which would impact the next two books, so I spent time trying to figure that out.
When looking at my Toggl timer today, I saw that when I factored in the 3-ish hours I spent doing my Japanese, I managed to do about 6.5 hours of work total. I would have gotten more done if I hadn’t wasted time with my ringtones and phone, but 6.5 hours is still a pretty good work day.
Outlining: time spent: 1 hour, 46 minutes
Blocking: time spent: 0
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Total number of words: n/a
Writing: Overall writing speed: n/a
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 55 minutes
My takeaway for today: Don’t get too proud and think you’ve finally conquered your ability to be distracted! Be vigilant about being disciplined!
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