Day 491: Health issues, and learning some lessons about productivity
Writing despite health issues:
I woke up with a terrible IBS flareup, and then just when it was feeling better a couple hours later, got a terrible sinus headache. I just can’t win!
I realized this was my first experience with bad health issues since starting my streak, so I thought I’d figure out how to deal with it. I took drugs for my headache, even though they tend to make me tired, and did some steam aromatherapy to open my sinuses.
My main goal was to do everything I could think of in order to feel well enough to write for at least 15 minutes. If I didn’t do anything else today, that would be okay with me.
I feel better now, the headache is mostly gone, but I’m left with that fragile feeling in my head, like another headache could come on instantly if I sneezed wrong. Still, I’m glad I feel well enough to get on the computer.
So, since I managed to wrangle the headache down, I’ll start writing. I’m not entirely sure how much I’ll get done today because I’m feeling tired (from the meds and from dealing with all these issues this morning).
***
Writing streak:
I managed to get quite a lot of words done! Or, at least, more words than I had expected since I wasn’t feeling well.
It’s actually quite nice that my daily word count is so low. I don’t feel guilty that I stopped writing after only 2 hours, because I know I have other writing things I can do.
Email/Social Media streak:
It was actually quite difficult to get me to check my email and social media today, even though I know I need to do it and I also do want to start and keep a streak going. And email actually took me 75 minutes today because I had an interview I had COMPLETELY forgotten about which needed to be turned in immediately. I’m so glad the interviewer is a friend of mine!
Blocking:
I’m going to start doing some blocking now because I really have to get that done fast. If I write too fast, I’ll catch up to the scenes I haven’t blocked yet.
A part of me (a small, secret part) is also hopeful that I’ll finish the blocking for this book quickly, and then I’ll be able to move on to outlining book 5. It would be wonderful if I could be writing book 4 while outlining and blocking book 5, so that the blocking will be done by the time I’m ready to start writing the book. It won’t make book 4 get written faster, but it will definitely enable me to write book 5 much faster.
At this point, it’s wishful thinking since I haven’t kept up my writing streak for even a week yet. But looking at the numbers, it’s possible. If I write about 2 hours a day, I could probably finish book 4 in about 60 days. If I do just 2 hours of blocking/outlining work (in addition to writing) during those 60 days, that’s 120 hours total. I’m hoping to finish blocking book 4 in another 15 (maybe 20) hours. The outlining and blocking combined took 75 hours for book 2 and 50 hours for book 3. So 20 hours to block book 4, and another 75 hours to outline and block book 5 = 95 hours. That’s less than 120 hours. So it’s possible!
So right now I’m going to work on the blocking. I hope I can get it done quickly!
***
Forgetfulness:
One thing that was more apparent today when I started the blocking was that it’s harder for me to get into the flow of the story scenes since I did some writing this morning, which broke up my memory of the story continuity. I had to go back and read my blocking notes for the last two scenes before I could quite understand what I needed to do for the scene I was working on.
I wonder if this will be easier if I’m blocking a separate book from the one I’m writing?
It seems a bit inefficient, that I have to reread my blocking notes just to get back into the flow of things, and I also worry that I’ll miss something since it feels like I’m doing the blocking piecemeal. I think I’m going to have to figure out how to handle this so that it doesn’t cause plotting problems. I do have a strong suspicion that I’m right and that it will be easier if I were blocking a different story, but I can’t do anything about that until I finish blocking book 4.
Large word count monster:
I did something a little daring and started a large word count monster when I started blocking. The time limit is generous so it’s okay for when I’m blocking, when I tend to write in fits and starts rather than at a consistent pace.
But the large word count (1000 words) also forced me to get a lot done on my blocking, because I had to write 1000 words for my blocking notes. I think it made me work a little faster? Maybe?
***
Managing my energy:
I did some blocking, then took a break to cook and eat dinner. I was going to do a little more after dinner, but had an IBS flare up.
It took a little while for the discomfort to go away, and by then I was terribly tired. At first I was berating myself for not pushing myself to get more blocking done, but then I looked at my Toggl timer and remembered that I had done quite a bit of writing-related work earlier today, on top of writing, and all that was after I’d had to deal with some health issues right when I woke up.
I’m in the middle of a productivity book that has been talking about managing your energy. You really can’t be productive if you’re tired and distracted, and right now I’m both because of the IBS.
So rather than trying to push myself to get a little bit of work done (and I would probably not be very productive even if I did), I think I’ll go to bed early and hopefully feel better tomorrow. After all, I wasn’t completely unproductive today. I had quite a bit of work for email and social media, more than usual.
Email/social media after writing:
I think I made a mistake today in doing my email and social media after I did my writing. I did email/social media right after writing because I wanted to keep up with my streak (all two days of it) in order to develop more discipline to do it, but I was assuming I’d be feeling fine later in the day. I didn’t think about cooking dinner, and I didn’t expect to have to battle IBS after dinner.
I did get a little blocking done, but if I’d done that instead of email/social media, I could have probably gotten a full 2 hours of blocking work done. After dinner, I might not have felt well enough to clear out my email inbox, but I would have at least gotten done the most urgent things.
So in future, I think I need to prioritize my writing work (which includes writing prose and doing the blocking/outlining) as the first two writing tasks I finish, and I need to leave off the email/social media as the last thing I do in my work day. It should have been obvious to me that I can’t trust my health to remain the same from hour to hour, and I shouldn’t assume my energy levels will be the same later in the day. I know I wanted to be more disciplined in checking email and social media, but if I had to choose between getting my book done and keeping my email/social media streak alive, I would naturally choose the book first.
***
Writing: Time spent: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2043 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 1136 words/hour
Writing streak: 4 days
Editing: Time spent: 15 minutes (I was reading over what I wrote yesterday before adding on to it, and I ended up making corrections)
Blocking: time spent: 43 minutes
Email/Social Media streak: 2 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 2 hours, 15 minutes
My takeaway for today: Start large word count monsters when blocking to force you to work harder and write more.
My second takeaway for today: Prioritize writing and blocking/outlining work first, and leave email/social media for last to ensure I have the energy for the two more important tasks.
I woke up with a terrible IBS flareup, and then just when it was feeling better a couple hours later, got a terrible sinus headache. I just can’t win!
I realized this was my first experience with bad health issues since starting my streak, so I thought I’d figure out how to deal with it. I took drugs for my headache, even though they tend to make me tired, and did some steam aromatherapy to open my sinuses.
My main goal was to do everything I could think of in order to feel well enough to write for at least 15 minutes. If I didn’t do anything else today, that would be okay with me.
I feel better now, the headache is mostly gone, but I’m left with that fragile feeling in my head, like another headache could come on instantly if I sneezed wrong. Still, I’m glad I feel well enough to get on the computer.
So, since I managed to wrangle the headache down, I’ll start writing. I’m not entirely sure how much I’ll get done today because I’m feeling tired (from the meds and from dealing with all these issues this morning).
***
Writing streak:
I managed to get quite a lot of words done! Or, at least, more words than I had expected since I wasn’t feeling well.
It’s actually quite nice that my daily word count is so low. I don’t feel guilty that I stopped writing after only 2 hours, because I know I have other writing things I can do.
Email/Social Media streak:
It was actually quite difficult to get me to check my email and social media today, even though I know I need to do it and I also do want to start and keep a streak going. And email actually took me 75 minutes today because I had an interview I had COMPLETELY forgotten about which needed to be turned in immediately. I’m so glad the interviewer is a friend of mine!
Blocking:
I’m going to start doing some blocking now because I really have to get that done fast. If I write too fast, I’ll catch up to the scenes I haven’t blocked yet.
A part of me (a small, secret part) is also hopeful that I’ll finish the blocking for this book quickly, and then I’ll be able to move on to outlining book 5. It would be wonderful if I could be writing book 4 while outlining and blocking book 5, so that the blocking will be done by the time I’m ready to start writing the book. It won’t make book 4 get written faster, but it will definitely enable me to write book 5 much faster.
At this point, it’s wishful thinking since I haven’t kept up my writing streak for even a week yet. But looking at the numbers, it’s possible. If I write about 2 hours a day, I could probably finish book 4 in about 60 days. If I do just 2 hours of blocking/outlining work (in addition to writing) during those 60 days, that’s 120 hours total. I’m hoping to finish blocking book 4 in another 15 (maybe 20) hours. The outlining and blocking combined took 75 hours for book 2 and 50 hours for book 3. So 20 hours to block book 4, and another 75 hours to outline and block book 5 = 95 hours. That’s less than 120 hours. So it’s possible!
So right now I’m going to work on the blocking. I hope I can get it done quickly!
***
Forgetfulness:
One thing that was more apparent today when I started the blocking was that it’s harder for me to get into the flow of the story scenes since I did some writing this morning, which broke up my memory of the story continuity. I had to go back and read my blocking notes for the last two scenes before I could quite understand what I needed to do for the scene I was working on.
I wonder if this will be easier if I’m blocking a separate book from the one I’m writing?
It seems a bit inefficient, that I have to reread my blocking notes just to get back into the flow of things, and I also worry that I’ll miss something since it feels like I’m doing the blocking piecemeal. I think I’m going to have to figure out how to handle this so that it doesn’t cause plotting problems. I do have a strong suspicion that I’m right and that it will be easier if I were blocking a different story, but I can’t do anything about that until I finish blocking book 4.
Large word count monster:
I did something a little daring and started a large word count monster when I started blocking. The time limit is generous so it’s okay for when I’m blocking, when I tend to write in fits and starts rather than at a consistent pace.
But the large word count (1000 words) also forced me to get a lot done on my blocking, because I had to write 1000 words for my blocking notes. I think it made me work a little faster? Maybe?
***
Managing my energy:
I did some blocking, then took a break to cook and eat dinner. I was going to do a little more after dinner, but had an IBS flare up.
It took a little while for the discomfort to go away, and by then I was terribly tired. At first I was berating myself for not pushing myself to get more blocking done, but then I looked at my Toggl timer and remembered that I had done quite a bit of writing-related work earlier today, on top of writing, and all that was after I’d had to deal with some health issues right when I woke up.
I’m in the middle of a productivity book that has been talking about managing your energy. You really can’t be productive if you’re tired and distracted, and right now I’m both because of the IBS.
So rather than trying to push myself to get a little bit of work done (and I would probably not be very productive even if I did), I think I’ll go to bed early and hopefully feel better tomorrow. After all, I wasn’t completely unproductive today. I had quite a bit of work for email and social media, more than usual.
Email/social media after writing:
I think I made a mistake today in doing my email and social media after I did my writing. I did email/social media right after writing because I wanted to keep up with my streak (all two days of it) in order to develop more discipline to do it, but I was assuming I’d be feeling fine later in the day. I didn’t think about cooking dinner, and I didn’t expect to have to battle IBS after dinner.
I did get a little blocking done, but if I’d done that instead of email/social media, I could have probably gotten a full 2 hours of blocking work done. After dinner, I might not have felt well enough to clear out my email inbox, but I would have at least gotten done the most urgent things.
So in future, I think I need to prioritize my writing work (which includes writing prose and doing the blocking/outlining) as the first two writing tasks I finish, and I need to leave off the email/social media as the last thing I do in my work day. It should have been obvious to me that I can’t trust my health to remain the same from hour to hour, and I shouldn’t assume my energy levels will be the same later in the day. I know I wanted to be more disciplined in checking email and social media, but if I had to choose between getting my book done and keeping my email/social media streak alive, I would naturally choose the book first.
***
Writing: Time spent: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 2043 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 1136 words/hour
Writing streak: 4 days
Editing: Time spent: 15 minutes (I was reading over what I wrote yesterday before adding on to it, and I ended up making corrections)
Blocking: time spent: 43 minutes
Email/Social Media streak: 2 days
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 2 hours, 15 minutes
My takeaway for today: Start large word count monsters when blocking to force you to work harder and write more.
My second takeaway for today: Prioritize writing and blocking/outlining work first, and leave email/social media for last to ensure I have the energy for the two more important tasks.
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