Day 646: Plan for getting marketing done

-

This past Sunday, I didn’t intend to, but I ended up doing a lot of marketing stuff, blogging and writing my newsletter. On one hand, I’m glad it’s all done for the month, although it took a really long time. On the other hand, I feel like I didn’t get a rest day.

Today, it occurred to me that I really should come up with a better plan for how to handle my marketing tasks. I’ve gotten into a rhythm and schedule for editing, writing, and outlining my manuscripts, but I don’t have any type of procedure or process for how to handle my marketing. This includes blogging, my newsletter, and many small tasks that mostly only need to be done once I’ve completed a manuscript.

At the moment, I compose my newsletter within the Mailchimp website, but after thinking about it, I realized that I could write it in a word processing program instead. I know enough html to be able to format and add links on my own, and I would only need to log in to Mailchimp once I have to add images and schedule the newsletter to be sent.

So, in that case, maybe I should split up my marketing tasks and do a little every day, like with my writing. I could do 200 words on a blog post or on a newsletter every day.

After I finish a manuscript, I have a checklist of tasks that need to be done in order to publish the book, but very few of those tasks need to be finished right away. After I finish the manuscript, I could allocate time each day to accomplish one or two of those tasks until they’re all done.

I should have thought of this before I spent several hours on Sunday doing marketing work, but at least I have a plan now. And I probably wouldn’t have realized I needed to change the way I do things if I hadn’t been frustrated by the amount of time all that stuff took. Now, I know to try to think of a way to split these kinds of tasks up into manageable pieces.

***

My IBS is starting to feel better every day, although I still had some discomfort while I was writing and had to take some medicine, then wait for it to kick in.

I was not as distracted today, but I still set my alarm to ring every hour and I did a minute of breathing each time. It was also helpful for me to notice if I was sitting improperly and adjust my posture or my seat. Usually, if I’m interrupted, it destroys my focus, but lately, even though the alarm interrupts me in the middle of work, I think the breathing helps me to focus better when I get back to work.

Regency series:

Editing: Time spent: 18 minutes

Writing: Time spent: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Writing: Total number of words: 1099 words

Writing streak: 125 days

Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Blocking streak: 119 days

Hawaii series:

Outlining: time spent: 2 hours, 16 minutes

Time spent doing other writing-related business: 0 (I didn’t think of the marketing idea until after I’d spent time working on my Hawaii book, so I didn’t have time to do marketing today, but I will try to do some tomorrow)

My takeaway for today: Do 200 words or 10 minutes of marketing stuff every day so that you don’t spend hours on one day doing everything.

My second takeaway for today: Remember to try to develop a process or procedure for things I need to do. Try to break things into manageable pieces.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 783: Evaluation 7

-
It’s been almost seven months since I wrote my last Evaluation 6 , but I finally got around to Evaluation #7! Here’s the gist of what I’ve learned over the past few months about my writing and productivity. New schedule My IBS was slowly been starting to feel better recently. I am still extremely strict with my diet, but I am also starting to experiment with what foods I can and can’t eat. I have also started a new eating and sleeping schedule, which I have dubbed my “chrono-diet” because I’m trying to take advantage of my circadian rhythm, according to the book Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life (I had borrowed a copy from the library but I enjoyed it so much I went ahead and bought it). I have started waking up at 6 am and exercising first thing, then having breakfast after exercise. I do house chores and/or work until noon, which is when I eat lunch. I’m supposed to not eat until dinner around 5:30 or 6, but I haven’t been able to break the habit of snacking in the aftern...
Read more

Day 252: Evaluation 5

-
It’s been a while since I’ve done an evaluation, so I figured I was overdue. In no particular order: Good health = good work I had some really bad health issues lately that kept me from writing entirely. However, I found it strange that I’ve been feeling very creative and motivated yesterday and today, despite getting in a lot of work hours yesterday. I think it’s because I haven’t had any IBS issues for the first time in a couple weeks. Not even a little discomfort. This is kind of duh! in hindsight, but I think I underestimated how much my IBS was affecting my energy levels. I’ve been careful about what I ate, but I was also trying to figure out exactly what I could and couldn’t eat, so it resulted in some bad IBS bouts. So now I know I really need to be strict about what I’m putting in my mouth so that my health doesn’t adversely affect my energy for work! Sprints Another sort of duh! moment in hindsight, but sprints have been helping me with my productivity. At f...
Read more

Day 21: Bullet journal, Surrender statement

-
Today was my writing Sabbath so I didn’t do any writing today, but I spent a lot of time doing writing-related things. I did some blogging, and I also reviewed my writing To Do list. I cleaned it up by checking off what’s been done, deleting what I no longer need to do, and making note of what I need to do this coming week. Before I started bullet journaling (in an electronic journal app, Day One Journal ), I had my To Do lists in a couple different places and I’d usually forget things I needed to do. Now I have them in my bullet journal, which combines journaling with task organizer, and I’m less likely to forget. I still set reminders for myself in my phone, but since I’m using my journal throughout the day every day, I’m more likely to see things I need to do. I found some of my old To Do lists today and incorporated some things in my bullet journal. One of them was my writing Surrender Statement, which is a prayer I pray before starting each day’s work. What’s a Surrender Sta...
Read more