Day 815: Dictation, day 24
I got another late start this morning because of my IBS. I bet this was because I had blogged yesterday about my ideal day, and how I wanted to be able to get a full seven hours of work done.
Even though I started late, I really tried to get everything done today. I set a timer for each of my tasks. I even listened to the timer when it went off. I got almost all of my frogs done except for my marketing.
It's always the marketing that seems to get shunted out. I think it's because, while all of my frogs are important, the marketing probably has the least urgency. My Japanese has to be done every day, my email and social media have to be checked every day so that I don't miss anything time sensitive, I need to do some regency research every day mostly to get my brain back into Regency England. The marketing is still important, but unless I have some type of promotion, most of my marketing tasks are not time-dependent, and can be put off for a few days or a few weeks. I think that's why I will usually put off the marketing if I'm running out of time.
I was also thinking that since I have moved my work on the Hawaii book to Saturdays, I might be able to also do a little bit of extra marketing on Saturdays. The work on the Hawaii book is usually not very long, since I am revising an old manuscript. While there are some scenes that need to be written from scratch, there are also lots of scenes that are only revised, or only have half revision and half new writing.
Right now, I am ahead in terms of the chapters of my Hawaii book that I am putting up on my blog, so I have a bit of buffer. I could probably get away with doing only one or two hours of work on the Hawaii book and still make my weekly goal of 750 words. Then I can use the rest of the time to do some marketing that I skipped this week because of my illness.
If this system works well, I think I’ll consider trying to do all my marketing on Saturdays. I know that productivity studies show that if you designate a certain type of task for each day, you tend to be more productive than if you try to do multiple types of tasks all on the same day. So in my case, I should only do the bare minimum of frogs that need to be done every day, and focus only on either writing or marketing each day.
My concern is that I tend to procrastinate if a particular task is really big. It might be why I used to procrastinate a lot more before getting started on my writing each day. If I know I have a lot of marketing tasks to do, I am afraid that I might procrastinate doing the marketing. I have procrastinated before with editing and with writing, and I have procrastinated before with designated marketing days when I tried this experiment in the past.
I hope I'm not being foolish to try this experiment again when I had failed it before, but in terms of efficiency, it really would be better for me to do all my marketing on one day each week, and doing that on a day when I have my Hawaii book would be best. Especially since the Hawaii book typically only takes me one or two hours on Saturdays.
I think I should do try to do this type of experiment at a time when I don't have quite so many time-sensitive marketing tasks to do. Since I have a promotion that starts on September 1, I have a great deal to do right now. It would probably be best for me to put off this experiment of doing all my marketing tasks on Saturdays and instead conduct it at another time, maybe after the flurry of activity at the beginning of September.
I can't just redo the experiment, however. If I'm going to be trying to do this again, I have to figure out a way to keep myself from procrastinating. I have to figure out something I can do differently to ensure that the experiment will work this time.
The experiment might work simply because I now know myself a little bit better than I did the last time I tried this. I also hope that I have developed a little more self-discipline.
What is markedly different this time is that I now have the marketing checklist, which I didn't have before. The checklist keeps me on track and helps me to know what tasks are most urgent and need to be finished first. So it's possible that the marketing checklist will help me to be able to more easily slip into doing my marketing only on one day a week. If I can manage to do this, that would be ideal.
I'll have to look at my schedule and see when the marketing tasks become less time-dependent, so that I can plan when I will try this experiment.
***
I read recently that audiobooks are about 9000 words per hour, so for my dictation today I tried to remember the cadence of my favorite audiobook narrators and copy that.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do a good job dictating today. I had good blocking notes, but I kept pausing to think about where I wanted the scene to go next. I should have just relaxed and said the first thing to come to mind, but I forgot about that. Other times I was stuck because I had just dictated something and wanted to change it, and I was trying to think of how to do that, when I should have instead just left a note for myself to change it or add whatever it was, and then kept going.
I also would start a sentence and then realize halfway that it was wrong, then have to repeat it. I’m starting to wonder if it’s all that terrible for me to do that, but I also would like to just say it once and keep going rather than needing to keep repeating myself to get it right.
I made more of an effort to keep better posture while walking, and while my back did hurt a little at the end, on the whole I felt much better than last time.
My raw dictation speed was only 2900 words per hour, which is disappointing for me because I’ve been trying to increase it. However, I dictated about 4800 words, which is great. Also, I was a bit faster on my cleanup editing this time, but that was mostly because it was already past my bedtime and I wanted to get it done more quickly. My overall writing speed, when taking into account both dictation and cleanup editing, was 1500 words per hour. It’s certainly much better than my average when I type and write.
Writing streak: 294 days
My takeaway for today: Figure out a time period when the marketing isn’t so time-dependent in order to try an experiment to do my marketing on Saturdays rather than a little every day. See if I can do this without procrastinating the marketing.
Even though I started late, I really tried to get everything done today. I set a timer for each of my tasks. I even listened to the timer when it went off. I got almost all of my frogs done except for my marketing.
It's always the marketing that seems to get shunted out. I think it's because, while all of my frogs are important, the marketing probably has the least urgency. My Japanese has to be done every day, my email and social media have to be checked every day so that I don't miss anything time sensitive, I need to do some regency research every day mostly to get my brain back into Regency England. The marketing is still important, but unless I have some type of promotion, most of my marketing tasks are not time-dependent, and can be put off for a few days or a few weeks. I think that's why I will usually put off the marketing if I'm running out of time.
I was also thinking that since I have moved my work on the Hawaii book to Saturdays, I might be able to also do a little bit of extra marketing on Saturdays. The work on the Hawaii book is usually not very long, since I am revising an old manuscript. While there are some scenes that need to be written from scratch, there are also lots of scenes that are only revised, or only have half revision and half new writing.
Right now, I am ahead in terms of the chapters of my Hawaii book that I am putting up on my blog, so I have a bit of buffer. I could probably get away with doing only one or two hours of work on the Hawaii book and still make my weekly goal of 750 words. Then I can use the rest of the time to do some marketing that I skipped this week because of my illness.
If this system works well, I think I’ll consider trying to do all my marketing on Saturdays. I know that productivity studies show that if you designate a certain type of task for each day, you tend to be more productive than if you try to do multiple types of tasks all on the same day. So in my case, I should only do the bare minimum of frogs that need to be done every day, and focus only on either writing or marketing each day.
My concern is that I tend to procrastinate if a particular task is really big. It might be why I used to procrastinate a lot more before getting started on my writing each day. If I know I have a lot of marketing tasks to do, I am afraid that I might procrastinate doing the marketing. I have procrastinated before with editing and with writing, and I have procrastinated before with designated marketing days when I tried this experiment in the past.
I hope I'm not being foolish to try this experiment again when I had failed it before, but in terms of efficiency, it really would be better for me to do all my marketing on one day each week, and doing that on a day when I have my Hawaii book would be best. Especially since the Hawaii book typically only takes me one or two hours on Saturdays.
I think I should do try to do this type of experiment at a time when I don't have quite so many time-sensitive marketing tasks to do. Since I have a promotion that starts on September 1, I have a great deal to do right now. It would probably be best for me to put off this experiment of doing all my marketing tasks on Saturdays and instead conduct it at another time, maybe after the flurry of activity at the beginning of September.
I can't just redo the experiment, however. If I'm going to be trying to do this again, I have to figure out a way to keep myself from procrastinating. I have to figure out something I can do differently to ensure that the experiment will work this time.
The experiment might work simply because I now know myself a little bit better than I did the last time I tried this. I also hope that I have developed a little more self-discipline.
What is markedly different this time is that I now have the marketing checklist, which I didn't have before. The checklist keeps me on track and helps me to know what tasks are most urgent and need to be finished first. So it's possible that the marketing checklist will help me to be able to more easily slip into doing my marketing only on one day a week. If I can manage to do this, that would be ideal.
I'll have to look at my schedule and see when the marketing tasks become less time-dependent, so that I can plan when I will try this experiment.
***
I read recently that audiobooks are about 9000 words per hour, so for my dictation today I tried to remember the cadence of my favorite audiobook narrators and copy that.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do a good job dictating today. I had good blocking notes, but I kept pausing to think about where I wanted the scene to go next. I should have just relaxed and said the first thing to come to mind, but I forgot about that. Other times I was stuck because I had just dictated something and wanted to change it, and I was trying to think of how to do that, when I should have instead just left a note for myself to change it or add whatever it was, and then kept going.
I also would start a sentence and then realize halfway that it was wrong, then have to repeat it. I’m starting to wonder if it’s all that terrible for me to do that, but I also would like to just say it once and keep going rather than needing to keep repeating myself to get it right.
I made more of an effort to keep better posture while walking, and while my back did hurt a little at the end, on the whole I felt much better than last time.
My raw dictation speed was only 2900 words per hour, which is disappointing for me because I’ve been trying to increase it. However, I dictated about 4800 words, which is great. Also, I was a bit faster on my cleanup editing this time, but that was mostly because it was already past my bedtime and I wanted to get it done more quickly. My overall writing speed, when taking into account both dictation and cleanup editing, was 1500 words per hour. It’s certainly much better than my average when I type and write.
Writing streak: 294 days
My takeaway for today: Figure out a time period when the marketing isn’t so time-dependent in order to try an experiment to do my marketing on Saturdays rather than a little every day. See if I can do this without procrastinating the marketing.
Comments
Post a Comment