Day 821: 300 day writing streak!
I’ve blogged a lot about the value of a writing streak. I honestly never thought a writing streak would work for me since my health is so bad, and there were some days I didn’t want to get out of bed. But it helped that my bare minimum is so small (only 100 words), and the streak has really helped me a lot to keep up my writing momentum and keep pushing on in my writing, even when my IBS got really bad.
I’m starting to realize that it takes a while for me to get started in the morning. I think it’s because I’m not a morning person. (But I was listening to a podcast, and two other authors who are not morning people find that they actually write the best in the morning, so I totally want to try that.)
I did all my frogs before I started on work today. Later, I wondered if maybe I should've done the editing first, since I more likely to procrastinate starting editing. But after thinking about it, I think I was right to do my frogs first. When I don't do them first, they don't get done at all. Missing just a couple days of doing email and marketing really put me behind, and they took extra long when I finally did get to them again. I don't like letting them pile up like that, because then the task is even larger when I finally do get to them.
Today I tried doing my dictation at the end of the day again. The pros of this schedule change is that I got all my cleanup edits done this morning, and I think I did a pretty good job. I wasn’t pressed for time, like I usually am when I do the cleanup edits right after I get back from dictating.
When I was doing the cleanup editing, I was surprised to find it easy to clean up the parts of the dictation from yesterday that had gotten messy because the blocking notes were not quite in order. They give me a little more confidence in my cleanup editing skills. So even if the dictation is a little messy, I think I can have a little more confidence in myself that the cleanup editing can fix things that are out of order. That might help me relax some of my perfectionist tendencies when I'm dictating.
Walking at the end of the day was also a lot more comfortable since the weather was cooler.
But overall, I really didn’t like dictating at the end of the day. I was just too tired and I could tell the dictation was a lot worse. It was a lot harder to focus and figure out what to dictate next.
I did end up dictating over 5000 words, which was great because that’s been the daily goal I’ve been striving for. But I haven’t done the cleanup edit on it yet and I don’t know how many words I’ll have to delete. My dictation speed was about 2800 words per hour, which isn’t bad by any means, but not as high as I’d like my dictation speed to be.
So now I’ve done dictation at the end of the day twice, but I don’t think I want to keep doing it. I’m just too tired when I try to dictate at that time of the day.
However, I can’t say my dictation speed was all that much slower than when I’ve done the dictation earlier in the afternoon. I’m not sure what that means. I guess maybe just that I’m not as unproductive as I think I am at the tail end of the day, despite how tired I feel?
I’d really like to try dictating in the morning again. But it might end up that I need to get my frogs done before I dictate or else they’ll never get done, in which case I would need to dictate in the early afternoon. But it occurred to me that if I don’t want to go outside when it’s hot, I could simply try dictating in the house or in my backyard. It won’t be as nice as walking out in foothills, but it will be more comfortable (since the foothills are super hot).
Writing streak: 300 days
My takeaway for today: Dictation at the end of the day is tiring and I don’t like doing it, despite some of the pros of the schedule.
My second takeaway for today: Try dictation in the morning.
My third takeaway for today: If it turns out that I really need to do my frogs first and I have to dictate in the early afternoon, try dictating in the house or the backyard.
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