Day 998 - A statistical reason to restart my dictation streak

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I’ve been working harder to increase the number of hours I write each day now that my IBS has been getting better lately and I have more energy. I know that it takes time and effort to build up the stamina to concentrate for long hours, so I’m trying to work up to it.

My workday has been consisting of:

1) 30-60 minutes of Japanese language study, since I hope to one day translate my books into Japanese with the help of an AI translator and a human Japanese language editor

2) 30-60 minutes doing one marketing task

3) 15-30 minutes doing research reading for one of my current series

4) writing prose in my Regency manuscript

5) editing or revising my Hawaii manuscript

I decided to try to make a graphic that I could post since I like making graphics in Canva. I was really surprised how long I worked today, but that also includes numbers 1, 2, and 3 above and not just writing in my two series. Still, I did about 5 hours of work directly in my manuscripts, which is more than I’ve done earlier this week.

I think I’m able to work longer hours also because I’m doing dictation. So when I write prose, I dictate about half the time and half the time I’m only doing editing to cleanup the transcription. The dictation forces me to focus a lot and I end up dictating a lot in only 1-2 hours, but the editing is easier and so the work is not as intense or tiring. So I’ve found that 2 hours of dictation and 2 hours of editing takes up a lot less mental energy than writing for 4 hours by typing, when I have to focus intently for all 4 hours. Writing is never going to be easy, but I’ve discovered that doing the dictation and editing enables me to work for longer hours each day, and consequently write more words.

Unfortunately, my IBS bothered me quite a bit this month so I haven’t been able to work as many days as I did in January. But in January, I was still trying to keep up my dictation streak, so I had several days when I only dictated for about 5-10 minutes, but I got 500 words dictated.

If I’d been keeping up my dictation streak in February, I might have had more days with an extra 500 words written. In February, instead of dictating on my sick days, I did editing in my Hawaii book or blocking a scene in my Regency book rather than writing prose in the Regency.

I wonder if I should start up my dictation streak again? I had a total of 8 sick days in January, and I got a total of 3000 words since I dictated about 5-10 minutes on 6 of those days. I have had a total of 12 sick days in February, but I only dictated on 2 of those days (900 words total). If I’d forced myself to dictate on a few more sick days, I might have had more even words written in February.

That’s an interesting thought. I think I’ll try it.

My takeaway for today: Keep up a dictation streak to force yourself to dictate just a little even on sick days, in order to get more words written even if you’re sick from IBS.

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