Goals & Time Management

Posted by Emma Hox on Aug 18, 2011 in Blog, Writing | 2 comments

Last week I wrote a post about becoming an author and the need to have writing goals. Today I want to talk to you about how to achieve your writing goals by utilizing one tip.

Image by Jean-Louis Zimmerman

Time Management

Do you have trouble with time management? Yes? No?

If you have trouble with it, then tough. That’s right, you heard me correct – tough!

Each and every one of us have issues to deal with each day that keep us from fulfilling our goals. These issues creep up anytime that we have a large undertaking and offer us resistance. This resistance is our subconscious trying to protect us from taking risks.

Too many authors use lack of time as an excuse not to write. When I hear the excuse that there is not enough time my mind instantly races with a response. “Something else is more important right now than writing.”

If this is true and the task at hand is more important than your writing then I give you a free pass to stop beating yourself up over your writing and to just take a break until your writing becomes a higher priority. If that’s the case feel free to stop reading and come back when life calms down.

If however, your writing is one of your current priorities I encourage you to follow these tips to help you achieve time management.

The first thing that you need to do is determine where your precious writing time will come from. Take some time to assess your day and determine what time you get up, eat, clean house, work at the ‘day job’, play with kids, etc… Once you have completed this task you should be able to find – or make – time to write.

One way that I make time to write is a simple tip. Keep small notebooks stashed everywhere. A small notebook… or two… or three stashed in my purse, another in my car, one next to my bed and others tucked here and there around my house and office are perfect to jot down a scene right when I think of it.  There are few things more frustrating to me than thinking up an award winning scene and then forgetting it or key parts of it because it took too long before I was able to get it written down

Another thing that helps me create writing time is to ‘write first’. What I mean by this is to write before I pay bills, return phone calls, get on email, Facebook or Twitter.  I write before I take the time to blog. I write before I exercise, if I even exercise at all *smile*. There are simply too many distractions that come into play once I engross myself into my day to put off my writing. Plus, I feel such an accomplishment when I am able to write two or three thousand words. Those days start off on the right foot and then they only get better. They get better because I know I have already taken one step closer to my goal. How could I not feel good about that?

Think about the 80-20 rule as it applies to the book industry. 80 percent of the books are sold by 20% of the authors. Now think about it when it comes to your life. 80% of your daily results comes from 20% of you effort. Remember when we analyzed our day to find our writing time? Now use that same analysis and determine where your unproductive 80% efforts take place and try to drop some of that useless busywork. Studies show that the average American has too much time available to them, and they squander it.

One of the most difficult tasks you have to do is to drop the manuscripts that you are not dedicated too. I presently have five manuscripts underway but I only really, truly love two of them. The other three were started for one reason or another including the worst reason in the world to start a book; I thought it was marketable. No matter how marketable a book may be it’s not going to make it if you, the author, don’t love it.

Have you ever kept track of your writing time? By tracking the time that you write you are more fully able to see whether or not you are giving it the attention that you want to. Accomplishing the task of writing each day is fantastic, but if you think you are getting done more than you really are, you are hurting your goals. Tracking your writing time is one way to manage this. Track not only the amount of time that you spent writing, but track your milestones. How many scenes did you get written? Did you finish a chapter? What was your word count?

Do you have a computer or phone that you can set alerts on? Set yourself a writing alert. I love the quote from Henry Kissinger, “There can’t be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” Make your schedule full. Fill it up with writing. The sure way to do something is to put it on the calendar. Think about it this way. If you have it on the calendar it makes it easier to ‘Just Say No’ when someone calls and makes a request of you. You can honestly say that you have an appointment and not feel guilty. If you think that time is just going to magically appear out of thin air you better think again. Appointments tell your brain that writing is important. Instinctively our brain knows what time it is and that our writing time is approaching. It kicks into overdrive and tells our muse to get ready, writing time is almost here.

Have you ever thought to buy your time?

How much is your time worth? How much are YOU worth? How much is your writing time worth to you?

We’ve all heard of the secretary that barely made $30,000 a year, but retired a millionaire. Likewise, we’ve also heard about the executive that made $250,000 a year and can’t retire even though he want’s to because he has way too much debt.

Each of us needs to make a decision what our time is worth. There was a point in my life when I worked, my husband worked and we had 2 kids in daycare. It was worth it to me to hire a maid to come and clean my house twice a month so that I had more time to spend playing with my kids and husband… and to write. Now, life is a little less hectic (though not much) and a maid is no longer a priority, but I now have to spend twice a month deep cleaning my house.

I also used to purchase ‘Dinner’s Ready’ in order to save time. All the advantages of healthy home cooked meals pre-prepared so that all I had to do was pull it out of the freezer, pop it in the oven and all the preparation time was cut out of my day and tacked onto my writing.

Viola… extra writing time. I literally purchased my time.

Purchasing time is not within everyone’s budget, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get creative with it. Tell another stay-at-home mom that you will watch her kids for her next month if she will watch yours this month. Perhaps you also do photography and know someone wanting family pictures… that has to be worth a couple hours of free time.

Be creative, barter your talents for extra time.

If all else fails though you just have to be a hard nose and say no. Society has programmed us to say yes. Yes I will be on that board, yes I will make cookies for that event, yes I will do anything you ask… why? Because I am a people pleaser.

Society has made us afraid of conflict, has made us afraid of what people will think or say if we say no.

Think about it… conflict is what fiction is made of. If you are going to be an “author” get used to it. If you can’t stand bad personality traits in your characters or bad things happening to them then you will likely have a short career as an author.

I would love to hear your ideas of how you manage your writing time. Please tell us in the comments.