That Time of Year

Once again, and far faster than I'd imagined it, here we are at the end of the year. As I write, we have another sixteen hours until we'll all be wishing each other a happy New Year.

I find it interesting and funny that because of the calendar we use, we have this arbitrary date that ends one year and starts another, and because of this we feel impelled to look at improving ourselves and making resolutions, many of which we'll have broken within a few days.

In 2015 I intend to do more of the things that make me feel happy, positive, creative and content and less of the things that don't.

By my standards (and they're the ones that count for me), I've had a productive 2014 in writing, which makes me feel good, and I want to keep on feeling that way. I think it's been productive because I set some reasonable goals that also stretched me. I didn't set them at the beginning of the year, but chose a time that worked for me - part-way through November last year, if you're interested!

It felt good to achieve those goals, and feeling good about yourself is a great thing. We need to do it more often. Because I achieved those targets I've made the stretch a bit more this time. I'll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime have a great end of 2014 and happy New Year.

Note: If you're interested in previous posts about goals you can read them here and here.

More of the Good and Less of the Bad and Ugly of Writing

In the last couple of posts I talked about wanting to write my current novel in a year. Before I started writing, I set down some ground rules to give myself the best possible chance of achieving the goal. I thought I'd share them here - some are obvious, some may not work for you, they're just things that helped me. 

I committed to writing five days a week for an hour. Initially I started with a word count, but I found if I didn’t make the word count it was discouraging. When I swapped to writing for a specific period of time, I still kept my word count spreadsheet, but tried not to fixate too much on the numbers.

I decided an hour was a long enough period of time to get something done, but not so long I felt I was giving up everything else, especially after a full working day. If the words were flowing, then I kept writing and sometimes didn’t even realise I had done more than the hour. That was especially true at weekends.

Setting a time limit rather than a word limit was helpful when I got to the editing phase, as I find it gets depressing when my word count diminishes.

I decided not to go for a target of writing seven days a week for a couple of reasons. The first one is fairly obvious – it’s easy to miss a day and then you can feel like giving up and not writing for a couple of weeks, or even months. Another reason is that I enjoy writing, and I want it to remain a pleasure rather than a chore. For me that means at least one day off. As I said these are things that worked for me.

There were weeks when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make my target, for example the week we packed and moved house. I gave myself permission not to write for those specific times, but to begin the following week and get straight back into my routine, rather than let days or weeks meander on without writing. I felt better as I wasn’t beating myself up over not writing, and I was eager to get back into the story, because I was enjoying the flow I’d built up.

An hour a day, five days a week was a stretch, but it was also realistic. 

Writing time was writing time. There was no internet, email or social media, and I set other times to do research. When I got to a place where I needed to research something, I’d mark it with a comment and keep going. This was actually quite a difficult discipline to begin with, but it was incredibly useful and I’m sure it saved me heaps of lost time on detours through websites, blogs and other interesting but timewasting diversions. It was pure writing time, and because I’d told myself it was only an hour, I had to make the most of it.

In this post I shared a great way of working when I was able to devote longer periods of time to writing, for example a whole day or days.  

I didn’t edit during the first draft. This was incredibly difficult for me, but another useful learning tool as I didn’t spend a lot of time going over and over the same parts, editing them to death and then later deciding that section wouldn’t even make it into the final version. On days I found it hard to get started, I’d read through the scene(s) I’d written the previous day and do a little light editing to get me started. This was another way I managed to keep going and get the first draft finished without wasting a lot of time. It also stopped a lot of the self-doubt that comes when you read what you’ve just written. Rather than spending time worrying about whether it was any good, I just kept on writing. 

Time (when). When I have the option, I prefer writing in the morning as I feel a lot more creative at that time. During most of the time I was writing Still Death, I was working on a project with a company and working from their office. I had to start early, so I wasn’t able to write at my preferred time. However, I was leaving work at a reasonable time and generally getting home before my husband, so that became my writing time. I found once I got used to the routine of arriving home and settling into at least an hour of writing, the creativity was there. That was a really good learning experience as I’d always thought I did my best work in the morning. What this proved to me is – create a routine and stick to it, even if it isn’t what you consider to be perfect. 

Think positively. Without a doubt this is the hardest. It gets really difficult trying to quell the critical voice that keeps popping up. What makes you think you can write? Why would you succeed when others don’t? That scene is rubbish.

Negative thoughts are the easiest way to get off track and stop writing. I don’t think they ever truly disappear, but the trick is to be mindful of them, or the times when they’re likely to start up, and then change those thoughts to positive ones. It’s not easy, but like anything, the more you practice it the better you get.

Still Death will be available from 8th November, but you can pre-order it from the retailers below.  After the launch it will be $2.99 but at the moment you can pre-order it for 99 cents.  

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple Store
Smashwords
Kobo Books 

Writing a Book in a Year

When I wrote my first novel, my goal was simply to see if I could get to the end. Did I have what it took to write a whole novel? I had no plans for daily word counts or a particular time frame. It was a simple goal. Write a novel.

Like many other authors, I worked full time, so I wrote in the evenings and at weekends. I had days or weeks when my motivation lagged and I didn't write. I see from my spreadsheets that book took me between eighteen months and two years to write and edit.

I'm horrified to realise the next two novels actually took me longer, although the word count is significantly more. They both took closer to three years including the elapsed time between writing and editing, and looking for agents or publishers and making the changes they suggested.

At this point I felt good about my experiences and the things I'd learned from writing the previous novels. For a long time I'd wanted to see if I could write and edit a novel within a year, and this seemed like the right opportunity. It was the first time since I started my initial novel that all my other projects were finished and I wasn't in between writing and editing something else. It was time to set that goal.

I definitely didn't choose the best year. We've moved three times since February and while I've still been contracting, all my work this year has been in company offices, so I haven't had the luxury of working from home and choosing my own hours. However, I have accomplished my goal *loud cheer and happy face * AND Still Death is a great book. 

I think there's much to recommend writing a book in a shorter length of time, or at least to be continuously in the world of your book and characters. This is why authors talk of the discipline of writing every day and living closely with your characters. You are more open to recognising the inspiration and ideas that come, and you don't have to waste time getting back into the groove of your story. My goal now is to write the next book in nine months (and it would be good if I could come up with a title much sooner!). Watch this space!

Still Death will be available from 8th November, but you can pre-order it from the retailers below.  After the launch it will be $2.99 but at the moment you can pre-order it for 99 cents.  

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple Store
Smashwords
Kobo Books 
 

Success: Mindset and Attitude

Last week I went to an evening presentation by Nigel Latta. He's well-known here, but probably not outside of New Zealand. Nigel is a forsenic psychologist and has hosted several television shows: Beyond the Darklands, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Teenagers and The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show, as well as writing books on these subjects.

I had no idea of the format for the evening, and considering the theme of a couple of my recent posts (here and here), I was quite amused when he said he was going to talk about the Psychology of Success, or 'How you get where you want to go'.

He's an articulate and amusing presenter, and kept his message clear and straightforward. 

• Plan: Know where you want to go or what you want to do. This world of ours is full of information and distractions that can quickly lead us away from what we really want to do.
• Work: He subscribes to the view that we can over-rate talent, and sometimes use it as a cop-out for not trying, i.e. I'm no good at maths, and I'm never going to be any good. If we want to gain new skills or improve at something, then we need to practice, and have the mindset that we can improve. He mentioned some of the research that I've read, that talent isn't fixed and our mindset and attitude is vital in determining our success or otherwise.
• Think: Because we're so busy just trying to keep up with life, we probably don't spend enough time thinking about what is really important to us. This probably links back to planning. If we need to spend time really practising those skills we want to improve, we don't have the time to be excellent at everything, therefore we need to select those things that are most important to us.

Here are some links if you're interested in reading more on mindset and attitude:
Talent isn't fixed
The Right Mindset for Success - Harvard Business Review blog 
The Effort Effect - Stanford Magazine

Success means different things to each of us. Nigel summed up the meaning of success for him - in the widest sense - as living a meaningful life, and in everyday interactions trying to make life a little better/nicer/happier for anyone he comes in contact with.

This idea isn't new, but it's good to be reminded that success shouldn't always be thought of in fame or financial terms.

As a side note to this, the event was held in one of the local schools. Parking was in various parts of the school grounds and the surrounding roads. I'd been directed to the tennis courts for parking. Several hundred people attended the event, and exiting the school grounds afterwards was obviously very slow. I sat patiently in my parking space for about ten minutes waiting to join the exit queue. The school hall had been cold, and to be honest, I was just happy to thaw out with the heater going full blast! From my parking space, I was looking at a driver in the queue. He was behind a driver who was very kindly letting everyone else out. The driver I could see looked as though he wanted to lean on his horn, but he must have remembered Nigel's comments, and refrained!

Getting Better All The Time

Becoming good at something interests me – you probably got that impression from the previous post.

Why does one person achieve success and another doesn’t? Why is one person excellent at a sport or occupation, while others are mediocre? What makes the difference?

I guess it begins with our individual motivation and desire to succeed at something. Like most people, I’ve watched athletes or musicians etc. and have been amazed at their skills, and wished I could do the same. The big difference is that my idle wish has never morphed into anything more than a frivolous fancy, at least not until I decided I wanted to be able to call myself a writer, and be proud of what I'd written.

It’s easy to look at a sportsperson, singer, musician or artist and think how lucky they are to have that talent; to be born good at what they do. But they weren’t.

‘If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.’ Michelangelo 

A number of years ago, I joined a badminton club. I’d always enjoyed playing and I wanted to improve. I played regularly (two or three times a week), with the purpose of improving. I played with, and against, better players and took part in the club competitions. I never became the best, but my game improved. That was my goal. We moved to a different part of the country and I wasn’t able to continue in the same way, but after a while we found some friends to play with once a week. We played mainly for fun. It was exercise and we enjoyed the evening out. I had a good time, but my game didn’t improve.

Thinking of that reminded me of years ago when I learned to type. The course involved some speed tests at the end, and so once I’d mastered the basics, I practiced hard to improve my speed. I can’t remember now what it was, maybe 90 words per minute, or even a hundred. These days  I use the computer every day, My typing speed is fast, but no faster than it was then, and possibly slightly slower.

My mother always used to tell me that ‘practice makes perfect.’ There is some truth in that, however, I don’t believe that all practice is created equal. Yes, I type every day, but my goal is writing a book, or an article or blog post, not improving my speed. When I only played badminton recreationally and not to improve, my game remained the same.

If we want to become excellent at something, or at least improve, we need to practice, but we need to practice with a purpose. That’s why goals are so useful necessary. They give us something to work towards, and results we can measure.

If we want to play a game professionally, an occasional fun practice with friends isn’t going to help us. We need more practice, lots more, and we need to practice with a purpose.

How much practice do we need to become excellent at something?

I’ve read a number of books on this subject and the consensus appears to be around 10,000 hours. That’s 10,000 hours of writing practice, or some other skill, with a purpose.

10,000 hours sounds like a lot (and it is), but let's convert it into more meaningful figures. If we use 40 hours a week as working at something fulltime, that is 250 weeks of writing, which is a little under 5 yrs.

That’s a lot of writing. And if you have a job and writing is part-time (say 20 hours a week) then it’s ten years of purposeful practice. Speechless yet?

On the plus side, improvement is an incremental process, so it’s not as if we’re beginners until we get to the 10,000 word mark, and then suddenly become amazing. We’re improving all the time.

Being excellent at something takes time, and effort.

It’s not just practice, but practice with a purpose. It should challenge us.  We should make ourselves work on the things we can’t do well, rather than paddling in the shallows of things we think we can do well.

Let's assume we're putting in our practice with a purpose! Is that all, when we've completed our 10,000 hours, will we be excellent? Is practice all we need?

All top athletes, musicians, artists need the right training. For writers, courses and books are a good start. However, once we’ve learned the basics we need more – we know about pace, point of view, tense etc. Now we need to know where we’re not applying these things in our own writing.

Athletes have coaches. I’ve never been a top athlete, but I’d guess the coach’s purpose (or one of them at least), is to give feedback. If the move or shot didn’t work, why not?  

What is the equivalent for writers? There is a point when we know the craft skills of writing, but we’re still a long way from excellence. Just as an athlete needs a coach to help them make changes or tweaks to technique or stance or training, so we need specific help. We need someone who also knows all the craft skills, and can tell us where we’re not putting them into practice in our writing. A writing group is excellent for this, they provide support, motivation and specific feedback. In addition to a writing group, once we’ve finished our novel then beta readers are invaluable. Writing groups and beta readers need to be chosen carefully. They provide different feedback and have different skill sets. Don’t forget professionals such as editors.  Mentors are popular in business groups and some organisations provide writing mentors, or subsidise programmes to link writers with mentors for a period of time. In this environment we can get feedback and support that is specific to us.

Building this knowledge can transform us and help us meet our own personal goals for success.

What is Success?

Recently I’ve been considering how my writing goals have changed over the years. Like many people, I started writing the great novel. I got to about the 20,000 word mark, and realised my idea didn’t have the legs to be a novel. Around that time, I took a couple of writing courses and read a number of writing books. Through the courses, I met a small group of other writers who also wanted to be part of a critique group, and so I had the feedback I needed.  I left the 20,000 words of my novel behind, and started writing short stories. I really recommend this as a great start. It allows you to work through all those autobiographical stories and ideas in the short form without trying to force them into a novel, and you come out of the other side with new inspiration and characters to use, as well as improved writing and editing skills.

Short stories don’t take as long as a novel. You get to practice both the first draft and editing stages far more frequently.

After writing, editing, feedback and more editing, I began to feel I was improving, and so the writing itself wasn’t a big enough goal.

That was when I really started setting writing goals. Firstly, to send stories off to competitions. There were plenty of black holes when I never heard anything, or occasionally received a list of winners (my name being absent!). Mixed with that were a few modest successes. They were the highs, and on the back of those I changed my goals and sent stories to magazines. Later, there was the goal to write a novel – mostly to prove to myself that I could.

I gave this post the title What is Success? There is no definitive answer. Success is different to each of us, and it changes over time. 

What is your definition of success? 

BUT, the big question is - how will you know when you’ve reached it?

To know when we’ve reached our goal, we have to be able to measure it.

To say, I want to entertain people, isn’t specific or measurable. What do you mean? Do you want to read out loud to an audience? How will you know if your readers have been entertained? 

I recall reading a post from a writer outlining her goals, some of them were specific sales totals per month. At that time I was speechless (doesn’t happen often!) at her targets. I’m still a significant way from her numbers, but closer than I was last year.

Your goals will be personal to you. They might include a certain word count every week, sales targets, winning a competition prize, or a specific number of good reviews from people you don’t know. We have control over some of these goals, but others are out of our personal control.

Whatever way you envisage success, I think it’s important to know what you’re aiming for, and how close you are to reaching it.

Follow Your Passions

During a writing class I attended years ago, the tutor asked us why we wrote. There were various answers, most taking the high road of feeling the need to write, having something to say or wanting to entertain with our writing. The tutor smiled and said it was perfectly acceptable to admit we wanted to make money.

At that time I was in the naïve stage of the writing business, and still wondering whether an 'ordinary' person like me could ever aspire to calling themselves a writer.

Fast forward to now. There have been huge changes in the publishing business, and I think for writers they are good changes, giving us more of a say in what we do and how we choose to accomplish it. However, while there may be more people making money from their writing, I doubt many have been able to give up the day job.

If you are a writer, why do you write? 

There is nothing wrong in wanting to make money from writing, but I do believe if money is your goal, you’re in the wrong business. It’s easier to make money in almost any other way. The payment per hour of hard slog is negligible, and the lottery probably offers better odds.

I’ve never been under any illusions about becoming rich through writing. If I'm ever able to make enough money to pay the bills, I will be thrilled, but money is a secondary goal. Much higher up the list are improving my skills, becoming a better writer and entertaining people.

Maya Angelou said, ‘You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.’

If you don't love writing (or anything), purely for the thing itself, if you don't have a passion for it, you won't be able to put in the work that makes you excel.

This is easily seen with children. As they grow you can see characteristics and their likes and passions develop. The correlation between things they love doing and the growth of skills is obvious. Somehow that connection becomes fuzzy as we get older, and are bogged down with stuff we ‘have to do’.

Pursue your passions, and it shouldn’t seem like work!

Other People's Goals and Resolutions

At the moment my hand is strapped up due to an injury, and because of that I've had to cut back on computer time. I had planned on spending a lot of the holidays writing so I was a little put-out by this (as you can guess!) However, on the positive side I've been able to read my way through a significant portion of the Leaning Tower of Pisa that is my to be read pile.

Keeping away from the computer means I haven't read quite as many online articles and blogs as I usually do, but I've noticed a recurring theme in those I have read. The theme is hardly surprising given the time of year. You've guessed it - goals and resolutions.

The ones I've read have been very realistic and helpful on the subject, and because I can't spend too long typing one-handed I thought I'd share a few of the links with you.

How to keep your writing going - Dean Wesley Smith

Find balance over your years, not your days - Raptitude 

Create an Action-Packed New Year - James J. Murray 

New Year Resolutions for Self-published Writers - The Alliance of Independent Authors

All ahead for a productive, but most importantly, happy time.

Now for a bit of shameless self-promotion - if your taste in reading is romantic suspense then Driftwood is free at the moment on Amazon.

The last person Juliet expects to meet on a work trip is Luke. She has changed her name and worked hard to ensure he wouldn't find her, but now he is back in her life again. Is it chance, or something more sinister?

Juliet has secrets she needs to keep hidden, but Luke wants to renew their relationship. After meeting him incidents occur that make her fear the unthinkable. Her life may be in danger.

She leaves Auckland for Sydney on a business trip, but Luke appears there. Can she trust him, or are his secrets more dangerous than the ones she hides.

Secrets and lies can be a killer.

Matariki

At this time of year in New Zealand it's the celebration of Matariki – the traditional Maori New Year.

Of course we also celebrate New Year on the 31^st December/1^st January, and as there is also a large Chinese population we have festivals to celebrate Chinese New Year, as well as Matariki events.

I’m fascinated with our obsession of changing habits and making goals on a specific date because it’s a New Year. I think having several different dates emphasises the point that we can make goals and change behaviours at any time.

I’ve blogged about making goals before, but it seemed a good time to post about a few of the things I've learned. The major thing has been to make one goal at a time, which is a good reason not to confine them to New Year.

If our goal is about big behavioural changes, then we’re more likely to succeed if we concentrate on one change at a time.

Ask yourself what you really want to change? What skill you really want to improve? Or what skill you’d like to learn? 

Take some time and really think about what you want out of life. Now is a good time as the papers and magazines aren’t full of celebrity goals that can sway our thinking.

When you’ve come up with your goal, write it down. I find the act of committing it to paper makes it more real.

Now break the goal down into smaller more manageable tasks you can measure and set a time period for achieving.

In the past I’ve tended to choose a number of things I want to change or do, and then I get bogged down trying to keep them all. Making one goal at a time and steadily progressing towards it allows me to focus on what I need to do. 

I’ve also found it useful to tell someone about my goal. Usually just one person, again it’s about making it real, but also about choosing someone who recognises why that goal is important to me, and will remind me about it in a supportive way.

Many companies have a program of continuous improvement. I’ll leave aside the fact that many pay lip service to it, but I think about it in respect of my goals. Things aren’t going to change overnight, we will probably find ourselves reverting to old habits, but concentrating on one goal, breaking it down into bite size pieces and giving ourselves the time and space to achieve makes success a lot more certain than a New Year’s Eve scattergun approach.

Start now - get out a piece of paper and think about something you really want to achieve.

If you're interested in finding out a little more about Matariki here are some links: 
http://www.matarikievents.co.nz/
http://www.mch.govt.nz/nz-identity-heritage/matariki

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/maori-culture/maori-culture_matariki-maori-new-year_feature.cfm

The Shape of a Year

I think years have a shape.

I've never liked winter much. I used to think of January and February as cold, dark months that only existed to make us wait for March.

March can be cold, but brings possibilities. Spring flowers and a lightening of the evenings - and my birthday!

April meant the hope of real spring, warmer weather and summer around the corner. From then until September life should be good.

I lived in the north of Scotland for a couple of years, where winter days (and daylight) are very short, and so I wasn't surprised to learn about Seasonal Affective Disorder and sunlight deficiency, and how it affects mood.

Moving to New Zealand changed the shape of my year. January and February mean summer and the beach, and therefore aren't the dark months I had associated with them for so long.

For the first eighteen months or so, I took every day, every season, as it came. If I didn't think about what month it was, then it wasn't so confusing.

Daffodils in September! Easter during autumn and Christmas in summer!

The shape of my year has changed, but ultimately what I do, and how I approach each season and month, is up to me.

The little people were in the back of the car the other day discussing what they wanted to do when they grew up. One was very definite. When she grew up she wanted to make a potion that took her back to the age of seven (her age now). 

Why now? Because now was wonderful.

Now is what we have. We should make the most it.

PS. 
She said she'd give me some of the potion so I could go back to the age I am now. I asked if the potion could take off another ten years for me, and she said of course, her potion would be able to do that easily.

Such confidence!

Working Smarter – Action Triggers

A number of years ago I attended an NLP weekend.  One of the things I found  interesting was anchors.  An anchor is a trigger that leads to an emotional response. 

Hearing and smell are senses that link very strongly to memories or emotional states.  Think of the times you’ve heard a record and you're instantly back at an event in your past, or a particular scent recalls an experience.  Anchors are similar, except you are deliberately associating a particular stimulus with a specific feeling or response. 

We can create our own action triggers for writing.

For example: sitting down to write at the same time each day (once you’ve discovered your best writing time), using the same scented candle each time you write, or using the same pen and notebook for your creative writing (and not for anything else). 

Some organisations have dress codes for work.  The rationale behind this is that if people are dressed smartly, they have a more professional attitude at work.  I haven’t seen any research for this, and don’t have any strong feelings either way, but it’s something to take into consideration when discovering what works best for you in being creative and productive.  You may turn out your best writing dressed in pyjamas, or prefer to work after having a shower and being comfortably dressed.

Having goals and a schedule, and finding out where, how and when you are most productive and creative will help you on those days when you don’t feel like writing, and can increase your chance of success – it certainly won’t harm it.

Working smarter links

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

Set a schedule

Manage your time

Where and how you work
SMART goals
 

   

Working Smarter - Where and How You Work

In the last few posts we've created some big hairy audacious goals, broken them down into achievable tasks, scheduled the best time to actually work on the tasks, and found the best way for us to be creative and productive.  

So where do you work?  Maybe you have an office at home, or the spare bedroom, or a corner of the living room.  My spot is the dining table, which is the reason we don’t invite people over for dinner very often!

I like the dining table, it’s big enough to spread out my papers when I’m developing training materials, or looking through a draft. Though there are times I’d love it to be a little larger.

While I don’t have a proper desk, I do have a good chair. If you’re going to be spending hours working you need to be comfortable.

The room is light and airy – this is important to me, though it might not be so important to you.  From my seat I can look out onto the deck, and see the birds eating the strawberries they think we grow for them.  There are a lot of trees and beyond that a glimpse of the sea.

There is research that shows we need space around us to have ideas and be creative.  I guess that's why we often find ourselves staring out of the window when we're trying to come up with ideas, after all the sky is a very high ceiling.

I can work with a certain amount of mess around me, my type of mess that is, with my papers in different piles so I can still find what I need quickly.  But I do enjoy the clear out at the end of a project, when I go through all the papers and electronic files and get rid of what isn’t needed.  Too much mess and I just can’t work, the same goes for mess in my head, as in jobs that need to be done. That’s why I find a schedule so useful, if the tasks have been written down and a time scheduled, I can clear them out of my head and not worry about them.

I’ve read a lot about the delights of writing in a café, but it doesn't work for me.  I need quiet.  If it gets too busy or noisy around the house, either the other inhabitants or neighbours, I put on headphones and listen to some music. I have it just loud enough to drown the outside noise, but not so loud it’s intrusive.  Actually music is another interesting thing. A lot of writers swear by creating a specific sound track for their novel or project.  Again it doesn’t work for me unless I’m driven to it because of other noise.

What I’m saying is, try different things. Find out where, when and how you are most creative and productive, and use that knowledge to help your writing.

There isn't a magic solution that works for everyone, or just one way to work.  There is only the one ring rule you need to follow.  

Keep writing.  Regularly.

Working Smarter - Managing Your Time

In the last post I talked about writing regularly and scheduling the tasks that are linked to our goals.  Time is our most precious commodity, so it is something we need to manage.

Let me make a confession here - I’ve never been much good at multi-tasking.  I used to feel a little guilty about admitting this, as most people seem to think of it as a good thing.  Yes, I can multi-task the automatic, easy things, but when it comes to an important project I need to concentrate on it. 

I’ve been encouraged in reading a few research studies that say multi-tasking makes us less efficient than when we focus on one project at a time, and that managing two tasks at the same time reduces the brainpower available for either task.  Apparently multi-tasking also boosts our levels of stress related hormones - not a good thing.

‘An interruption that breaks your concentration can cost you 10-20 minutes of lost focus.’   Imagine how much little you’re going to get done if you keep on flicking onto Facebook or Twitter or (add your own favourite site here!)

We all have lots of different things going on in our lives, and I often find myself flitting from one thing to another.  For simple automatic tasks it probably doesn't matter too much, but when it comes to those goals we've set, like finishing the first draft, or editing it, we need to be stricter with ourselves.  When we stop (for just a minute!) to look at an email or a website, it takes us time to get back into what we were originally doing, and of course that minute is never just one minute.

I used to teach personal efficiency programmes so I know most of the theory - though that doesn't necessarily make me great at actually doing it!  I started timing the little 'breaks'. You know the ones - I'll just look at this email, just have a quick look at Twitter/Facebook etc.  If you've ever timed yourself on these secondary activities you know how long they can take.  You promise yourself it will only be a moment, but it never is, and added to that is the time it takes to get back into your original task.

I mentioned in the last post about the eight weeks I had to finish Lives Interrupted.  At that point I decided to test a different way of working.  I worked for fifty-minute blocks, doing nothing other than write my novel.  I didn’t look at email or websites (not even for research), no phone calls, and I set an alarm so I didn’t have to worry about the time.  My focus was amazing.  I was often surprised when the alarm went off, and was stunned at how much I wrote during each of those fifty-minute periods.

I’d then have ten minutes to look at emails, take a break, get a drink or whatever else I wanted to do.  Then I’d set the alarm again and work for another fifty minutes.  My word count using this method was far better than it had ever been.

Setting these blocks of time worked whether I was writing the first draft, or editing subsequent drafts, and I use it for my contracting project work.  Developing training materials or a technical manual also needs extended periods of focus and concentration.

Now you might be thinking, if an interruption loses you time in focus why do you have a break at all.  The reason for that is we each have a limit on how long we can work without losing our focus anyway.  It will be different for each of us, but generally it’s around an hour.   

Work to your strengths, both in the time of day you write and the length of time.  I can jot down ideas for scenes, or snatches of dialogue in odd five-minute spaces, but I need a longer period of time to get into my writing.  

The next post we'll look at where and how you work.

Take yourself seriously and other people will.  

Working Smarter – Set a Schedule

When I first started as a freelance writer, I worked out I had a window of eight weeks to complete my novel before I needed to look for contract work.  Believe me there’s nothing like that kind of deadline to keep you focussed. 

When I tell people that I work from home they often comment on the discipline needed so you don't waste time. If you're working on something in your spare time, you might think this doesn’t apply to you as you don’t have a deadline, but time is our most precious commodity.   

If you ever intend to publish a novel and make money, or sell short stories or articles, then it’s a business and you can’t start early enough in being professional about it.

Over the years I've worked from home, and before, I’ve learned a number of things about working smarter, and in the run up to the holidays and preparing for the New Year I thought I'd cover some of the things I do.

The first one is to set goals. It’s the old but true, if you don’t know where you’re going… but I’ve already talked about that here, so let's look at some of the others:

• Write regularly - Set a schedule
• Manage your time
• Where and how you work
• Track Progress 

 

Write Regularly - Set a schedule

An important part of working smarter is thinking of yourself as a professional writer.  This can be difficult when the majority of your income doesn’t come from your novel/short stories/articles, and also if you have family or friends who talk about ‘your little hobby’.  But if your ambition is to be a published writer, then you need to start thinking like a professional.

A professional writer writes. Regularly, and not just when the muse attacks!

Think about your dream for a moment. The phone rings, it’s your agent or a publisher offering you a contract.  Once you’ve stopped floating around the room the details start to sink in, it’s a three book deal, with deadlines. You’re going to have to start writing, regularly. Everyday!  You’re going to have to come up with ideas for these other books. Oh, and they want you to build an online presence.  They suggest blogging regularly…

If you don’t take yourself and your writing seriously, then no-one else will. 

 

If you don’t have deadlines to meet, then set some yourself.  An important element of making goals and deadlines is to set yourself up for success rather than failure.

Setting a word count can work, but maybe setting a specific period of time for writing might be better, until you get a feel for what a good writing period looks like in word count.

When I set my goals I also schedule the time to complete them rather than just hoping I’ll find the time.  Believe me, you will never FIND the time, it’s like looking for lost keys.

Once I've set a goal I then outline the tasks needed to reach it, and estimate how long each task will take. You might only have 30 minutes a week for a particular task, but it's in the calendar.

I’m one of those awful people who wake bright and early, and I'm much more creative earlier in the day.  So if at all possible (unless I have a very tight work project deadline), I schedule some writing time early in the day, and leave time in the evening or late afternoon for tasks that don’t require so much creativity.  You might be the opposite.  Work to your strengths. Don’t do what someone else does, unless it suits your best working style.

I wasn’t joking about not waiting until the muse attacks. If I wrote only when I felt inspired I’d never finish an article or blog post let alone a novel.  If I’m developing some training material or a technical manual for a client I sit down every day and work at it.  We need to do the same with our own writing.  I’ve found that by writing regularly I stay in a creative state where ideas come (or I am more aware of them), and I’m a better writer when I write regularly.

Making new habits is difficult to begin with.  Whether it’s an exercise programme, eating healthily, or writing a novel, it feels like climbing a mountain.  That’s why breaking your big goal into smaller chunks, with milestones along the way, makes it more manageable. 

One of the things I did when I started running was to mark on the calendar the days I went for a run. I found I liked seeing the ticks on the calendar.  On the days when I wasn’t so motivated knowing I’d have a blank space on the calendar helped push me.  Just recently I found a couple of posts on the same subject.

Make a schedule, get writing, and don't break the chain.

Next post I'll talk about managing time.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

I first came across BHAGs during the years I had a real job. In case you hadn’t guessed it from the post title BHAGs are Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

In commercial terms they’re goals intended to change how a company does business, or even the way they’re seen in the industry or profession. BHAGs are generally bigger and bolder than regular goals, and make you work way out of your comfort zone.  Now I’m not suggesting you have to go out and change your life, but maybe there’s something you really want to do, and to accomplish it is going to take a huge change.

During the time we were preparing to move to New Zealand, I found people’s reactions very interesting. We were moving to a country we’d never visited, where we didn’t know anyone, and were ‘giving up’ up good jobs in the hope we’d find something on the other side of the world. The reactions were anywhere on the scale from ‘you’ve got to be out of your minds,’ to ‘wow how great, wish I had the courage to do that.’

To be honest we'd never considered we were being courageous.  To me the early settlers were courageous, if things were bad we could get on a plane.  We saw it as a great adventure. It was something we wanted to do, and we didn’t want to reach a point where we regretted not giving it a go.

What's she talking about you’re thinking. This doesn't apply to me, I’m writing a novel, or short stories to sell to magazines.  But do you have an overall plan?  Have you decided what success looks like for you?  Will you recognise it when you get there?

I used to make goals that were more like New Year resolutions. They were fuzzy, needed more stretch than a limo, and didn’t have any actions attached to them. I wouldn’t have known when I’d achieved any of them.  

Eventually the message got through to me and I started writing down my goals.  I added steps or tasks that gave me the route to achieving each goal, and also milestones to mark significant points on the way.  I now also add how I’m going to celebrate the success of reaching that milestone.

When I first started running, Pete, the trainer, put out four small cones about 25 metres apart in a square. We ran one side of the square, walked the second, ran the third etc.  After a session of that, the square became a rectangle and we ran the long side. Then the rectangle became bigger. You get the idea. We started small and gradually worked out way up to running around the field. If Pete had told me that first time to run around the field I’d never have made it. The goals he set stretched me, but were also achievable.

Celebrate successes and enjoy the journey. It’s not all about the destination.