Day: July 10, 2016

Experimenting with a schedule again

Lynn

I know it’s crazy. I know I’ve done this before. I know it didn’t work. I kind of don’t care. I need something to get me out of this black hole my writing productivity has fallen into and I’m thinking a schedule might be what I need.

It’s a move born of desperation, I promise. My last resort, if you will.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to a 40 hour a week schedule (okay, technically 42, but I like working with whole numbers and I want to write 7 days a week). This plan came about because of an article I read today called “The Unexpected Freedom of an Eight-Hour Workday.” It touched a nerve.

So I’m giving it another shot. Anything to save me from myself.

I’m planning to work for 6 hours each day. I’ll write until I reach my 3,233 words a day goal (hopefully in 4–5 hours) and fill the rest of my time with publishing work.

The schedule for almost all days: 7–11 & 1–3.

So that’s it, the sum total of my plan.

Failed experiment: site blocking software to fight distractions

Lynn

Maybe I should give it more time, but I’m not going to. I’m calling this experiment done. Here are a few of the reasons I think this one failed.

  1. I spent a lot of time trying to tweak the block sets, but nothing I came up with fit my work patterns
  2. It pushed me toward browsing the internet and reading the blocked sites on my phone (and I definitely don’t want to develop that habit!)
  3. The out of sight, out of mind approach tends to work best for me and realized this was doing exactly the opposite of that

Time to try something else, and I’ve already got something in mind. But I’ll leave that post for later. :D

It’s not too late; a plan for the rest of July

Lynn

I’d like to finish 3 books in July (or get close to it). I’m off my goals by quite a lot, but after a bit of math, I realized it’s not too late to make July my best month ever. I don’t even have to add extra words to my 3,233 words a day goal to do it. I just have to actually write every day. :)

There are 21 days left in July (not today): 21 x 3,233 = 67,893. My best month ever comes in at 57,249 words. That was only 2 months ago in April.

The books I’d like to finish including estimated word counts and current word counts:

Est WC Actual To write Total Daily
Novel 50000 41,648 8,352
Novel 50000 29,675 20,325
Pen name novel 50000 1,378 48,622 77,299 July 3,681

If I want to actually finish all three books, I do need to write a bit more every day, but even that doesn’t seem out of reach. I’m going to go for it.