I can’t speak for everyone else, or indeed anyone else, but time management always seems to be an issue for me. This is why I’ve tried multiple approaches to cram everything I want done into as little time as possible. Followers of this blog may recall, since at least November of last year I’ve been struggling with what I called ‘productivity.’
Bullet Journaling.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed bullet journaling. The flexibility in the system means it’s almost perfectly malleable to any personal style. What killed bullet journaling for me was the triple-edged sword of not having found a way to schedule any real time for any particular task, having not found a way to identify how much time any task might take, but also keeping on top of it all takes even more time and is yet another job to add to the ever growing roster of tasks needing attention.
Calendar Blocking.
This is another excellent way to schedule your week and, when dealing with issues that can be identified beforehand, it works very well, and it forces you to allow for the time any particular task will take.
Unfortunately the way I’m having to deal with my workload means that a plan for a week ahead isn’t entirely viable and is unlikely to survive much beyond Monday lunchtime.
I know I’m going to be running the girls to school at a particular time every day, I know I’m going to be meeting them off the bus at a particular time every day, and I know that I’m going to be tending the animals in the morning and evening at particular times.
What gets in the way are the unanticipated events and other forced changes that can’t be foreseen. For instance, there’s an old man down the street who has a tree stump he’s cutting up and letting us take the wood from for free. I’m not the kind of leech who’s going to just take the product of his hard work without pitching in – he deserves some of my time too. He’s not getting any younger and I’m perfectly fit and capable of getting to work. The issue is that I couldn’t plan for this and need to get the time for it from somewhere.
As a second example, a little while ago, one of the wife’s colleagues at work decided he’d rather work someplace else, and then a short time later another of her colleagues was… we’ll just say he was forcefully invited to do the same. This means that she’s working long hours six days a week. Exhausting for her, and I do what I can at the house, but not being able to share the responsibility for child supervision means that I haven’t been able to give things all the concentration I would like.
A New Approach.
For a few weeks I’ve been trying out a dry-erase board. I know what needs to be done that week and I try to find a day for each task. What I’m noticing is that a lot of things still slide to the right on even this calendar because there’s still only so many hours in the day, only so much I can get done, and surprises still happen.
If you look closely at this weekly calendar, you’ll see something missing, assuming you can read my chicken scratch handwriting. There’s nothing on this board about working on the book, and that isn’t an accidental oversight, nor is it an indication that I’ve either given up or decided on issuing it a lower priority than anything else.
It just means I’m squeezing it in wherever I can – whenever there’s time available and my brain hasn’t been fried by either a wonderful light show migraine, or by having been busy from 6 a.m. until whenever some available time finally shows up.
Progress Since Last Week.
I reached the end of the Post-Alpha Read-Through before my stated deadline of 18 August, and began the process of the final revision/edit before taking the novel to the Beta-Reader stage.
However, I’m very disappointed in how slow this progress has been.
I’m well aware of how productive I can be when I can get time to work, and, what’s more, I have the gut feeling that this revision/edit cycle isn’t going to be the slog the last ones were.
But in the last week, I only managed to read the last 25% and get to the middle of Chapter 1 between last blog post and today, and that doesn’t seem good enough to me.
It’s possible I’m being too hard on myself since this cycle involves migrating the novel completely into Scrivener, which means learning how to get the most out of it, and that has slowed me down too.
It’s very frustrating!
Meanwhile, I have an alternative on my first title change nominee that I like better. It’s a simple change on the same play on words that fits better with the story. It’s not much of a change, but I think it’s an improvement.
Up Next…
My sole focus, as far as writing is concerned, is to finish this revision/edit cycle by 22 September. Unfortunately, I’m swamped at present and not at all confident that I’ll be able to dedicate enough time to the project.
To that end I’m actively considering reducing the frequency of posts on the blog to fortnightly, that way the couple of hours every Sunday afternoon that I currently dedicate to holding myself accountable for work I haven’t finished yet could be shared between that accountability and actually achieving something of note.
At any rate, I’m no longer convinced that posting every week is the best way to keep the momentum up since I seem to be getting in my own way.
I hope everyone – including me! – has a safe, enjoyable and productive week and a workload that gets lighter every day.
Categories: Administrative, Productivity, Revision, The Old Man, Time Management, Work Update
Andrew Wellington 
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