Finding out your path to productivity.

This entry is part 7 of 14 in the series ROW 80 3rd quarter 2013

 #ROW80 is A Round of Words in 80 Days. It’s a quarterly writing challenge where you define your personal goals and blog each week about your progress. It’s made to be flexible and allow for tweaking.

Man, I totally missed Sunday’s check-in and I’m late to the party today. It’s been all about priorities lately, and with a book out this last Friday, promo has been taking the driver’s seat to my schedule.

I’ve been thinking a lot about deadlines and managing my writing life. One of the things that’s made me so productive lately has been scheduling.

I schedule on a few different levels.

Sidney Blog Image 123SI 151) The daily schedule. I know what time I have set aside for writing every day. For me, this boils down to an hour before work, an hour at lunch and about two hours after work before I go do social things or veg out. I keep track of my tasks per book, be that word count, promo owed or anything, via a to-do-list application called Todoist, which can also be used in browser form.

2) The year at a glance. This has become very helpful. It’s part and piece of the long term schedule, but having a project priority mapped out on a year long calendar helps me keep the projects moving, aware of what time I have for the project I’m working on and what’s next on my plate.

theharderhefalls_503) The long term schedule. I’ve contracted two series on a full length, written book plus proposal. This puts me at four and a half books I owe publishers that have to be written. With these promised books come deadlines, and I get a hand in setting these. A calendar helps me figure out when I can write what books, where the holes are to work on something new or take a break are.

As far as tools for how I record this, Google calendar is one option that synchs easily with a lot of applications or other programs. I’ve been using a tool called VueMinder, which actually puts the calendar as a transparent overlay to my desktop. It’s kind of cool.

All of this has helped me really make the most of this latest #ROW80. Currently I’ve seen the release of So Inked #2, The Harder He Falls, I’m venturing into the last 1/3 of So Inked #3 and I’ve seen a few books contracted. I’m also waist deep into a blog tour, so that’s exciting. All in all, it’s been a really productive round thus far.

What tools do you use to keep you productive?

Sidney Sig

Series Navigation<< Little bit at a time.Know when to take a break. >>

One thought on “Finding out your path to productivity.

  1. Tanja says:

    The though of “owing books” would scare the living daylight out of me :S *yikes* It’s good stuff when we learn what works for us and what doesn’t. I’m going to check out that todoist app thingie. Sounds great! Good luck with your projects!
    Tanja recently posted..#ROW80 – 130724My Profile

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