Time Management

Part of my New Year’s resolution is to write more.  I have several WIPs at various levels of completion that require my attention without disruptions, interruptions and distractions.  Of course I have the attention span of a two year old and although I don’t have ADD, I can act like it sometimes – look shiny!  With all of that in mind, I figured that what I need to do is work on time management. 

 

This is how my evenings usually go: 

·         I get home between 8:00 and 8:30 pm every night after travelling 1 ½ hours from work.  The first thing I do after checking my snail mail is start working on dinner – that can take about an hour.

·         9:30 – 10:00 pm I’m eating dinner.

·         10:00 – 10:15 pm I tidy up a bit – how much clean up depends on how tired I am.

·         10:15 – 11:15 Check e-mail.  Lately, I’ve been exhausted and under the weather so I haven’t kept up with my e-mails, newsletter subscriptions, blog subscriptions, etcetera so they’re piling up in my inbox.

·         11:15 – 11:45 pm I take shower.

·         11:45 – 12:00 am Figure out what I’ll be wearing the next day because I’m not a morning person and I’m usually a brainless zombie in the mornings.

·         12:00 – 12:30 am Visit some of the blogs I follow (didn’t realize I follow so many!)

·         12:30 am Research whatever topic has grabbed my interest lately. Another of my resolutions is to eat more raw fruits & vegetables – generally eat healthier (e.g.: Organic & Non-GMO verified foods, Vegetarian foods, Raw foods, etc.).

·         1:00 am Yawning, I go to bed.

Unlike others, I can’t write in the mornings.  I’m NOT a morning person and my brain is still snoozing before 12:00 pm.  The only way I can get any writing in, is if I skip a lot of the normal routine things like making dinner, cleaning the house (not that I do that much cleaning anyway), going to sleep at a somewhat normal hour.  I write on the weekends but this isn’t enough to complete any projects.  What can I do to get some writing in without resorting to drinking too much coffee and picking up smoking as a habit? 

The only thing I can think of to do at the moment is this:  I’ll stop checking e-mail every day.  Instead I’ll check it every other day.  I’ll end up with more in my inbox which will take me longer to go through but it’s got to be done so I can write more. I will designate a day during the week to write so there will be no cooking dinner. That saves about an hour and 45 minutes which I can use for writing!  In addition to that, I won’t check e-mail on that day which will save another hour.  So the tally is now two hours and 45 minutes at my disposal.  Wednesday nights might be perfect to do this because it’s the middle of the week; I’ll pick up some takeout food that night on my way home.  From now on, I will refer to Wednesday as “Write Day” instead of “Hump Day”. 

I will continue to write on Saturdays.  Fridays are iffy when it comes to writing because I like to catch up on programs that I watch online, surf a few vlogs that I follow on YouTube and/or read.  Sundays are “cleaning” day in my house but I will try to sneak in some writing as well.  That’s all I have for now but I will incorporate these changes into my schedule as of next week.