Planning my week
I am not a very organized person by nature, but I am so happy with the organizational strategy that I'm currently using to plan out my week, and I hope I can keep it going.
In the past, I've sometimes used my journal for this (private entries) and sometimes used a wall calendar or spreadsheet or dayplanner or "to do" lists in the form of text files, but what I've got now is working great. I have an engagement calendar -- the sort that shows a week in advance, with a pretty picture on the opposite page. I've got all my appointments and deadlines and so forth written on the calendar pages, as one normally does, plus extra stuff like the days that Kismet updates. When I turn to a fresh week -- the calendar starts the week on Monday -- I write down my goals for the week at the top of the page; it'll usually look something like "Work on Kismet; Finish short story x; Contact editor y about project z" and so forth. I write down my progress each day -- how many words written, how many pages finished. At the end of the week, I total up my total words and pages, and see if I met my general goals (1000 wds/1 page per day) and if I finished all the projects I was supposed to finish. If I did, then yay! If not, it's okay; fresh page, fresh picture, fresh week.
I am not sure why this works so well for me, but I seem to be doing much better with it than with the old methods. There's a definite psychological element to it, I think -- I love the whole ritual of flipping over to a fresh week, getting a fresh picture to look at all week, checking my appointments/deadlines and figuring out what I'll be working on this week. It's fun! And when it comes to creative stuff, I suspect that finding ways to make the sloggier parts fun is probably half the battle. :D
In the past, I've sometimes used my journal for this (private entries) and sometimes used a wall calendar or spreadsheet or dayplanner or "to do" lists in the form of text files, but what I've got now is working great. I have an engagement calendar -- the sort that shows a week in advance, with a pretty picture on the opposite page. I've got all my appointments and deadlines and so forth written on the calendar pages, as one normally does, plus extra stuff like the days that Kismet updates. When I turn to a fresh week -- the calendar starts the week on Monday -- I write down my goals for the week at the top of the page; it'll usually look something like "Work on Kismet; Finish short story x; Contact editor y about project z" and so forth. I write down my progress each day -- how many words written, how many pages finished. At the end of the week, I total up my total words and pages, and see if I met my general goals (1000 wds/1 page per day) and if I finished all the projects I was supposed to finish. If I did, then yay! If not, it's okay; fresh page, fresh picture, fresh week.
I am not sure why this works so well for me, but I seem to be doing much better with it than with the old methods. There's a definite psychological element to it, I think -- I love the whole ritual of flipping over to a fresh week, getting a fresh picture to look at all week, checking my appointments/deadlines and figuring out what I'll be working on this week. It's fun! And when it comes to creative stuff, I suspect that finding ways to make the sloggier parts fun is probably half the battle. :D