Organizing the Writing Life

In the eleventh week of my twelve-week book marketing course (www.indiebookmarketingcommunity.com) there was a session on getting better organized. I want to focus on one statement from that session: “You must organize your day around both the immediate and the long-term things that need to get done.”

When you plan your day, do you tend to think mostly about the short-term tasks or the long-term ones? Often we don’t go beyond the daily tasks. We think about the meetings we have scheduled, the laundry that has to be done, the dishes that need to be washed, or the phone calls or emails that need to be answered. What about planning the book marketing campaign for the next book, the unit on the Great Depression we plan to teach, or the writing conference we promised to put together? Personally, I enjoy doing the long-term tasks the most. When I was teaching high school English, I would spend hours planning my whole semester’s work, but I wouldn’t be quite ready for day one!

So what’s the answer? How do you balance the long-term/short-term plans? I have been thinking about that today, and have made a few observations.

(1) I think the short term plan often takes care of itself. If I have a doctor’s appointment at 8:00 A.M., then I have to go to it. I have found that it is best to make appointments (especially with doctors) early in the day. It gets me up and moving, and the doctor will not have lots of people waiting, because he hasn’t had time to get behind.

(2) It helps not to have too many blocks of time in the middle of my day. If I have an hour between meetings it’s usually wasted, but if I have back to back meetings in the morning, then I can plan something else to do, like work on long-term tasks, in the afternoon.

(3)  For me it’s harder to get up and get into the long-term, non –emergency, stuff in the morning, knowing that I still have lots of “to do’s” in the afternoon. 

One of the “long term projects” I’ve worked on during the marketing course has been to get all my social media working together a little better. It is still a work in progress, but I wanted to give you the links to all my different pages so that you can find me easily.

Author Facebook Page: http://on.fb.me/1HHkUXf

Goodreads Page:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6525216.Merrill_J_Davies

Web Site: http://www.merrilldavies.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MERRILLDAVIES

Amazon Author Page http://amazon.com/author/merrilljdavies

After you’ve looked at these, I would love some feedback! You can email me and let me know what you think at---

My  Email:  Merrill@merrilldavies.com