Monday, October 24, 2011

Where is Time Going

Where does the time go?

I have to ask myself this question almost daily. As a writer, I spend as much time as I can on my writing, yet it seems like the day is spent on other things.

I know a lot of writers struggle with time management, I include myself in that group. Some days I'm very good at it and other days I'm not.

Some ways to help:

  1. Figure out where your time goes. I've done a pie chart, draw a pie and put it into 24 pieces then write on those pieces what you do - each piece represents 1 hour
  2. Write down everything you do as you do it, this will show you how much time you're spending on specific tasks
  3. Delegate where you can. Can someone else do the dishes? Cook dinner? Do laundry? This isn't always possible, but delegate what you can
  4. Don't over commit yourself. I'm very bad at this, I over commit all the time. It's hard to say no, but writing is your job so sometimes you have to
  5. If you have issues with the internet or twitter, I handle this two ways. Set a time and when the timer goes off you must closed down the internet or get off twitter. Or you can allow yourself 15 minutes after you've written for 45 minutes.

I'm sure there are more ways, but these are some I use to help myself stay in control of my time.

If you have some time management tips please share them, I'd love to hear them.

2 comments:

Isabel said...

Hi Marie! Thank you for the timely post. The timer on my phone has become my new best friend, as Twitter is the biggest time suck for me.

Marie Tuhart said...

Hi Isabel,

Thanks for the post. Yes, Twitter is a time suck, along with a few other things.