Feb Thoughts

by James Meservy | Feb 4, 2021 | Monthly Discussions | 0 comments

Mornin! JQM here, checking in for the first time in a while.

My Goodness, February just started and it feels like it is already half over. I can’t believe it.

I have been distracted for a couple reasons this month, the biggest reason is because I am attempting to craft a short story for Burning Ember’s upcoming dystopian anthology. My idea is killer, and the best BETA readers and editors in the Indie community, so I think it will work for the anthology. Submission deadlines are March 31st, so we’ll see.

Other than that, not much has been going on with me.

The February theme for the Burning Embers blog is a Fireside chat, so that basically means I can say whatever I want as long as it is relevant to writing. And this month I want to chat about time management.

I constantly fail at time management, multi-tasking, and creating enough time in my schedule for things I want to accomplish. So if any of you have any tricks you use to better utilize your time, I am all ears.

What I wanted to say was that every day only has 24 hours. And if you are like me, then 9 of those hours (Monday-Friday at least) are set aside for work – that includes traveling to work and the amount of time I spend at the warehouse. Then I take an hour or so for exercise or stretching, 8 or so hours for sleeping or attempting to sleep as the case sometimes is. Somewhere in there I need to find time to do household chores and spend time with my wife and children and puppy. That does not leave me much time or energy for writing. Hence why I have been pondering so much on time management and how I can better utilize my writing time.

I have no solution, every time management schedule I have attempted has failed me in the past. This is an ongoing trial for me. But one solution I have created that seems to work for me is this. I created a spreadsheet of different writing projects and prioritizing them in order of deadlines. The spreadsheet has helped me focus my attentions when writing. But I am open to any other ideas that may have been useful to you.