My Summer . . . On Paper
June 1, 2007
Erica Vetsch at On the Write Path recently posted an update on her goals for the year. Wow, that’s one determined lady. Up until this year, I made writing goals with dates for myself, but I never met them with the consistency that Erica has.
With school out for the year (yes, that was a real loud YIPPEE!), I am determined to be productive. And the number one reason I am not productive is because I don’t have a schedule or routine. You’d think I’d have this how-to-get-the-most-out-of-24-hours thing down by now, but frankly I don’t. If I don’t get enough sleep (#2 reason I don’t get things done) and I don’t have my day planned ahead of time, then I might as well be wandering the Sahara for as much work as I get done.
I feel busy. Really, I do. But too often, at the end of the day, I look back and think, “What did I do today?”
Sure, raised kids, disciplined kids, disciplined some more, hugged kids, cooked 3.14159 meals, and washed dishes for 5 meals along with numerous other things, but those things don’t take all day.
So, say what you will, but I have come up with a schedule. This may not work for you, but it is oh so necessary for me.
And now, I give you . . . the schedule.
- 5:45-7 –devotions and exercise
- 7-8 — shower, dress, eat
- 8-9 — Flylady my house
- 9-10 — take kids outside to play
- 10-11:30 — e-mails, blog, writing misc.
- 11:30-1 –lunch, clean-up, read to kids
- 1-4 –WRITE!
- 4 — dinner prep
So there it is. I have morning and evening routines I do. And I have daily routines within the Flylady hour. We’ll talk about that at a later date, and regardless of what you think of Flylady, there are some production guaranteed steps there. So far I’ve done a fairly good job of sticking to it. It might need some tweaking, but that’s to be expected. Anyone else have a schedule, a plan, a routine — even if it’s only for part of a day?
One of my goals this summer is to get my next book written before the end of August. I’ve been listening to some writers’ conference MP3s lately, and one reminded me that writing a book doesn’t happen haphazardly. There is much planning, specifically time planning, that goes into that book getting written, and since my kids dropped their naps a few years ago, I’ve been slack about carving out time to write. No more!
I want to be able to lay out my goals and see myself accomplish them. Isn’t that a great feeling? Keeping up with the house, getting rid of clutter, and writing a 90,000 word book — those are the things I’m shooting for with this schedule.
Speaking of schedule, I’m a tad late for breakfast. Happy weekend, and see you Monday.
- Monday, Crime & Clutter and A Bigger Life book winners announced!
- June novel giveaway announced.
Comments
4 Responses to “My Summer . . . On Paper”
I don’t have as tight a schedule as you do, but I definitely have a rhythm to my days. And, boy, am I one cranky girl if that rhythm is thrown out of whack for too long.
The summer schedule looks like this:
Morning,
Get up, stir around, drink diet coke, do bookwork. (I’m the bookkeeper for the family lumber business.)
Late morning through lunchtime,
Run errands, do chores as needed. (I have two beautifully housebroken kids, one almost 15, one 11, and their list of daily chores and mine keep our heads above water there.)
Afternoon: Write and try to stay off the internet until I do. (You can see how well that is going today!)
Evening,
Dinner, tv, games with kids and DH, chat with online friends, mess about.
My problem since becoming the bookkeeper a year ago…I am a mid-morning person. I do my best work then. But I have to reserve that time for the bookkeeping, since I’m actually being paid for it, and the gov’t and the accountant have these weird rules about everything adding up in the end.
I would love to ge on a better schedule, but I get distracted by unexpected things.
This is probably a really stupid question, but what is Flylady?
Here’s the link for Flylady.
http://www.flylady.org/
As far a goals for this summer, I want to teach DS #2 to tie his own shoes, provided he gets them on the correct feet first. That’s one more step to independency.
As for a routine, we pretty much have a morning routine in place with homeschooling, but we’re a little more lack in the summer. We don’t have a schedule for the day, rather each day of the week has a different highlight. Craft or painting day, cooking lesson day, play date, field trip, park, swimming, whatever, each day has one really fun thing too look forward too.
That hopefully motivates us to get all the other not-so-fun things done first. House cleaning, laundry etc.
We do take out lots of time for reading too- that’s always fun!