It’s time for another Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) post! Every first Wednesday of the month we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to come up with solutions.
We all know December is one of the busiest months of the year. There's holiday shopping to do and relatives and friends to visit and give seasons greetings to. And as writers, most of us know how much more busy it can be when we have writing projects going in addition to these seasonal activities. This is especially the case if you're like me and wrestle with time management.
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Time management has always been a relatively poor skill of mine. This is regardless of several years of handwriting onto paper writing schedules that include details such as deadline dates and time slots for working on specific projects. These schedules don't seem to be very encouraging because they cause too much paper build-up and come across as unfocused, messy and inconvenient to look for among other papers in my folder where I keep all my writing-related work. But make no mistake about it: over all, I prefer handwriting over writing on an electronic device. When I handwrite my thoughts and ideas I feel closer to them, more intimate with them.
However, I am practical when needed to be. So if handwriting doesn't work for me in a certain function in my life, such as making grocery lists or schedules, I will turn to the ingenious technology of today so I can move on to less practical yet equally, if not more, important types of writing such as my fiction. So, in the case of creating writing schedules, I've turned to spreadsheet software. Last week I downloaded to my desktop an Excel spreadsheet template to use for making my writing schedule. But, of course, unlike with paper I can't take my desktop everywhere I go. So I'm considering downloading a free Excel-like app to my mobile phone. I think making use of technology such as this will be much more efficient but also cleaner, environmentally healthier and of course more time manageable.
Do you use an app to schedule your writing time, deadlines and projects? If so, which one do you use or has worked best for you?
Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Tonja Drecker, Beverly Stowe McClure, Nicki Elson, Tyrean Martinson! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels!
Until next time . . .
I've never kept a writing schedule since I only work on one project at a time and know when it needs to be done. But with my own blog and the IWSG to manage, I print out a calendar and mark dates on it. Never thought about doing it on a spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm beginning to realise that I work on too many projects simultaneously to not need a schedule. I could go the one-project-at-a-time route but I would get board too easily with just one project.
ReplyDelete