Guess Blogger Jan Christensen, Author Shares Thoughts on Time Management--with info on her latest novel!

TIME MANAGEMENT BASICS

By Jan Christensen

There are a few truisms about time management that are good to learn, and if we’ve already heard of them, to re-visit every so often to see what we might do to make better use of our time.

The first step is to find out how we are using time. It helps to keep track of every chunk for two weeks. Ten minutes to wipe down the bathroom sink and clean the toilet. An hour to work on a pet project. Forty-five minutes to start dinner and get it on the table. And half an hour to eat it, then how long to clean up afterward? You get the idea. If you don’t know precisely where the time is going, it will be very difficult to manage it.

Next list all the things you have to do every day. Now that you know how long they take, is there any way you can cut back on some and eliminate others? If so, try to do that.

How many hours do you sleep every night? (You kept track of that, too, right?) Add up all hours sleeping and on the things you have to do every day and subtract from twenty-four hours.

How much time is left? That’s your discretionary time. Just like a discretionary amount of money, how you spend that time will impact your life in many ways.

 Are you spending two or three hours a day watching TV or streaming movies? Are you on the computer for hours answering emails, chatting with friends, watching cute cats on Facebook? Frittering away time Tweeting? Playing video games?

You get to decide if anything you do, from cooking gourmet dinners to watching two movies every night, is the best use of your time. You get to decide if you
 want to cut the time you do certain things—maybe watch only one movie a night and only make gourmet dinners three times a week instead of seven.

What would be your perfect life? Only you can get it near perfect. (I don’t think anyone has a perfect life, do you?) Want to write a novel? Give up anything that’s taking one hour of your time every day and work on that novel. Want to get all your photographs sorted and put into albums? Find an hour a day to work on that. Want to get organized—your closets, your kitchen, your bureau drawers? Think about how quickly you could get all that done if you spent just one hour a day doing it. Or half an hour. Or even just ten minutes.

There’s a reason we call it spending time—just like spending money. There’s only a limited amount of each. Managing both is helped by jotting down numbers and figuring the best way to use either money or time.

Just be aware that life is going to throw stuff at you that needs your immediate attention, and those goals will have to be put on hold for a while. And as soon as you can after the crisis or even wonderful event is over, get back on track to making your day-to-day life as perfect as you can.

~~~

Jan Christensen grew up in New Jersey. She bounced around the world as an Army wife, and in Texas when her husband retired. After traveling for eleven years in a motorhome, she settled down in the Texas Coastal Bend.

Published novels are: Sara’s Search, Revelations, Organized to Death, Perfect Victim, Blackout, Buried Under Clutter and most recently, A Broken Life. She's had over sixty short stories appear in various places over the last dozen years. She also writes a series of short stories about Artie, a NY burglar who gets into some very strange situations while on the job. 

Learn more at her website: www.janchristensen.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jan.christensen.9275?fref=ts

Twitter @JanSChristensen

Buy links for Latest Book:  A Broken Life:

Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-broken-life-jan-christensen/1120729427?ean=9781502974624

Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Life-Paula-Mitchell-P-I-ebook/dp/B00PG0ZO9Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424973205&sr=8-1&keywords=a+broken+life+christensen

Julia Madeleine's Concerns for Time Results in Dusting Off Copy of Covey's Guidance...

Stephen Covey at the FMI Show, Palestrante on June 22, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since I started this blog just last month and signed up for Twitter, I'm amazed at how much I'm enjoying blogging and tweeting. I feel like a kid with a new toy. I'm a little late to the game I know, but I've always been the last one to jump on a bandwagon. Let all the guinea pigs go first and then I'll decide, that's my attitude. Same thing when it comes to upgrading my technology. If it wasn't for my husband I'd still be using a VCR. But, when it comes to all the social media I do notice one drawback. Between the blogging, tweeting, making new friends, interacting with other writers, bloggers, book reviewers, and book lovers, I notice how much it's cutting into my writing time. How is a writer suppose to balance it all?

I'm also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do book reviews for a local paper in Mississauga. This also just started last month, and I'm really excited about it. So with reading those books I'm reviewing, plus the ones I read just for myself, and all the social media vying for my time, I've only managed to write maybe three short stories. That's all the fiction  writing I've done. I haven't even looked at the new manuscipt that I'm working on (well, not working on is what it really is) nor have I done any rewrites for the sequel to my first novel,Scarlet Rose, that I've got coming out later this year. And then of course there's work. Don't forget work, making money to pay the electricity bill which fuels the laptop and the writing addiction. And there's the housework, the dust-bunnies that need sweeping before they grow teeth and eat the pets, the leaning towers of dishes and pots and pans filling the kitchen counter on any given day. The mountains of laundry waiting to be done, clogging the floorspace as if a stuff-bomb exploded. And there's exercise to think about too.

I wish I could hire somebody to take my body out jogging while I sit here and get some writing done. I really think the one thing that a writer needs to ensure that the writing gets done, is a maid. Yes, a maid. Not just any maid. Not just one of those maids that comes in once or twice a week for half an hour. Who writer's really need is Alice from the Brady Bunch, the live-in housekeeper. She cooks, she cleans, she takes care of the kids, she's always there to lend a hand. Okay...I'm dreaming. I know. So how does a writer balance it all? What are the tools for success?

In two words, I believe, it's time management.

Stephen Covey's book First Things First is the best book I ever read on time management. Not that I read a lot of books on the subject. But the information and skills he suggests are nothing short of miraculous. I'll have to dust off my copy.

The one thing I try to do is multi-task when I can. I listen to audiobooks when I work out. And recently I've started tweeting when I'm sitting on the excercise bike. I also listen to audiobooks when I grocery shop. I do my phone calling in the car (hands free ofcourse). I try to cook more casseroles and use my crock-pot for cooking dinner. It's always nice to come home to the smell of dinner cooking. I usually make a batch of soup on Sundays for lunch during the week as well as a pot of pasta sauce which I freeze in small portions. Fortunately my daughter is now a teenager and needs less of my time than when she was small. She does enjoy cooking so now and then she'll make dinner, however, cleaning up afterward is another story.

I wonder too, if men who write have an easier time of it. Typically, even though most women hold down full time jobs, they are the ones who do the majority of cooking and cleaning. That's how it is in my house. Although, my husband takes on all the traditional male jobs like taking out garbage, fixing stuff around the house, shoveling snow, cutting grass, etc. He does occasionally help with the dishes.

So, as a busy writer with a job, a family who needs attention, a house and pets to look after, as well as other obligations one has, how do you balance it all? Is there something you've discovered that works? That enables you to do everything you want, or at least have time for all the important things in your life? Do you get up an hour or two earlier in the mornings to get your writing fix? Have you given up a hobby you enjoy to have time for your writing? Or have you managed to find your own personal Alice? Please share your thoughts and ideas for any time management techniques you've learned. 

(used with permission of JM)

Related articles

• Swain, Maass, Covey and the M/M writer...
• Covey on Goal Execution
• Superwriterwoman/ And Now the How-to, Part 2 of A Writer's Attempt at Time Management
• Creating the Perfect Time Management Soufflé
• A Management in a Minute Book Overview of The Seven Habits of Highly Efficient People by Stephen Covey

Would love to hear your thoughts while I'm visiting!

                           Julia

Guest Author Ruby Moon-Houldson Talks About Writing...and So Much More!

Jadyn Thia Star Varatoo Houldson and Ruby Moon-Houldson!

Here’s a rundown of what my life is like:

College professor—I teach 5 days a week from 8AM to 5PM. Arrive home around 7PM.
Mother—one teenager left at home.
Wife—one husband waiting for me to get home—he’s retired from the mining industry.
Grandmother—two grandchildren.
Founder and Board Member and Secretary of the local Heritage and Arts Center
Pet owner—one Weimaraner and four cats.

Evenings during the week
1) After I get home I check to see that my son is working on his homework. If I’m lucky supper has already been decided upon or nearly ready. If not, I start on that.
2) After we eat and we’ve all talked at the table, I fill the dishwasher after the men have cleared the table.
3) If I have a meeting to attend in town for the Heritage and Arts Center then I get home a bit earlier so I can make that meeting.
4) Check on son’s homework again.
5) While husband is watching TV I begin grading papers.
6) Over the last 4 years I used to begin work on my dissertation after grading papers, but now I work on reading and written assignments for the “crisis intervention counseling” certificate I’m working on.
7) Around 11PM or midnight, after everyone has gone to bed, I begin working on the book I’m writing at the time. I work on writing my book until about 3AM.
8) I go to bed until 6:30AM.
9) I then get up and start all over.

During the weekend
1) I may have at least half a day to write or maybe most of the day. This depends on whether I have to travel in order to conduct a book signing or if I need to attend some authors function, or serve as guest speaker at some event.
2) If traveling and I’m not driving, I will take that opportunity to work on my book while my husband listens to a book on tape. If I’m driving, I have a notebook close by to jot down ideas that pop into my head. If I’m flying then the time is mine to work on my book.
3) I also review books, etc. and post those reviews on the Roddenberry website. (I’m a fast reader. I also don’t review books that are very similar to what I write.)

I feel that if you want to write bad enough you’ll find time to do so. I don’t watch a lot of TV. I do like The Closer, Psych, Monk, House, and Ice Road Truckers. I may watch those shows while grading papers or working on my own homework.

I have my own getaway spot, as you’ve already seen. (More pics too!) I hide out in there whenever I need some extra quiet time. If I’m working on a particularly difficult scene in my book then I’m locked in my writing building until that scene is written.

And to add to my schedule you see above, I also find time to include my granddaughter’s ballgames, my son’s school events, cleaning house, going to church, teaching writing classes at the local heritage and arts center, serving as helper teacher at Vacation Bible School, and tutoring nursing school students. In the fall and spring I have to change my times a bit because I also teach a psychology class one time a week at an area prison, and I’m picking up teaching a class for an area Masters in Nursing program beginning this fall.

As for how much I write—I can write up to seven books a year if I’m on a roll. I sleep little, watch TV very little, and I don’t paint the town. I make good use of my time. I am a great multitasking individual. Yes, I go to the hairdresser, get a pedicure every once in a while, and even sit outside on my swing and just enjoy the weather.

So, if you want to write but say you don’t have the time, well, then you’re probably doing something wrong. I carry out a lot of responsibilities during the week and still find the time to work on my book writing. Take a step back and review your day and then your week. Are there things you’re doing that can be switched around or delegated to someone else for them to do? It’s all about time management and letting everyone around you know you’re serious about writing.

So, that’s it. That’s how I handle writing books among everything else. And sometimes I work on two books at a time, like now. Presently, I’m working on “More Than Angels” (book 3), and “Guardians of Immortal Night” (book 10 of the Guardian series).

Good luck to all of you and happy writing.


Ruby Moon-Houldson