As I enter the last stretch of the school year, I’m beginning to get pretty excited about all that free time I will have to do ALL the things I normally can’t do (because there are not enough hours in the day and unlike vampires, I need my beauty sleep). I know from experience though that if I don’t have an actual plan of action, I will end up spending my days fluttering from one activity to another, not accomplishing much and stressing myself out because for me there aren’t that many things worse than wasted time.
So I sat down to plan my journey through summer and the first thing I realize is that I already have scheduled myself for quite a few events which will take a large portion of my time—four signings, two book releases, and Spring cleaning. But there is still a lot of time left—or so I tell myself.
I’m not a planner as you know. As organized as I am and for someone who loves order, I’m not very good at planning more than a few hours ahead of time. At work, as a teacher, I’m super-proficient in planning awesome lessonplans one or two weeks ahead of time. And I stick to those plans ninety-nine out of a hundred times. When I went back to school for my second degree I was amazing at organizing my time between taking care of two school age boys and the heavy course work.
As I get older, and my life becomes more chaotic despite my best efforts to the contrary, I’m finding it a lot more difficult to stick to a plan. In fact, I’m finding it difficult to come up with a plan. But I promised myself I have to do it. I want to accomplish a lot this summer both in my writing career and my personal life (I really need to bring the self-care back into my life), and I know I need a solid plan for this.
My wonderful marketing adviser has given me one of her writer’s planning books but I find it too overwhelming (don’t laugh. I get overwhelmed easily these days), so I’ve been downloading simple free daily planning sheets to get myself organized. I’m hoping to give myself a time table of how long to take for each of the activities I need and want to complete which will have to include a good diet, exercise, mindfulness, and entertainment. I can’t keep killing myself as I’ve been doing for the past year basically working two full-time jobs. I need to take it easy.
I’d love to hear about different ways you get organized. Do you keep a schedule? Thirty minutes every morning dedicated to marketing, two hours daily for writing, one hour to network, etc.? Maybe your suggestions will light up a fire in this tired brain (and body) of mine.
Author Natalina Reis 