Bite-Sized Pieces

I'm in planning mode, trying to get this year's writing projects on the calendar, so I can schedule editor appointments and decide which books will get published in 2019.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed because I'm looking at a whole year, which feels weird since we just barely started this one six days ago. I'm even looking at 2020, which seems so far away, and in reality is not. I know if I don't look that far ahead, time gets away from me, like it did in 2018, and I'm determined not to have a repeat of that less-than-stellar writing year.

But this kind of big-picture planning has a downside: the picture is too big. As a result, my "plan" ends up looking like this:

This is when I remind myself to think about bite-sized pieces. Every measure of time we use is built upon smaller bits. A year has twelve months in it, a month has 30 or 31 days.

(Well, except our good friend February who not only refuses to do the 30 or 31 day thing, it also throws in an extra day every four years. Ya gotta love a maverick month that refuses to play by the rules.)

I firmly believe it's a good idea to keep the big picture in mind. But it's an even better idea to keep the smaller units in the forefront of my mind.

I am more motivated when I feel like I've accomplished something. It demonstrates that I'm making progress. My lizard brain needs that little pat on the head, especially to acknowledge I've done something I'd rather pretend doesn't need doing. An "atta girl" and a high five keeps me moving to the next thing on the never-ending To Do list.

While I hate the stress of deadlines, I discovered last year something I detest even more – not getting things done because I didn't have the stress of deadlines driving me to the finish line. So not only am I planning what projects to accomplish this year, I'm breaking it down, focusing on chapters, scenes, and weekly word count. Smaller, realistically do-able chunks that add up until they are a completed book.

Bite-sized pieces.

That's the plan for this year's stories. There will be at least two new ones, and very likely three. I've made great progress on two of them already, so I'm even thinking of adding a few other items to this year's schedule, maybe audiobooks.

There's a lot to do, but I know how to do it.

Comments

[Heather]

Hey Donna. Good to have you blogging again. We met through blogging. Remember #sixsunday ?

Hey I stumbled upon something last week-ish that might interest you. It's a 90day planner designed by an author. You buy the PDF (from Etsy) and print off home/work. It comes as Letter size and A5, week to view and daily pages. There's a dated and an undated version.

I went with the dated week to view in letter size for myself. So far so good. I've been working through the early pages and it seems to cover a lot of areas other planners don't think about. Makes me consider things I hadn't before. Worth a look I think.

https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/HeartBreathings?ref=listing-shop-header-item-count#items

Looking forward to your next post.

[Donna]

Thanks, Heather! I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed blogging. And I really do miss #sixsunday. It's funny--I feel like I've *always* known you so I couldn't remember when we met. But that makes sense though (and boy was that a long time ago!)

Thanks for the link. I'm definitely gonna check that out. I'm happy with the current planner I got for this year, which is an undated one--it has a lot of sections for other stuff, which I like since it doesn't feel as restrictive. But I like the sounds of the one you linked to. You always have such good info for me!