Posts tagged productivity
How CCTV can improve your productivity. This is something I recorded a couple of years ago. Here’s the theory behind it.
I found it because I was looking through my videos on Vimeo to try and find one where I liked my hair.
What? What’s wrong with that?
Sleep and sacrifice
Fellow Read and Trust members, Chris Bowler and Ian Hines this week wrote about their decision to sacrifice sleep and create time to get things done.
I’m no stranger to this tactic. You can only write a novel while working full-time if you’re prepared to give up more than a few hours kip. At the most frantic stages of the novel writing process, I would find myself writing until two in the morning then getting up bright and early for work the next day. Not fun, but necessary.
Anyway, choosing to sleep less is a sacrifice. It’s a choice based on how important we consider our work. It’s not a long term solution, but it’s the most obvious route to running a successful side project.
This week I could have slept just two hours a night and still not found the time to write effectively. I’m getting married, you see. And soon, too. There’s so much to organise and arrange at the moment, that sacrificing sleep simply won’t make up the time I need to write fiction, or for Write for Your Life.
My point is this. Sometimes, when you’re a writer, life gets in the way and there’s nothing you can do about it. Unless your writing is your living, you just have to suck it up and place whatever you’re working on, whatever it is you’re passionate about, on that list of sacrifices. Something has to give.
It’s annoying. Really annoying. But inevitably part of the deal.
Writing vs. Writing — Shawn Blanc
There is writing, and then there is Writing. And I am amazed at how often I will shy away from the former because it doesn’t feel like the latter. There are times when I put far too much emphasis on the fine-tuned components of writing, and not nearly enough emphasis on simply getting the words down.
I know what Shawn Blanc means when he says this about his writing, because I often feel the same.
I’m an editor, a perfectionist, economical with my words and always searching for the best possible way to say what I want to say. And sometimes, yes, that can be a long process. It can even feel like a chore.
But then there are people on the opposite side of Shawn’s equation. Some people write quickly and frequently but without the care and thought that goes into producing quality work. They write, but they don’t improve.
So given the choice, I think I’ll stick with the former. And I’ll try not to give myself a hard time about the over analysis and the staring at an empty screen. That’s just the way I’ve chosen to roll.
Writing is relatively easy. Writing well is extremely tough. Without that extra, uncompromising attention to detail, you’ll find yourself writing without Writing.
“ Working elsewhere creates a desire and drive to write as I have to fit it into spare moments. […] There are many studies on how creativity is boosted when there are boundaries. It somehow helps the mind create rather than hinders it.”
Writing And The Mixed Blessing Of A Day Job | The Creative Penn
This is a great post by Joanna Penn about combining a day job with other projects in the evening. It’s a balancing act I know only too well - keeping motivated and on track is such a difficult thing to do.
I picked this quote because it rings true with me. I write better, or at least I write more productively, when I have a deadline of some sort. It’s strange how when the pressure is on, we always seem to find the words.
In other news, Joanna has interviewed me for her blog. More about that when it’s published.
Writing a Novel (when you’re too busy to write a novel)
This is a nice video put together by Yuvi Zalkow, who was kind enough to email with some kind words and this clip. In it he covers the software he uses to get his writing done, and it turns out to be a system rather similar to my own…
6 things you can stick in your ears to improve your writing
There are many things us writers can do to tinker with our writing environment. We can write at a different time of day or we can use a different piece of writing software. The options are endless.
But I like to stick things my ears. And I’ll tell you why.
My latest post over at Write for Your Life. It’s a little sillier than usual.
5 reasons having a ‘day job’ helps your writing | The Creative Penn
There is a myth of creativity that if you could only have 6 months off work and write fulltime, then you would write that award-winning novel. It’s not true! When you have all the time in the world, you do far less than if you are under a deadline. The day job squashes your writing time into the hours you can spare – lunch hours, commuting time, hours when you would have watched TV, after the kids have gone to bed. Don’t wait until you have all the time in the world as that time may never come. Take advantage of where you are now and get writing!
I’ve absolutely found this to be true.
Give me two days to write and I’ll be unproductive. Give me two hours and I’ll somehow find a way to produce the goods.
To me, it just adds to my argument that the notion of a writer’s muse is simply old-fashioned twaddle. It’s a convenient myth that writers use to mask their insecurities and, in some cases, lack of skill.
Basically…
If you tell me that your sweet little kitteh has been hit by a car and you’re not in the right frame of mind to write, I’ll say fine, fair enough.
If you tell me that your muse is silent and you need that magic spark to ignite your very being, I’ll tell you to shut the heck up and get on with it.
Either way, check out this excellent post on Joanna’s excellent blog.
“ And indeed, if we do not dwell on both on what is extraordinary about the ordinary and that there could be — at any moment — risk of volcanic proportions, we will go assuming that tomorrow will be just like today. Through stacks of unread books, seas of feeds, people, invitations, events, and unanswered emails, if we stand still long enough, if we listen and look, if we pause, we see that nothing is ever the same again tomorrow. And that is mostly extraordinary.”
Such a great quote, and, more importantly, a fantastic point.
We torture ourselves with things-we-haven’t-done-yet and really, there’s no need. Instead, we should find a balance and be content with what we know, instead of obsessing about what we might know if we keep on doing. And doing. And doing.
Quote originally found via Patrick Rhone.
“ How quickly our perception of a situation can change. On a day when I’d been struggling to get things done and couldn’t focus my mind on something for more than 5 minutes, an enforced limitation turned me from an unproductive frustration into a fountain of words.”
Why Blackouts Are Perfect Creative Time! « Creativity’s Workshop
It’s the endless clutter and I’m as guilty as anyone. It’s also why I think the notion of a muse is just a nonsense. Remove the clutter - my internet connection, my gas bill, my constant daydreaming - and I’ll write like a bastard. There is no muse when lightening strikes. Just less clutter.
