(Over the halfway point to NaNoWriMo! And I reached my first goal! I FINALLY finished line editing for RBRP. I celebrated with chocolate--as all celebrations should go. Keep going guys, you can do it!) The quote below is from Doctor…
After a long and sweaty internet search (alright, more hunger-inducing internet search), I can say that I don't know who said this. But the quote is beautiful. I like to amend it by saying "Do not surround yourself with those…
Short and sweet post for you today :) Here's another quote I found and fell in love with. It could easily be a theme quote for the manuscript I'm editing right now: Does the quote speak to you? Why or…
Guys, it’s happening. It’s really, really happening. *bounces off walls* *throws confetti* *pulls out massive scientific dictionary* aka: *MAJOR GEEK OUT MOMENT* NASA has started working on a warp drive ship that can travel hyper-fast (think faster-than-light). If they can…
I've been on a quote finding streak of late. This is another one I fell in love with. It speaks of the power of dreams. When a powerful dream pushes us forward, we can do anything. We can build a…
(I think this is a great advice that can be used in any area of life, not just for those who are managing a writing schedule)
People ask me all the time how I get so much done. There’s an easy answer, but it’s not very helpful. The easy answer is that I “put the big rocks in first.”
I’m sure everybody has heard the parable about the guy who puts a bunch of big rocks into a bucket. The bucket looks full, but it isn’t, because he then pours in a bunch of gravel around the big rocks. The bucket now looks full, but it still isn’t, because he then pours in a bunch of sand around the gravel. The bucket now looks really full, but it isn’t, because he then pours in some water that soaks into the sand. And now the bucket is finally, really full. The moral of the story is to put the big rocks in first.
Yeah, yeah, sure, nice parable.
But how do you do that, in practical terms?
Here’s what I do:
1) Every morning, my first task is open up my Business Journal and make a list of the Big Rocks for the day. These are the main categories of tasks I’ll be working on. Typically, these are things like the following:
* Admin
* Writing
* Web site
* Marketing
* Day Job
2) If any of the Big Rocks have some obvious smaller subtasks, then I list those subtasks. In rare cases, I may need to break down the subtasks into even smaller tasks, but generally there’s no reason to go that deep.