There’s been a lot of talk, some whining, some dart-board creating, some lamenting, some abandonment lately (articles, blogs, instant messages, twitters, etc…) regarding the To-Do list. Do you have one? How many items do you have on it starting on Monday and how many are left on Friday from each previous day of the week or the week before? Can you function without it?
Me personally, I don’t have a to-do list anymore. It wasn’t beneficial to me. I would write it out with all my tasks: write, edit, email, blog, promo, laundry, put away dishes, make dinner, exercise. And honestly, with any luck, about half would get done and the rest would make me feel like crap because I would now need it to add it to the next day’s list and from there it just got ugly.
I abandoned the list. And felt free. I was still not accomplishing anything, but oddly enough, I didn’t feel at the end of the day like a complete failure because I couldn’t get my to-do list finished. I mean, really, why was it so difficult? You do one thing, cross it off and then move on to the next. Seemed simple enough, but, it wasn’t. Not for me at least. I still have all those same things to do and knew I had to come up with a way to do them, to be accountable for them and my solution became a schedule.
I have a day planner. It’s the 5X8 size with the refill pages. (Though I found a new planner that is awfully expensive and not refillable, but my birthday is coming up and it would be a nice ‘to me’ gift. I digress though…) I have monthly calendar pages and weekly calendar pages broken down by days of the week as well. I write big things in the monthly squares…release dates, due dates, revision dates, birthdays, etc… On the weekly pages, I write out my days starting at 7am.

Now, my day actually starts at 5:30, but I don’t sit down to start the work day until around 7am. And yes, I even schedule breakfast. Sounds lame? Yeah, I know, but it’s one of those things, if I don’t put it down, I will likely just plunge right on into the day without it. I do the same with lunch. My mornings, with breakfast in hand, often have email and blogs and a little fluff reading until around 8am. From 8am-10am, I write. I must write and I must schedule it or I won’t get around to it. I have to make myself do it first thing or it will get pushed to the end of the day when I’m burned out and exhausted. So, it is my first priority and as an author, it should be.
I realize that some people are night-writers and I used to be, but, no more. Not since the 5:30am thing kicked in with school. I also realize that some people, most people, work a day job and have to fit writing in whenever they can. I used to have to do that as well and those 20 hour days were…well, before two kids. Since working from home for the last almost 10 years and now with being an author I have realized that I am most productive in the morning and it makes the most sense for me to write in the morning. It is quiet, I can put the ear buds in and crank up the music and lose myself or fight my way through whatever WIP I happen to be working on. At 10am, I stop and take a break, throw in a load of laundry, do some dishes, sweep, feed my son breakfast, do some step exercises, read emails, check blogs if need be, work on my website, and check loops. At 11am, I am back to writing or revising for about an hour to an hour and a half, depending on what is pressing on me.
After lunch at 12:30, there’s editing to be done, home school to get started and my son and I work together at the table until 2pm when we leave to go pick up my daughter from school. It’s then back to editing for a couple of hours, dinner gets started, emails at the end of the day and by 6pm I have done all that was necessary for me to do.
Once I began to schedule my days, give time limits to myself instead of pages and or word count goals, more has gotten accomplished and I feel good about myself. I am not left with more to do on the list than when I started out. I am not left with having to say ‘well, I didn’t get to those 5 things, so, I’ll move them to tomorrow’s list and hopefully get to them’. I know people that say that every day of the week and still it never all gets done. I hated that feeling and one of the things that suffered most for me was my writing. I was so busy trying to get the editing and proofreading and chores done that my writing was pushed away and pushed aside and I’d say ‘well, I can always write on the weekend’. That rarely ever worked either.
The schedule works for me and I’ve found that without it, I flounder and am not sure what to do with myself. I don’t expect it to work for everyone or even a majority. I need structure and discipline and this is one way that I get that, even if it is self-imposed. I need to feel that I’ve accomplished things and my schedule gives me that, too. I do love lists and have them for things that I want to get done, to move toward, to change in my life and item by item, things get crossed off and more gets added. These lists don’t make me feel as though I’m just twisting in the wind as the daily to-do list did.
I hope whatever method you use, whether it be to-do or schedules or just flying by the seat of your pants works well for you and that you end your days each week feeling like you’ve made a difference in your writing, your work, and yourself.

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