Thank you one and all for all the lovely birthday greetings! I had a wonderful weekend.

But now it’s Monday, and time to make different decisions about how I spend my time. (^_^)

A few years ago I took the productivity class offered by Dean Wesley Smith (https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/online-workshops/). I wasn’t writing how I wanted to be. Of course, my internal voice said I wasn’t writing because I was lazy.

Sometime I’m really going to need to get rid of that voice.

Anyway. As part of the class, I wrote down what I was doing in fifteen minute increments for about a week.

Kind of shocked me to realize that I wasn’t writing because I was lazy or wasting time. No, I was actually busy pretty much every minute of every day. I wasn’t writing because I hadn’t made it a priority. Despite saying that it was so important to me, I wasn’t following through on that.

You can bet I changed my habits so that writing actually did come first.

Now, fast forward to today. I feel as though my writing habits are pretty solid. The writing comes first. My goal is 3000 words a day on the good days. And I make that goal most of the time.

However, I am never satisfied with the other work that I do on the business side of things. Of course, I have that lovely internal voice which tells me if I just wasn’t so lazy I’d get everything done… (Again, need to dig deeper into that at some point and figure out who said that to me in the past so that that voice is not so loud.)

I bought a fancy productivity planner, and started using it last week. The plan I’d made for the first day following their techniques failed immediately upon contact with reality.

I learned something really important, though.

I had written down the things I thought I needed to do. When the time came, I realized that I had not actually prioritized my to do list well at all.

The things that I actually needed to do that day were scattered through the list, and not at the top. I’d prioritized a couple of things that were nice to do, needed doing, but honestly, not going to be a big deal if I didn’t do them that day.

One of the big items that had a deadline of that day wasn’t even on the original list.

I’m wondering if this is in part why I’m never satisfied with the work I do. Though I’m doing a lot, I am NOT doing the most important things first.

And that’s a problem that I’m going to be addressing the next few months. Not just prioritizing correctly, but then following through on those priorities.

Tim Ferris is quoted in my productivity planner as saying that the most important things tend to be the most uncomfortable and most procrastinated things. So my focus is on doing those things first so that I will start feeling as though I’ve done something with my day.

Speaking of which…Time to go write fiction! The current story is coming slowly – I need to spend some time this morning figuring out where I’m going. But I’m at least 5000 words into a 10K story. Should finish it this week and start the next.

Hope your Monday is going exceptionally well!