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Tag Archive - productivity

Are You Sabotaging Your Writing Because of Perfectionism?

June 19, 2017 in Writing for Life with 9 Comments

You sit down to write. Finally, you found some time to work on your book. You feel prepared; you’ve thought through the scene or talking point you want to tackle today. You’ve cleared your plate—the kids are at school, the dishes are done, and you’ve dealt with your email.

But as you open your Word doc on your computer and your fingers hover over the keyboard, a sense of unease trickles in.

The eager anticipation starts to feel like dread, and the doubts form into excuses. “Maybe I need to think through this scene a bit more.” Or “I probably should do a bit more research before I start.” Or, even worse: “It’s going to suck.” Continue Reading…

3 Ways to Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Writing

June 12, 2017 in Writing for Life with 4 Comments

I’ve perhaps saved the biggest issue for last, for, honestly, we are our own worst enemies, and I believe self-sabotage, more than anything else, keeps us from being super-productive writers.

We’ve taken a look at a lot of attitude topics and discussed ways to think positively, boost ourselves with uplifting self-talk, and use mental hacks to adjust our attitudes.

But even if you correct all your bad habits, optimize your writing time, and adjust your schedule to fit your biology, if you have a tendency to self-sabotage, all your good effort may be for naught.

So we’re going to take a look at some of the reasons and ways we self-sabotage and consider some remedies to help us thwart those destructive attitudes and behaviors. Continue Reading…

Ways Writers Can Hack through Distractions

June 5, 2017 in Writing for Life with 0 Comments

Last week we looked at the “why” of distraction, and how large, looming projects (such as writing a book) can intimidate us to the point of distraction. So let’s look at ways we can hack around (or through) those distractions.

Consider Compartmentalizing Tasks

Here’s another hack I use. I’ll list all those things I want to get done over a week, and they’re usually big projects I’m working on (writing and editing). I know myself well enough to realize that if I work on just one project to the exclusion of all others, I’ll get distracted. I’ll be thinking about that editing job I’m late starting. Or those blog posts I must get written for my blog.

So I’ll allocate compartments of time during a day so that I get some work done on multiple projects. For instance, I might decide to put in two hours on my novel, one hour writing blog posts, one hour to do two email blasts, two hours for a client’s critique, and two hours editing for another client. When the thought pops up “You really have to get that guest post done for Angela,” I can mollify my rippling anxiety by reminding myself: “You’ve put that on Friday’s schedule. So forget about it.” And, guess what? I do! Continue Reading…