Writing and time management

Late last night, I remembered that I needed to write a blog post to go up this morning. I sat around for a good thirty minutes, refreshing Twitter and having one of those shouting-across-the-house conversations with my husband, because neither one of us wanted to get up. Finally, I asked a friend what to write about. She said, “Time management.”

So I thought this would be an excellent time to give you an idea of how I get through my day. I keep a very strict schedule that never varies so that I get all of my work done and never have to do anything at the last minute.

8 hours — sleep
2 hours — email
2 hours — Twitter/other social media
1 hour — lunch/TV
1 hour — email (again!)
1 hour — researching something that will affect only one sentence out of the entire novel, like what type of trees grow where
30 minutes — Twitter/other social media
1 hour — trying to find the perfect font
30 minutes — think about sleeping
2 hours — nap
2 hours — try to figure out what that word was that I couldn’t think of earlier
1 hour — dinner/TV
2 hours — realize that no writing will get done today unless I squeak out a few words right now

So there it is, my foolproof time-management plan. This is how I am never behind on anything and my writing is always done weeks before my editor starts asking me about my book. Deadline schmedline. I got this. And if you follow my guidelines, you can, too.^{1 2 3}