So many of us are pushed for time these days.  Families demand our attention as do our civic commitments.  We get up early trying to get one extra thing done.  We stay up late trying to finish just one more thing from our ever-extending to-do list.

We need more time we groan.  And it’s true, we do need more time.  But…how much time do we manage to waste in a day?

The first thing you need to know is when is your most productive time of the day?  Early morning? Mid afternoon?  Late at night when even the mice are sleeping?

Second, limit the number of items on your ‘to-do’ list to four or five of the most CRITICAL items.  If you absolutely MUST pay your utility bill or be shut off, that becomes a critical item.  Forwarding on the latest Maxine cartoon is not.

Set some goals.  Short range, mid-range, long range for the day.  You want to feel you accomplished something, especially if you are trying to find time to write.  Remember, a paragraph written today is a paragraph you didn’t have yesterday.  Timers are good in this regard too.  Hey, if you could spend ten minutes gossiping on the  phone, you can set the kitchen timer for ten minutes too in order to get some of those words on the page.

Once you’ve established your best time for accomplishing items on your list, block off ALL interruptions.

I know that my best time for writing and editing is early in the morning until about 11:00 a.m.  I do my best to not answer the phone.  I am working on limiting my email time.

Ah, email.  Gotta love it.  Gotta hate it.

Email is a tremendous time sucker.  You know it.  I didn’t really have to tell you, did I?

The most effective thing you can do in order to create more time is to turn your email “off”.

You know…actually close Gmail, Outlook, AOL, or whatever email program you are using.  DO NOT OPEN your email browser until you have gotten the most out of your peak time.  Limit the amount of time you will be reading/responding/forwarding email.  A fair amount of time to spend on email is anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour.  And an hour is pushing the boundary of becoming a time waster.

Limit yourself to once or twice a day.  Yes, it’s hard.  Cold turkey is the best way to go.

Habits are hard to break and you want to break this one.  The best way to break a habit is to replace it with something else.  In this case, you want to replace your email time with writing time.  Ten minutes on your blog.  Twenty minute sprints with your writing until your goal for the day is met.  And do set goals.  Place a star, a smiley face, something on your calendar when you’ve met your goals for the day.

DO NOT REPLACE EMAIL TIME WITH TWITTER, FACEBOOK or MYSPACE, DIGG or any other social networking tool.  Relegate those to the time you allot for ‘email’.

More goal setting.  Did you manage to get off your email addiction today?  Give  yourself a nice little reward…a cup of tea, an episode of NCIS (my favorite).  Be sure you are marking down your progress on the calendar.

Wait!  You hit your goal every day for a week?  Celebrate with something (non-food related or you’ll end up like a Sherman tank) like a bunch of flowers.  Those will last several days and remind  you of your success.

Two weeks? A month?  How about a little pampering at the nail salon?  A trip to the bookstore, an outing to a resale boutique or a clothing store?

If you make saving time fun, you’ll find you have more of it and with more to show for how you’ve spent it.  You’ll also be less stressed and better rested.  Wow, a little self-discipline really can yield great results!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Tips and Tricks, Editors Desk, Writer News, Book News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.