Scheduling 2.0

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Lately, I had a lot of things on my mind, so I had to take a break.  Not too much of a break because I am loving the page views I have been receiving, but enough to get myself back on track.

I have started some posts to put up this week, but they have been pulled back to next week. I have not been mindful to myself, but thankfully, my family nor my church has not asked me to do too many things.  The reason I said this is as of this morning, my left ankle has been acting up, which mean one thing:  I am having a slight flare-up of gout, and I do not want to slow down my intake of seafood.  The other things that have been slowly flaring up are my shoulders and my eczema, which is concentrated on my face and chest (started to say the other thing in the chest area, but I remember about my G-rating on this blog, LOL). Except for the worry that I may not have enough money to finish paying for my trip in September, working on my YouTube Channel, and working on my friendship swap (my third scrapbook/mixed media swap with this woman), this has been a laid back week.

Well, enough about me, how has your week been going? 

Topic of Scheduling: What is it?

Today, since I mentioned my schedule or the sort of lack of a viable one, I thought I would post about making a schedule.  Not only a schedule that works for your writing but a schedule that contains everything you do in your life.  Let me first say to those who are new to scheduling, it is another way of planning.  In this case, you are planning out your day, week, month, or year. (Trust me, I know people like that). I have mentioned in many, many blog posts, and now some videos, planning is a way of knowing what you need to do, and want to do.  Planning keeps you sane, it keeps you on track, and it keeps you from duplicating tasks.  When you were in school, it was called a syllabus. Another name is called a “To Do List”.  Rather you call it a planning guide, syllabus, To Do List, Honey Do List, or scheduling, it is all the same, which again, it is a list of things that need to be done.

How to make a schedule?

Making a schedule is not hard to do, but for some reason, this is something that most people struggle with, myself included.   Even as a single person, with no kids, and not currently dating, it is a struggle.  Why?  Because I have so many facets of my life that I have to place into motion, such as time with the family (both biological and church family), church services, regularly scheduled meetings to attend, blog posting, videotaping, writing assignments that I suddenly feel that I need to do, and handmade projects that need to be made.  Oh, let’s don’t forget things, such as doctor and dental appointments, hair appointments (getting your hair twisted is an all-day appointment, even when you have 3 African braiders in your head at all times), pedicures, grocery shopping, and spring cleaning and decluttering (in the process now).  The list goes on and one.  You wonder if I will have time for baby when I adopt. Sleep, yes sleeping and pooping (OK, TMI)

To do that, you have to first prioritize.  Yes, that nasty little word called prioritizing.  What is important to you, may not be as important or more important to another person, so you have to place, in order, the things that need to be done.  Let look at my list:

·         Family time (D)

·         Worship services (W)

·         Meetings for church (M)

·         Meetings for business (AN)

·         Blog writing, editing, and posting (x3 W)

·         Video filming, editing, and posting (x2 W)

·         Freelance writing assignments (AN)

·         Handmade product creation, pricing, and placement (W, Q)

·         Doctor and dental appointments (Every 3 months, 6 months, A)

·         Hair and feet appointments (Every 2-3 months)

·         Personal and grocery shopping (AN, 2 weeks)

·         Spring cleaning and decluttering (Q)

·         Technology stuff (M)

The symbols are

·         A=Annually

·         AN=As Needed

·         D=Daily

·         M=Monthly

·         X#=Number of times during the week, month, or year.  The word Every in front shows importance for me.

·         Q=Quarterly

This is my breakdown of the overall schedule.  Note that I have not put any times on the scheduling part.  This when I do my calendar.  More on that part in a moment.

This is how I do my scheduling.  I write it on a big sticky note, handwritten, nothing fancy.  I usually will plan out my week on Sunday night (Sunday to Saturday scheduling).  So tomorrow, I will sit down at my desk, and look at my calendar, and plan out my week.  This process will take about 15 minutes to an hour, depending on what I have.  At the end of the month, I will throw in what I have to pay in bills, so it takes longer (towards the hour mark), and the rest of the month is usually towards the 15-minute mark.  So, if you are wondering how I throw in bill paying time.  There you have it.  I usually do not schedule in a separate bill paying time because I pay online, and it is like an internet session for me (before social media time).  I go to my credit card and utility sites, my banking, and Paypal in one session, jump back and forth between screens and in 15 minutes, I am done.

Next level:  Calendar

My Erin Condren Calendar
(c) 2017 Photo by P Lynne Designs
(c) 2017 Erin Condren 

Once I have all of that stuff straighten out, for the most part, I turn to my calendar.  I have 5 calendars:  Two paper planners (personal and business), My Ipad, and My smartphone (no the smartphone and the Ipad are not talking to each other (IOS and Android).  They do not play nice with each other, when you are on the family plan with your parents, and having an Ipad and an Iphone is not in the plans when your 21-year old nephew has one. So, until then, I have to deal with devices that do not talk with each other.  I mentioned a 5^th calendar, that would be my desktop, I nicknamed, Della because she is a Dell computer. (Get it, Della). OK, so I have a quirk. My car is Baby J, the desktop computer is Della, Smartphone is Sammy (for Samsung phone), Ipad is Izzy, and my Cricut Explore is named Carmen.

Sorry, for going off track, where was I?  Oh, yes, my calendars.

A view of how I schedule through EC
(c) 2017  Photo by P.Lynne Designs
(c) 2017 Erin Condren 

Like I mention, I have two Erin Condren Calendars.  I love this brand because it is the first calendar that allows my style of recording things.  I have looked at others, but I am happy with the EC.  They offer three styles and I love the horizontal style, which allows me to write as much detail as I care to.  I place the topics of the blog post or video titles in there under the date.  That way, if I feel like I am repeating, I can turn to the month that I thought I wrote it, and decide on a different topic if I need to.  I can write down detailed things I need for appointments, meetings, and even directions.  EC has a dashboard which I use both as a white board and a place to put sticky notes.  My only wish is those planner creators who design stickers for the EC planner would have more horizontal formats.  

When it is time to make my schedule, I turn to that week to see if I have any meetings, appointments, and so forth.  I even record what I spend, and how much I have to spend.  Sammy, Izzy, and Della are online backups to my EC calendars, and I can enter in dates on these devices when I do not have the paper planner with me.

Is this a foolproof system?

No system is completely foolproof.  You have to put it in action to see if it works for you. Feel free to tweak any scheduling system that does not work for you.  Also, one tip:  no system is going to work if you do not use it.  If you keep putting it off and do the same things you have been doing, it is not going to work.  For me, a system will or will not work if you do not use it for at least 3 months.  3 months is plenty of time to tweak along the way.

So, give it a try.  You may need to tweak it to your style of doing things, but if it does not give you the satisfaction of a foolproof system, try another system.  I will tell you what does work for me, scheduling apps.  To me, they are so limited, especially the free systems.  The way they work and the way I work did not meet my needs, especially the last one.  Who knows, you may find an app that works for you.

Have a good evening

5 reasons why I do not like to write…

Photo by www.plannerisms.com

I do not like to write.  I have said it a dozen times and now I feel like I have to explain myself to you all.

1.       The first reason why I do not like to write is this stigma that you are only as good as the red marks on your school papers.  That seems to be true.  I am the #1 queen of the red mark papers.  I would get started on a thought, totally screw up the sentence, and the teacher would come behind me with his/her red pen.  I hated those pens, and if I had a second chance, I would have banished those red pens.  (Hummm, I would like to know how they grade now with all of this technology.)

2.      The second reason why I do not like to write is criticism.   Criticism can come in the form of not liking the subject matter to the style of writing, to that equal of the red pen marks.

3.      Third reason why is I am afraid that I will write about the same subject over and over again. 

4.      The fourth reason why I do not like to write is if I am stuck, I have nothing to write about, and if I do not have nothing to write about, you do not have anything to read.

5.      The fifth and finally reason why I do not like to write is….I LOVE TO WRITE.  I found that out when I started my journal a few years ago.  These are the reasons why.

a.       I overcame my first problem by first telling myself that I am no longer in high school, so therefore, I no longer have the red marks.  I found out that teachers have red pens to point out what a child has to correct, but the problem with that is when a child has a question, some teachers’ zone out, and never answer that child’s question.  The last two years of my high school was the most critical, but guess what people?  At that time, English was not a required subject to take.  I graduated in 1982 and according to the curriculum that I was given, I had choir, music theory, and a few study halls. I had really finished my schooling in the 11^th grade.  Thank God they revamped the curriculum.  You learn by doing, and so it was practice make perfect or else.

b.      So people criticize, no big whoop there.  Well guess what, it is a big whoop if you want to monetize your blog, and you want readers.  That is what I have to tell myself, and I still tell myself that as I put fingertips to keyboard.  You have to know what you are talking about.  You have hold an interest to not just the person who has the same passion that you do, but to a person who is looked for something new to do.  It is not easy being a blogger.

c.       This brings me to the third problem…the same subject.  You have to know your subject, which some people call a niche.  Now if you are talking about coffee, and you love the taste, the aroma, and all things coffee.  Do not just have subject after subject about Starbucks.  It can get rather boring even for the people who worship Starbucks.  You may even get sick of writing about Starbucks.  If I was to start a blog about coffee, I would first introduce myself and my love of coffee, and why you should read about it each week.  Next post, I would talk about the beans and why it is important to have the perfect beans.  Next post, I would talk about the different types of coffee, and so forth.  When you get enough, a few friends told me about spinning it in a different way. 

d.      This bring me to the fourth problem…being stuck.  Now, in the last paragraph, I started talking about spinning the post.  There are different ways to do this, but to me the write (right) way is to take a piece of the parent post (original post), and elaborate on it to make a child post.   Again using “coffee” as our subject, say you could create a post about the different types of coffee; pod, whole bean, and ground.  You have 3 child posts from that one parent post.  Here is how…Your first post, you may talk about pod coffee and the different types of pods, and what machines uses that pod.  Next post would be about whole bean coffee.  You would talk about what to look for in a whole bean coffee and that you may want a grounder for that type of coffee and why.  The last post talks about ground coffee and what is the difference between the “real” stuff and instant.  Now you have 4 posts (the original and three child posts).  From that, you may be able to break it down further.   I will write more on how that is done at a later time.   DO NOT USE SPIN SOFTWARE! It will only make the Google gods mad at you, and cause your blog to shut down.

e.       Finally, do not just like writing, love writing.  If you are a freelance writer or just started out to be one, it can be the most reward thing to do, once you get started.  Research every subject, unless you are just writing for yourself, but research things anyway.  You do not want the wrong information to get out.  Even if it is how to spell a word.

 Pour your heart and soul into every piece, but give yourself time to relax.  You have the same rights as a musician (I do both, so I know), only you are a composer of words instead of music.  Having those rights means you follow rules and you are mindful of everyone’s works.  Know when a person is copying your work, because words cannot be duplicated if they come from the heart.   I say to you…WRITER, KNOW THYSELF.