Links to Love

This week has been a hectic one, and I'm deep in drafting mode for the first book in the ONES WHO GOT AWAY series. So instead of my own post today, I'm passing along some great links I've come across this week.

Sexy Book Stuff:

RT Book Reviews has posted a super steamy NSFW excerpt from LOVING YOU EASY. If you need a little steam in your afternoon, click over. And don't forget to pre-order your copy. Release is less than two weeks away! Yay!

Book Riot has a fun article by Amanda Diehl about her genre kryptonite: Smart People Doing Sexy Things. She recs OFF THE CLOCK in it, but there are other great recs as well. And I love Smart People Doing Sexy Things books. That's my favorite genre to write AND read, lol.

Sarah MacLean has a great post over at the Happily Ever After blog on Why the Best Romances Break the Rules. I love rule-breaking books. :) 

On Productivity:

7 Steps to Getting Unstuck and Becoming More Productive by Michael Hyatt

This 100-Year-Old To-Do List Hack Still Works Like A Charm over at Fast Company

FREE EVENT! Michael Hyatt is putting on an online Free to Focus Productivity Summit Sept. 1-8. It's free to sign up and includes speakers like the author of Deep Work, which I featured here on the blog recently. 

All right, that's what I've got for you today. Hope you have a great rest of the day!

On Productivity & Distraction: Deep Work by Cal Newport

I found Deep Work by Cal Newport on a list of recommended reads for productivity and then when I tweeted out the article, I had so many people say, "Yes! Read Deep Work." So I listened. And I'm glad I did.

Here's the back cover summary (from Amazon):

One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way.

In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. DEEP WORK is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

I know I'm not alone in feeling constantly distracted. It's the nature of our world today. So this book appealed to me on a number of levels. My goal is always to write as much as I can. That's my "deep work". That's what bring me joy (and what allows me to support myself.) But in addition to the writing, I have all the other things pulling at my time: returning emails, all the business stuff, coordinating things, marketing/promotion, blogging, and staying active on social media. Not to mention, you know, being a mom and wife.

With all that, I feel a little like an addicted lab rat when I'm working. Every ding of an email, every time I hit a hard sentence or am not sure what to write next, I'm clicking over to something else. Checking twitter, checking facebook, checking instagram, clicking on an interesting link. It's like this...

up up up up in #dogs

Part of being on social media is my job and part is for my own enjoyment. I want to be connected to readers and my fellow writers. I want to know what's going on in the world. But I know I don't need to be CONSTANTLY connected. And this book explains that not only is it not helpful, it's damaging. Staying constantly in a "shallow" state of work and never letting yourself get deeply involved in your important work trains your brain to be like those dogs above. It makes us forgetful, less able to concentrate, less productive, and most importantly, less likely that we're going to achieve great things.

GIF in #smh

And I know this is true. I have those days where I'm in what people call "flow", where I'm totally focused on writing and the words start pouring out. When I stop, it's almost like coming out of a daze. Sometimes I don't even remember most of what I've written. That is the state I need to be in regularly. But I can't do that with the constant distraction. And that distraction is an addiction. I use the Hey Focus App to block social media for chunks of time when I'm trying to write. I have it on right now actually. Twenty-five minutes of being locked out. And even though I KNOW I'm locked out, I still find myself clicking that little Twitter icon in an idle moment out of pure habit. To which the Hey Focus app basically gives me the finger and shakes its head with a no and I want to kick myself.

So needless to say, I needed this book. And though some of his suggestions are a little extreme, I'm taking a lot from this and will be implementing what I learned. 

Here are some of my takeaways:

1. The deep work you do is what gives your job meaning. - What are people paying you for, why are you specially equipped/educated to do this job? That's what you should be spending most of your time on. What work do you do that couldn't easily be replicated by a recent college graduate from outside your field who had a month or two of training? For me, that's writing fiction. It's not answering emails or being clever on Twitter.

2. Deep focus can generally only be maintained for a certain amount of time - The author suggest that those just starting out, an hour a day of deep work might be all they can manage. But with practice, he said that people can do 3-4 hours of deep work in a day--which means that you're still going to have time to get the shallow stuff done.

3. It's okay to not be good at everything and to say no. - I think this is probably difficult for everyone to get a handle on, but even harder for women. We have been conditioned to be helpful, to say yes to things, to try to do it all. But this is something I've learned (out of necessity) over the years: I have to pick and choose. One of my mottos for this year is "If it's not a hell yes, it's a no." Because my instinct is to people please, but you can't please everyone and still get your stuff done. So I have no problem telling everyone right on my contact page that I'm slow to return email. I refuse to feel guilty that I can't volunteer to coordinate parties at school or something because A) you don't want me in charge of that. I will suck at it. and B) I'm working full time even though it's from home and I just don't have the time. I'm not good at those things. And that's okay.

4. Create a schedule and WRITE IT DOWN. - Set the plan for your day ahead of time or you'll get pulled in 100 different directions or get sucked up by the internet. - Paper planners, people. I've been preaching it all year, lol. And beyond planning out your week, he suggests writing down your list each morning. What you're going to do and specifically what time you're going to do it.

5. Schedule your deep work and remove the distractions - Use an app like Hey Focus. Go to a place with no internet. Shut your office door. Don't check your email until your done. Whatever it takes to only let yourself focus on the main thing you're trying to accomplish.

6. Idle time is important - He has a whole section on the benefits of being bored. Our subconscious mind works out answers to things when we're bored or doing something relaxing. For me, this is listening to music while I cook dinner after I'm done working. My mind is resting and all of sudden, I'll be hit with some problem fix or inspiration. This happens it the shower all the time too. Or right when I'm falling asleep. Writers all experience this, but it's just more proof that our mind needs to rest in order to figure things out sometimes.

7. Keep a scoreboard visible - Write down your goals and keep them in your face. For me, it will be a word count tracker. I can mark off boxes for every 500 words to get a visual representation of what I'm accomplishing.

8. Evaluate a tool not just for it's usefulness but also it's drawbacks. Weigh them out. - For instance, maybe that new fangled social media app looks cool. But are the benefits of it going to outweigh the time it takes from deep work? In other words, don't enter into things blindly.

There are so many more, but this post is already long enough, lol. Go buy the book! But I'll keep you updated on things as I try to implement these things and see how it impacts my productivity.

Has anyone else read this? Anyone relate to that dog GIF like I do? :)

Don't Just Make a Plan: The Benefits of Tracking Your Time

I talk a lot about To Do lists and planning here, but there's another part to productivity that I've never paid that much attention to: tracking the actual time I spend doing things. I add things to my schedule, but how often do I stick to that? Not very often unless it's a set appointment. So if I get to the end of the day and haven't checked off all of my To Dos, what's the reason? Did I screw around and waste time? Did I schedule too much? Were my goals unrealistic? I didn't know. 

So, this week I decided to track my time. I'm currently using a two-planner system since I've found I need both a weekly overview and a daily tasks list to keep me focused. The Happy Planner houses my weekly events/appointments and I get that planned out on Sunday. But then I'm using my Day Designer each morning to write out a fresh To Do list. But the Day Designer also has a column for your schedule. I decided to try to use that to track my time as I get things done vs. pre-planning anything in that section. It's turned out to be SO helpful, so I thought I'd share my thoughts with y'all. Here's some of what I've discovered...

The Benefits of Tracking Your Time

1. Know how long it takes you to do something.

Often we underestimate how long something is going to take us to do. Tracking time gives you hard numbers about how long something takes. So instead of assuming, "Oh, I need to blog and that will only take 20 minutes.", you'll find out that it is actually taking up an hour of your morning.

For instance, this week I'm doing fine-toothed-comb editing on LOVING YOU EASY. That means that I have to read EVERY word. This is the stage where I catch typos or awkward sentences or little logic mistakes. So it's pretty intensive. And I've discovered by tracking my time that I consistently take 30 minutes to get through one chapter. That's very helpful for me to know because now I can look forward and know how long it's going to take me to wrap up these edits.

2. Learn your peak productive hours.

We all have them and they are going to vary from person to person. Like I hear that some writers get up at 4 or 5am to write before everyone gets up. That would never work for me. My brain isn't creative at that time. *not a morning person*  This week, I've learned that I'm not productive until about 10am. No matter how motivated I am, my la-la-la, ooh-bright-and-shiny-distracted time is between 8:30 and 10am. This is the time I check all my social media accounts, chat with friends, read interesting articles from Twitter, etc. 

My guess is that this segment of time is how long it takes for my morning coffee to kick in, lol. But I'm learning that I have to ease into my work day. My highest productivity is after lunch. I know this to be true when I'm drafting too. I don't get into my writing flow until afternoon. It is what it is. 

3. Helps you tailor your work day

So building on the point above, if you have a pattern of when you're productive, when you're creative, when you need mindless things, you can structure your day to play to those. This may be harder if you have a schedule at work that's out of your control. But if you're able to, you can schedule the things that require less mental intensity at times when you have the most trouble concentrating. So for me that means I should probably schedule low intensity things in the morning when I know I'll be less likely to be writing/editing. Social media updates, responding to comments, answering email, etc. It's all good information to have to make the best use of your time.

4. Keeps you honest about wasting time and gives you options for when best to do it.

We all waste time. That's not a bad thing. We need fun and mental breaks too. But if you track your time, you can find out if you're doing that a little too much. You can pinpoint what sucks up your time, what sends you down a rabbit hole. And if you need it, you can use apps to shut down your access to the internet and have focused times to work on what you need to work on. I talked more about that in this post. And you can even schedule in a time to do those not so productive things. That can help because you know--ooh, I want to read this article, respond to this FB thing, etc. but I can save it and do that at x time when I have break time scheduled. 

5. It's motivating and reinforcing to write down what you've done as you go.

Don't wait until the end of the day to write everything down. You'll forget and it won't be accurate. Write down what you did each hour as you do it. Keep a notepad or planner nearby so it's easy to jot down. I find it's hard to write down "wasted a whole bunch of time" lol. I'd much rather write down. "Two chapters edited!" That's reinforcing. :)

Ready to give it a shot?

You don't need two planners like I have. Though you can! If you just want to try it out for a few days, use a notebook or find a printable. The Day Designer has free printables of the schedule I'm using. So grab one of those if you want something with the times already on it. And let me know if you try and how it goes! :)

Does anyone already track their time or have you tried this experiment in the past?

*Day Designer link is an affiliate link. 

Digital Detox: 3 Things I'm Doing to Tame the Social Media Habit & Reclaim Focus

If you haven't noticed from my past few blog posts, I'm feeling very motivated to tackle 2016 in a more thoughtful, focused way than I have in past years. In other words, flighty writer me is trying to get her s**t together. It's easy, particularly when you're in a creative career, to just kind of ride the tide of life and see where things take you. As long as the words get on the page, everything else will work itself out. We're supposed to be opening our minds, seeking inspiration, chasing new ideas, right? That doesn't fit into business planning and structure and goal-setting. Wrong. 

Writing (or any creative career) is a business like anything else. Plans are good. Structure in your day is enormously helpful. Good habits are key. All of that sets us up to have time and mental space to actually CREATE those things we're supposed to be creating. 

So that is what I've been focused so far on 2016. I got myself set up with a gorgeous, functional paper planner. And I filled out my business goals in this workbook. And now I wanted to tackle another issue that has claimed me like a bad relationship. The internet/social media monster.

I know I'm not alone in this. It's part of society now. We're always connected. Our smartphones sit on the table with us at dinner, they live attached to our hands. We check FB more times than any of us want to admit. If we have to wait in a line even for a minute, we can't resist the urge to look at our phones. And if we're working, that itch to click and "just check" on twitter or instagram or pinterest, calls to us all day long. 

I've been aware of it for a long time, but I've justified that it's a big part of my job to be online, to participate in social media, to respond to emails, to be available. And that's true. It is part of my job. And it's a part of my job I like very much--chatting with readers, connecting with other writers, reading blog posts about books and the industry. Plus, I work at home. Social media is my watercooler. I'd feel isolated otherwise.

However, by the end of 2015, I looked up and realized that the internet monster had morphed from being a part of my day to a creeping beast that was infiltrating and stealing other chunks of my time. Why hadn't I watched many TV shows this year? Because I end up scrolling through stuff on my phone instead of focusing on television shows that require more than 10% of my attention to follow along. Why had my nightly reading habit slacked off? Yep. Because I'd get caught up in Pinterest or my blog roll instead of picking up that book. That was a biggie. Reading is my FAVORITE thing. And I was letting something steal my attention from that.

In addition to that, I realized it was my crutch while I was writing. As soon as I hit a tough part of the manuscript--a sentence that wasn't working, a plot snag, an issue I hadn't considered--I'd click over to twitter and get caught up in chatting. Twenty minutes later, I'm back to writing and have wasted that time and broken my concentration. I'm not ADD, but I was starting to feel that way. The checking had become unconscious. Motor memory to click through icons. And if you're a writer or creative person, you know that the key to writing or creating is finding FLOW--that uninterrupted time where you're totally focused on what you're doing and totally IN it. That's when the best work gets done. And I was constantly thwarting any chance at flow.

So now that we know the extent of my addiction, lol, here's what I'm doing differently in 2016. Hopefully, these are tips you can incorporate if you're having the same issue.

3 Steps to Reclaiming My Time and focus

1. Schedule internet and social media time during the part of the day that is not my optimal creative/deep work time. And by schedule, I mean, WRITE IT DOWN as an appointment.

I don't want to give up the internet and social media and go live in an off-the-grid cabin or anything. (Okay, maybe some days I'd like that.) But I need to corral the time that I spend doing the online thing. After enough years of doing this job, I've learned that I hit my writing stride in the afternoon. We all have peak creative times, and mine seems to be in that after lunch slot until early evening. So I'm scheduling blogging, social media, and email during the morning time. (This pic is my Day Designer btw. Isn't it purty?)

2. Schedule dedicated writing time and use the Focus app to shut off all the social media and distracting websites during that time.

I've been using the Focus app. I've also heard Freedom is good. But so far, this is working really well. I have noon to 3 blocked off on my planner for writing time. Then I set the Focus app to block for a set amount of time--usually an hour. If you try to click on anything during that time, it will come up with an inspirational quote. And what's funny (sad?) is that I've found myself clicking twitter or whatever out of pure reflex. That muscle memory. That movement is built into me now when I pause in writing. So the app has been very helpful in basically reminding me--hey, dummy, you've blocked this, get back to work! And I've found that the 1 hour time goes by fast once I start working because I'm actually focusing and getting into flow. Then when one hour is up, I give myself a little break to get a snack or check email/twitter or whatever, but only for five minutes. Then I hit the app for another hour. I'm kind of in love. It's like a relief if that makes sense. (Like when you go on a cruise or out of the country and your phone can't work, lol.)

3. In the evenings, I'm putting my phone out of reach (and have turned off notifications.)

I can still hear it ring if someone needs me. But with the phone out of reach, I stop the mindless grabbing for it while I'm hanging out with the fam or watching TV or reading a book. It's amazing how just having it across the room can break the loop. And I've turned off all notifications for social media. That's an all day thing. I need to know when someone calls, when I have a text, and if there's a VIP email (agent, editor, family). Other than that, it's not urgent and I don't need to be notified.

---

I may add more layers to this as I go. I know as soon as I get into the meat of writing this next book, I'm going to be using Scrivener's Compose mode to make the distractions even more minimal. I use Scrivener exclusively but have never used this mode. Doesn't this look soothing? You can load your own background picture. 

Page one of OFF THE CLOCK

Right now, this system has been working for me. I'm deep in the brainstorming/story development process for Pleasure Principle book 2, so my writing time has involved a lot of random notes, lists, and staring at the wall and pondering. But it's work. Good work. And it feels great to get lost in it again and not constantly be dragged out by a cat GIF or the latest twitter ragefest or the vortex of Facebook. I know all that will still be there when my day's work is done. :)

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Are you struggling with any of these things? Any tips about things that have worked for you?

What I'm Loving: Finding the Perfect Planner

So you may remember that about six months ago I posted about getting a paper planner. I've discovered over the years that electronic apps for to-do lists and scheduling don't work for me. I'm a visual person, and once it's typed into the phone, it's too out of sight, out of mind. Paper is my jam. When I write things down, I remember them better. And I can leave a paper planner open in front of me on my desk all day.

So six months ago, I got the Happy Planner. Now, this was a beautiful planner. Very colorful and creative. Plus, it had fun accessories like motivational stickers and such. I got into the process of not just planning, but decorating the planner like it was a scrapbook. I also discovered during that time that there's this whole culture of planner nerds. (Yay, my people!) I was all in. Here's a pic of one of my weeks in the Happy Planner.

But one of the things about a planner is that it takes a while to figure out what style and type work best for you. I realized recently, when I was getting more intentional with goals and planning in 2016, that the weekly layout in my planner (one week on two pages) was just not working for me. I needed more space for a detailed to-do list, and I needed time slots to schedule things. Also, as much as I loved the creative aspect of the decorating, my brain didn't like the visual "clutter" and found it distracting. I'm a minimalist in a lot of ways. That's how I've decorated my house. That's what soothes me. Clean lines, lack of visual clutter, only pops of color on an otherwise gray/white palette. So I should've known that my planner needed to be that way, too. I think the Happy Planner is fantastic and is perfect for those wanting a weekly layout and a lot of color and scrapbooking aspects. (It's very similar to the Erin Condren planners if you're familiar with those.) But it wasn't right for me.

So I decided to go on the hunt for something different for the new year. After much more research than I probably should've spent time doing, I discovered exactly what I was looking for. A planner with clean lines, elegant design, and a page per day--the Day Designer by Whitney English.

This was THE ONE. Not only does it have a page per day, but a page that was split down the middle of the page--half into a schedule and half into a to-do list. On top of that, there is space for the top three priorities for the day, a space for Dinner, Don't Forget, Due, and Dollars. I don't need a Dollars space, but it's going to be the perfect spot for me to record my daily word count--something I'd wanted in my old planner.

It also has the year on two pages, which is perfect for me to mark off conferences. Simple but super helpful to be able to see the year overview.

I'm officially in planner love now. Isn't it pretty? And the only decorative elements I'm using are colored pens, a little washi tape on occasion, and different variations of these stickers, which are tiny, functional, and are meant for the Day Designer. The stickers haven't come in yet, but the planner is beautiful. *pets* And yes, it's more than I've ever spent on a planner, but it's something I'm going to use all year and is a key to my day, so I think it's worth it.

Btw, if you think you'd like to try out this kind of planner, the Day Designer website has free downloads where you can download the format of the day page and try it out (just click on printable at the top menu). I did that before buying to make sure it was going to function the way I needed it.

Also, if you're on the productivity bandwagon for the year, I came across this great article yesterday from Time--5 Secrets to Managing Your Time, Backed by Research. This is my goal for my schedule--scheduling in the "deep work", which for me is uninterrupted, internet-free writing time. I've felt way too distracted over the last few months. So afternoons are going to be reserved for that. We'll see how it goes!

So any other planner nerds out there? What planner do you have? Or do you prefer the electronic calendars?

Note: Day Designer link is an affiliate link (but I haven't been asked to feature it. My love for it is genuine, lol.)