Slowing Down & Savoring Summer: A Few Strategies

I mentioned in my last post Device-Free Summer 2.0 that in addition to kidlet going device-free for another summer, I was looking for way to slow down our summer. Today I'm tackling that topic more in depth.

Summers for us usually mean a shift in our schedule but not a change in the hectic-ness of it. Kidlet isn't in school, but he goes to full-time day camp. Hubs and I are still working. Books still need to be written and edited and promoted. I'm used to that being our summer.

However, last week (week two of summer) when I found myself up before 7am and already yelling, "Where's the sunscreen? Where'd you put your tennis shoes? We're going to be late! Someone grab a juice box!", I realized that not only was I NOT getting any kind of slow down in summer, it almost felt more crazy--for all of us. This was in part because we'd spent seven days in New York City for a combo vacation/work trip right after school ended, so we'd hit the ground running with a very fun but busy trip. But it also felt like more that just that. I was deeply tired of this rush.

It gave me the very pointed craving to slow the hell down for summer. Summer used to have this promise to it when I was growing up--a promise of lazy days and an open schedule. Yes, it was blazing hot and humid in south Louisiana. Yes, I was an only child and often got bored. But that's also the time I got to read all the books I wanted. It's when I got to goof around at the pool with friends or run through sprinklers. It was walks down the road to the sno-ball stand (they are NOT snow cones in Louisiana) without your parents. 

My kiddo has never had that kind of summer because summers are generally scheduled events now. (Not just for me but most of the kids I know.) There are summer camps and music camps and STEM camps and sports teams/games and blah blah blah. Part of that is necessary. Even though I'm home, I'm working full-time. My job doesn't stop in the summer, and kidlet would get hella bored being home all day every day by himself with me working (and him device-free,) But I'm now wondering if we've swung too far in the other direction and maybe could use some balance. Meaning, work in some lazy, slow stuff into the busy schedule for us all. Allow time for boredom and creativity and white space.

So, though kidlet already has two weeks of pre-scheduled, already paid for speciality camps, I'm going to try him on half days instead of full for his regular summer camp and only bring him in the afternoons. I get most of my deep work/writing down in the afternoon anyway, so this should work for me. In the mornings, I can get easier work stuff done and also spend some time with him. We shall see how it goes.

But this got me to thinking more about how fast time goes. This past school year flew by, and I know summer will as well if I don't do something different. I mean, we can't actually slow down time, but I wondered if there were things we could do to savor it more and make it feel a little more languid.

This is what made me pick up the book Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura Vanderkam. (Yes, it has the same title as one of my books, but is a very different topic! lol) Y'all know I love a productivity book, but this one is less about productivity, and more about finding the white space in your schedule and feeling like you have "all the time in the world" instead of feeling like you're always rushed and behind.

Vaderkam had a large group of people in different professions track their time, and she used the results for this book. One interesting thing she found was that a lot of the people in very busy, high-powered positions often felt like they had more time, but it was because they'd learn strategies to make it that way. So this book goes into a number of strategies to help create that feeling of space in your schedule, of slowing down and savoring.

I won't go deeply into each of these because the book is worth a read and I did lots of underlining, but each strategy has its own chapter title and I'll touch on those.

Chapter 1: Tend Your Garden

Her basic premise here is that in order to do anything about your time, you need to know where it's actually going. We're really bad at estimating how much time we spend doing certain things. Like, you know, how often we're sucked into social media. Or how few minutes it actually takes to wash the dishes. So she recommends tracking your time by the half-hour ALL DAY for at least a week. 

"...one of the most striking findings of my survey was the gap in estimated phone checks per hour between people who felt relaxed about time and those who felt anxious" --pg. 8

I've done time-tracking on and off over the years, which is made easy with the Day Designer planner I use, and I have found it helpful. If you're honest in your tracking, you can see where your time is getting wasted or squandered. It's sobering when you realize you popped over to check twitter for a minute and wasted forty minutes instead. So this practice takes discipline, but I think it is a great exercise to kind of give you an overview.

"Time passes whether or not we think about how we are spending it. Tracking forces me to think about it." --pg. 35

Chapter 2: Make Life Memorable

This was probably my favorite chapter of the book. I have a TERRIBLE memory. Terrible, y'all. And I hate that so many memories sift through my fingers (probably because I'm moving too fast.) So this chapter was about the science of what makes a memory stick. We know that novel experiences and experiences with high emotion (good and bad) are more likely to burn into our memories. But does that mean the ordinary days are destined to just compress in our minds and give us that sense of time just flying by? Vanderkam argues that no, there are things we can do. She encourages us to record things in a journal (or in your time tracker if you're doing that). Nothing elaborate but something that will help the day stick a little better.

"One might inquire this of any twenty-four hours. Why is today different from all other days? Why should my brain bother holding on to the existence of this day as it curates the museum of my memories?" --pg. 64

I love this concept and am going to give it a try. I'm terrible at journaling, but this seems less intimidating--just marking down what was special about that day. Not only does it provide a record, but the actual act of writing it down helps your memory keep it better. And she said taking photos isn't enough because unless we curate them, it's just a big jumble of a file in our phone. (Guilty as charged!)

Chapter 3: Don't Fill Time

This one is pretty obvious but still not as easy in practice if you're not deliberate about it. The main points are: leave white space on your calendar (to account for things running over, unexpected things, thinking time, etc.) and don't say yes to things unless you really want/need to do it. (This goes back to the "if it's not a hell yes, it's a no" thing.) I liked a particular question she posed about how to decide whether to agree to something in the future. She warns that we don't think of our future selves as "us", so we assign those future versions of ourselves things present "us" really doesn't want to do because we think this imaginary future "us" will totally be into it by the time it gets here. I'm SO guilty of this. So she suggests this question:

"Would I do this tomorrow?" and "Would you be tempted? Would you try to move things around to fit this new opportunity?" --pg. 98

Also in the "don't fill time" category is the technology/phone habit. Every moment that you have to wait in a line or wait for an appointment doesn't need to be filled with social media or the web. It makes us fee busier. It erases that sense of downtime or space in your schedule (beyond being a distraction.) I also think it sucks up time we could use for those things we'd "like to do if we had more time." Like, for me, I always want more reading time. My TBR pile is out of control. But if I'm on the couch and bored and pick up my phone, I could lose half an hour just scrolling or answering email. Instead, I could pick up a book and spend that time doing something I love and want to do. When I started paying attention (and dialing back) my social media time last year, I noticed a big difference in how many books I read. (In 2016 I read 42 books, in 2017 I read 63. I've read almost 30 this year so far.)

Chapter 4: Linger

This chapter is mostly about mindfulness and learning to savor the present. One of the tactics I loved was recommended by a psychology professor she interviewed. He imagines himself in his elderly years when his health is failing and he can't do much anymore and imagines that version of himself looking back at today, feeling the wistfulness of "I wish I could be doing that again" and then knowing that, hey, that IS today for me. I'm here in this moment right now.

Chapter 5: Invest in Your Happiness

Her advice: if you can afford to, farm out hated/annoying tasks that can be done by others that are sucking up valuable time. If you can pay someone to cut your lawn and save yourself the time, do it. But this chapter also talked about "paying yourself first" with your time. Meaning, if you want to write a book, give yourself that chunk of time in your schedule first before anyone else gets your time. Even if it's just a little bit. I learned this when I took Becca Syme's Write Better Faster class--write first. Before the distractions come. Before the busy work or demands others put on your time. I don't always follow that because my creative brain kicks in more in the afternoon, but I still use it in concept because I block off that time for my writing. I give myself my most creative, productive hours and don't hand those off to other people's needs/tasks.

Chapter 6: Let It Go

Life is life, and things are going to get in the way of best laid plans. The water heater is going to break when you planned a writing day. You're going to get caught in traffic and screw up the afternoon's schedule. You're going to get a cold that knocks you on your butt. Vanderkam's advice is to learn to let it go. Just do what you can do with the time you have.

"When I tell myself, OK, you only have this time, just do what you can do, I surprise myself. I can write an article draft in a few hours. I can edit it in those ninety-minute chunks. Indeed, when I tell myself to just do what I can, even if it is only a little bit, because it is better than nothing, that something, done repeatedly, adds up." -- pg. 173 

I need this reminder often because I like to write in big three-hour blocks. If my schedule gets messed up and I only have an hour and a half, I feel like--well, why bother? But I can get a decent amount of words in an hour or whatever if I focus on it. So I need to not throw out the whole plan if things didn't go perfectly.

Chapter 7: People Are a Good Use of Time

This section focuses on spending quality time with your family and friends and colleagues because that kind of experience often expands time and makes great memories. What I particularly loved about this chapter was the idea of planning your off hours.

"Few people would show up at work at 8:00am with no idea about what they'd do until 1:00pm, and yet people will come home at 6:00pm having given no thought to what they'll do until they go to bed at 11:00pm. This is how people will claim to have no time for their hobbies, even though they're clearly awake for two hours or more after their kids go to bed...It is simply that they haven't thought about this time, and so it feels like it doesn't exist." --pg. 204

I love this idea and have seen it in action. Most of us don't want to schedule ourselves down to the second in our off time. However, last year when we did device-free summer, I had to be deliberate about what was going to fill some of kidlet's free time instead. I wanted to make it fun and to help him realize life without the devices and video games could be way cooler. So on our calendar I planned movie nights and board game night. I scheduled nights that he'd help me cook dinner. We planned for outings like putt putt or bowling. It gave the summer a feeling of adventure, and it cemented a lot of those things in my memory. I remember the movies we watched together as a family. I remember binge-watching The Goldbergs and teaching kidlet about life in the 80s. I remember an epic game of Upwords. It made simple things into events and made the summer feel special and full. I plan to do that again this summer, but I also need to take this idea and use it all through the year.

So, if you can't tell, I really enjoyed the book and got a lot from it. I'm going to take away a lot of ideas. I'm tracking my time again, and I'm going to attempt to journal. I'll report back!

How is your summer shaping up? Do you seek out a slow summer?

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?

The Anti-Procrastination Diet

Photo by Andrea_44

I have a lot of mantras that I've used throughout my life: "Never go to bed angry", "Everything happens for a reason", "You get more flies with honey." But the one that enters my mind way too much is--"I can do it later." 

I can return this email later...

I can leave a blog comment later...

I can fold these towels tomorrow...

I can make that doctor's appointment next week...

Now, I have never been someone who is late on the important things. I've never turned in a paper late or needed a deadline extended for a work project. I get those things done. But it's the little, less urgent things that tend to drop off my radar.

For instance, if my editor sends me an email asking me to revamp the back cover blurb, I will instantly jump on it and have it back to her within 24 hours. Because that is something that has a hard deadline and cannot wait.

But if a friend ask me to take a look at her pages, if I don't do it right then, she's probably not going to get them back for weeks because they'll get lost in my email. And after reading this post on the Fantastical Personality Type, I now see why. It's not that I'm disorganized--I'm not at all. It's just that people with this personality type have to keep everything they are working on in their line of site or it doesn't exist. So that's why my desk looks like this:

All my notes, the craft books I want to use, and the business things I have to work on are all spread out where I can eyeball them. And that's why once an email is off my main screen (which takes about an hour), I've already forgotten about it. Unless I go assign an alarm to it, I won't find it again for months until I'm going through the stack of unread email en masse. So this is why I got Outlook for my email. I can assign reminders to things that pop up in the middle of my screen to hit me over the head.

However, this organizational method can be just as ineffective if I let the dirty procrastinator that lives inside me take over. When I found myself continuously "snoozing" a reminder that I had set up two months ago, I knew it had to stop.

And not just in my writer life, but also in my home life. I do not need to wait to fold socks until the basket of socks is so huge that it's an hour long job. I do not have to wait to go to the post office until I have ten things to mail. 

These undone things act as this nebulous cloud of doom that hangs over my head. I don't always notice it's there but there's this niggling since of--I'm behind on something. I'm always behind. And it's a source of constant subconscious stress. And I'm tired of it.

So I've put myself on an Anti-Procrastination Diet. I've only been at it for a week, but already it's made a world of difference. I've made it through most of my list of to-do's. I have clothes folded and hung in our closets. We even have paired socks! *cue angels singing*

And I feel so much lighter (which is why I'm calling it a diet.) :)

So here are the rules I've given myself...

The Anti-Procrastination Diet

1. If something needs to be done and you have time to do it right now, do it RIGHT NOW.

2. If you get an email that will require action, either act on it immediately or assign an alarm to it. And you only get to snooze that alarm ONCE.

3. Eat elephants one bite at a time. Don't wait until a task like laundry builds up so big that it's going to require hours of work.

4. When you find yourself saying "I can do it later", stop and make a plan on when you are going to do it or go ahead and do it now.

5. When it comes to writing, you can't wait for the muse. You need to get writing done every week day no matter what.

I'm sure I'll add more to this and it's still a constant challenge and fight with my tendencies, but it's working for me right now.

So how about you? Are you a procrasinator or someone who gets things off your to-do list quickly? What's the task you put off time and again, then regret it later? What tips do you have to avoid procrasination?

And anyone want to join me on this diet? We could form a Twitter support group--help me think of a hashtag. Who's with me?