Parisian Phoenix Publishing

I am due to write my next weekly newsletter on Substack and like many creatives, I have a variety of commitments in the air that I think I have control of but then I realize that a [insert whatever amount of time here] has passed and [something] is not on schedule.

This is the reality of time and life and “productivity” driving our work and lifestyles. In my case, it is also the effect of trying to build a small business to try and made my lifestyle about my gifts and my art and less about 9 to 5 America, whether that be corporate or non-profit.

Sometimes, when I find myself surrounded by the commitments not quite met or the projects not yet done, I have to ask myself some questions.

1. Am I “behind” or “late” because in my eyes or someone else’s? In other words, have I missed an actual deadline (the kind that impacts business and the lives of other people) or just disappointed and inconvenienced myself?
2. Did I balance my time appropriately? Most of my followers know, I keep a color-coded calendar. Most of my appointments are written down in simple pen, perhaps in pink, black or purple ink (business, random appointments, personal) and then highlighted in blocks after the fact, as a reminder and a visual of how much time certain tasks (or clients) take. This allows me to look back at my day, or my week, and ascertain if I spent too much time on the wrong things. The act of preparing my calendar this way alerts me to problems in time management before they impact productivity.
3. Do my eyes hurt? And maybe my brain. Because I need time to rest. If I don’t take the time, my body will remind me.

I have found that if I monitor the answers of those questions and plan my behavior according, the work gets done and the bills get paid. For most of this week, I have been writing 3,000 words a day on top of whatever other duties I have (like washing dishes, because we can’t use our dishwasher right now). I am planning a presentation, orchestrating a couple of events, helping my resident college student with her end of semester papers, meeting with clients and reading unsolicited submissions.

So, before you are too hard on yourself, examine your own answers to my questions. Because you might find, as I do, that you do a lot or you may need to work smarter not harder.

In that spirit, I went down to Plants + Coffee for a meeting with LN Passmore. We’re on the board together at Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and she has books for the group’s appearance next week at Phillipsburg Comic Con. She also wanted to see Larry Sceurman’s short story collection, Coffee in the Morning, while we enjoyed coffee (and plants) in the morning.