Bug Books: Joey Paul Online: Planning Your Time

Monday 23 August 2021

Planning Your Time - The Creative Process

PLANNING YOUR TIME

If you ask a lot of my friends, they'll tell you that I'm organised. I have a set plan for when I do things, and I, generally, stick to it bar any major setbacks. I have my planner, and before that I had sticky notes, and I would make sure that I knew what I was supposed to be doing and when. I would fairly agree with that sentiment, I have always been someone who likes to plan things out, except when it comes to planning novels, on that I lean more the other way.

So many people have asked how I got into planning my time, and for me it was a little bit of luck, a little bit of boredom, and a little bit of just finding a new program on my computer that I could use for fun. I'd always admired people who did lovely spreads in a bullet journal, but that was never going to be me. I needed some kind of setup for me to manage things in a planner. Of course then I found the perfect planner for me, and from there it kinda all snowballed.

But way back when, I started small, it's something I've talked about before, people always think you can jumpstart with a full spread of what you're doing and when, and I've found that is so not the case! I started off with a to-do list, and it would be for the week. I would lay out all that I needed to get done, and then go from there as to when it would get done. At the time I was still getting my degree so that was always priority number one. Writing kinda fell by the wayside.

Of course, then when I finished my degree, I kinda drifted through writing stuff. Some weeks I'd get everything done, some weeks I'd get nothing done. This was a mixture of being lazy, and also because I didn't have the structure that I needed. I would have all these things, but I didn't have a writing routine, and it was mostly, a when I feel like it kinda thing. If you haven't guessed, I'm not really that kind of person. The weekly to-do became fortnightly, then monthly, and then I started to get serious with myself. I found sticky notes and I told myself that I would work out on what days I would do what.

My point isn't to say that you have to be strict with yourself, you know your life better, you know how your minds works best, but for me, that was the only way I was going to get everything done. I still use a monthly to-do list, but whereas before it would have four chapters for each book and two bonus ones, now it's at six for each book and four bonus ones. I increased it gradually when I realised that I was exceeding my goals every single month without fail.

So when it comes to sitting down to make your own plan, start small. Don't overload your plate and think that you're going to be able to knock everything off your list. Unless you're someone who works extremely well under pressure, then you will fail and it'll knock you back. I did this with the weekly to-do list, I put everything on it and expected myself to go from hardly ever writing, to always writing, and it did not work like that. It took me a number of years to get to the point where I was crossing things off consistently, and there's no shame in that. If you need to start small and take your time to build up in it, that's okay, not everyone will slot into a new routine instantly.

I have friends who have started on one small portion of their life, getting that routine down, and then branching out to start on another small portion, taking it on slowly so that they can learn how to juggle it all together, and this is a great way of doing it. It allows you to work out the kinks before you start trying to do it in all areas of your life. So start small, don't bite off more than you can chew, and be ready for it to take time.

Any thoughts? Lemme know in the comments below!