Organization!

If it seems that I’m trying to write more on my blog, yes, I have been. I get overwhelmingly busy, and this is the first to go. I no longer wish that to be the case. As today is a day off, and I’m being lazy more than I am productive, I thought I would write a simple note here on productivity. It happens through A. hard work and B. organization.

I’ve long been organized with my exercise routine. I walk for 30 minutes every evening, and do a focused exercise for 30 minutes in the morning. I follow a routine: cardio, strength, stability, repeat. That makes 6 workouts a week, with Sunday reserved for one long, relaxing walk only. This combination, which has some overlap — e.g., some stability workouts are combinations of cardio plus balance and standing abs — works. I’m only exercising an hour a day, but my organization keeps me fit.

As I’m staring at my laptop from the office shed I rarely have time to use, I’m wondering why I can’t apply this kind of organization to finishing my current novel or playing the accordion. To be fair, I subscribed to the Acordeonisticos website to try to create a more focused approach than playing an hour a day of whatever I feel like playing. But I’m still prone to playing whatever I feel like playing, even after subscribing. I need a focused plan! An example might be: music theory, practice old songs, learn a new song, repeat, with Sunday my anything-goes day.

Re writing, my organization amounts to writing 1000 words a day. This is an extremely disorganized plan. I need those 1000 words to be focused. I need to do more mapping and editing. My mapping exists, but it is very slapdash. I will provide a pic, so you can see how slapdash it is. I will also provide a pic of my beloved office that awaits me, a dusty place shut up most days because I have an office at the parish I use 45 hours a week. But I can’t use that office to write; my only shot at that is to sit in the office kitchen on my lunch hour and slam out a few words.

I’m not one for outlining. It gives me the horrors and bad memories from failing at English class in my childhood. I probably should have paid more attention to it. I need to start outlining. Following an outline is the only way to write a book, unlike the pattern of threes that could work for music, as it does for exercise.