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I’m getting to that age when I don’t
remember much. Last week I read an interesting article on a blog—I wish I could
remember whose—that said for all the lists we make, it’s better to concentrate
on one thing task for each day. That thought stayed with me during the back end
of last week and I think I like it.
I always have a list of things that
must be done, but I get daunted when I think about the magnitude of what I need
to accomplish. Not only did I think about that concept, I tried it out for a
couple of days. It worked for me.
There are things I tend to avoid doing
because I believe they’ll take a lot of time or energy or they are tasks I don’t
like doing. However, if I tell myself that I’m going to take on and finish a particular
thing today, then I have even more of a sense of accomplishment if I get some
other jobs done (which is a given). It might sound like reverse psychology or
the ramblings of a demented person, but this approach has its advantages.
One other thing I read last week, I
think it’s from Jeff Bennington’s The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe. I
hope that’s where I read it, but I have reservations because of the brain
freeze I’ve been experiencing lately. Anyhow, the author said that he devotes
an hour a day to promoting his books. Now I know that without promotion, book
sales taper off drastically. And maybe,
I shouldn’t read this stuff when I’m thinking about how much I have to do and
what little time I have to spare.
I know it’s not a lot of time to spend
promoting, since I can easily blow 60 minutes away on Facebook just idling, but
when I try to wrap my head around promoting books for that period, it sounds
like forever. I do know however, that there are writers among us, like Toby Neal for instance, who carve out the time
to do what must be done. She even wrote a nifty little book about using social
media platforms to launch products. Anyway, I think that if I go with some sort
of planned programme, I’d get a lot more done promo-wise.
Sometimes I think I’m penny wise and
pound foolish in the area of tweets and such. I know I should write these up in
advance and automate them, but I’m too lazy to do that, so I’ll do a random
tweet when I remember. That definitely won’t cut it, so thank God for platforms
like Triberr, which give me tons of exposure
for every post I write. If you’re not on Triberr
and you’re serious about promoting your work, you should try and get in a Tribe.
The benefits outweigh the negatives in my mind.
Now, I’m off to see if I can recharge my
batteries and do something about my memory bank. What are you gonna do to get
those jobs done today?
Depending on what you're doing for promotion, an hour can fly by!
ReplyDeleteGlad I'm on Triberr as well. I usually send out one link to my post and that's it, so the backup really helps.
Yup, I've gotten a lot of mileage through Triberr too.
DeleteI haven't heard of Triberr before... But that's nothing new!
ReplyDeleteBish, you made me chuckle. Think of it as Twitter on steroids.
DeleteRandom Tweets is all I can manage. Of course, you don't want to be the author that Tweets only about his or her book either.
ReplyDeleteNow to get back to my to do list before it grows again.
True that, Diane. Nobody wants to be around a tweeter who yells 'buy my book' all day.
DeleteI know people love it, but I think Twitter is overrated. A limit of 140 characters makes it hard to interact with others, imo.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, Mark. I have to pare words when I'm responding to tweets.
DeleteI don't think I'm old enough to be losing my memory but I am. Hopefully it's just because of my kids and not something else. I've always been pretty good at keeping lists and that helps me a lot. I still need to get more organized with it, but it keeps me sane. :)
ReplyDeleteLists help me too, Leigh, but I find that half the time I think I can remember stuff so I don't write them down and then I'll draw blanks as to what I'm supposed to be doing. :)
DeleteGood timing on this piece for me, Joy. I'm trying to make my online social time, more like a facet of my "job" which mostly is about writing. Sometimes I switch those two priorities and get too involved, socially I too try to keep a list for the day, but am not always as successful as I'd like!
ReplyDeleteBoy, do I know about that, Julie. Facebook can be such a huge timesuck for me, but I guess since we are people first and marketers second that it comes with the territory. Balance - easy to say, so hard to maintain.
DeleteI think that was Charmaine Clancy's blog where you read the article about concentrating on one thing a day. It was a great article. And yes, Triberr is seriously handy!
ReplyDeleteLynda, yes, you're a peach. That's where I read that article! Thanks. Isn't is the worst thing when you can't remember where you found the good stuff? Love me some Triberr. :)
DeleteLists are good reminders.
ReplyDeleteI also need to divide it into different lists depending on the priority assigned to each task, because if I write down too many things I may end up feeling overwhelmed...
Nice post.
Hi, Julia,
DeleteThat's a good approach. We all have different things that work for us. I find that if I fragment my lists I'm not as effective.
I fidn I dont even bother with twitter as a communication tool anymore J.L. I'm just not clever enough to put a whole point in less than a sentence. I'm gonna wrk on getting to know this Ttibal thing better. Thank you
ReplyDeleteHi, Wendy,
DeleteHope all is good with you. Yeah, Twitter does take some getting used to. Even now, I'm still learning how to cut words to say what I want to.
I haven't even made it to twitter (hey, the blog thing was a huge step for this old lady!). But I love lists. I love long lists with lots of small, trivial tasks on them. I get such a feeling of accomplishment from crossing off the things I would have done anyway.
ReplyDeleteHey, Rebecca,
DeleteThere's no shame in that. I've resisted Pinterst & Tumblr because I don't manage the social networking sites I'm on well enough as far as I'm concerned. Yup, ticking off things gives a warm, fuzzy feeling. :)
I used to be a list person as well. Loved my lists. But as I got older I found that the lists were like a reminder of all the things I did not do, so I stopped using them. Now I'm just a catch as catch can kind of girl. Like Bish, I've never heard of Triberr. I'll have to check it out, thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi, Anne,
DeleteHaven't quite looked at lists like that. :) You might have something there.
I avoid lists like the plague, although I now have two I used to keep track of my writing projects.
ReplyDeleteAs for the marketing idea, it sounds good, although I'm finding that marketing is taking up more and more of my time...
For me, it's a kind of Catch-22 situation. When I've writing I'm worrying about what's not happening on the marketing front and when I'm networking and such, I worry that I should be doing more writing. :)
Delete