Writing and Schedules
Ever since my travels started back in May (since then, I’ve been in Baton Rouge and Alexandria, Louisiana; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Norcross (Atlanta), Georgia; and Denver, Colorado; not to mention the various and sundry cities passed through and the Nashville and Denver Airports on the way), as well as spending the month of June finishing A Case for Love, during which I allowed myself to start keeping vampire-like hours, I’ve had a really hard time making myself stick to a regular sleep/wake schedule—much less a regular writing/working schedule.
Even though today got off to a very late start for me, it’s the day I’ve designated as the first day I’m going to start getting myself back on a regular schedule. Most of that will involve getting the house cleaned today. I’ve found that sticking to a schedule is much easier with a clean house—if the space I’m in is organized, I feel much more put together and less scattered and distracted.
And, just in case no one’s noticed, I haven’t been keeping up with my 1,500-word-per-day writing goal. Stay on me about that, folks. If you don’t see that counter moving, contact me to find out why! I should be sitting at around 20,000 right now, not 5,000. That’s one of my other goals this week—to start getting caught up on word count on Ransome’s Crossing.
So, since I’ve gotten a late start and I need to get to cleaning and organizing, you’re getting a discussion question today:
How do you organize your life so that you have time for writing? What kinds of tasks do you have to complete before you can allow yourself the freedom to lose yourself in your writing? What things distract you from writing?
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KayeDacus.com 
Kaye, I hate cleaning. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
But it must be done. Sigh.
So to keep myself from keeping like I’m cleaning all the time (five of us in our house), I do certain things each day, and they have to be done before I do any writing.
I got this idea from Flylady’s book. For me the emails didn’t work because then I was on email all day and from there browsing the internet.
But her basic idea was to concentrate on one area/room of the house each week and on the rest do light keep-up cleaning.
So Friday would be my major cleaning day–about one hour. Throughout the week, I’d have fifteen to thirty minute projects each day except weekends.
That of course doesn’t include things like cleaning up the kitchen after meals. But what I love about her is that she helps you set up a routine that works for you. You set up your own schedule, but she guides you through what you should be covering and shows you how little time it takes.
She’s big on cleaning the kitchen sink first, and I think that turns some people off because their kitchen sink isn’t that big a deal to them. But I really do recommend reading it.
She talks about setting up one day for paper work, home or business-related. She talks about the importance of having one day where you schedule fun for yourself. I think for people like us who work from home, her book is an important read. Not just for cleaning the house but for being organized and getting the most out of our day and ourselves without wearing ourselves out at all.
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Oh, I already have my daily schedule for maintenance of the house. The problem is that I’ve really let the whole house go in the last couple of months. Here’s my schedule for maintaining a clean house–and when I start off with a clean house, these only take fifteen to twenty minutes each day:
Monday: Kitchen—cleaning all surfaces—cabinet door fronts, appliances, etc.—rather than just wiping off the stovetop, countertop, and sink daily—mopping the floor.
Tuesday: Living Room—dusting, putting away anything left out—especially the “table” beside my chair—and sweep/wet-Swiffer the floor).
Wednesday: Office (small second bedroom)—organizing, filing, reshelving books, dusting, sweep/wet-Swiffer the floor; also Wednesday is trash-day, so in the evening, trash collected from all rooms and put in the bin, which is then put out on the curb for next morning pick-up.
Thursday: Bathroom & Hallway—(I’m going to try to get in the habit of wiping all surfaces with a Clorox wipe every day so this task doesn’t seem so daunting.) Even though it’s the smallest room in the house, it seems to take the most work, probably because cleaning it means a lot of bending, squatting, and kneeling, none of which are comfortable for me. But it’s good exercise! The kitchen and the bathroom are the only two rooms in the house that get the real mop and not just the Swiffer Wet Jet—because despite the commercials, the thing doesn’t clean the floors as well as a good mopping. Plus, those are the two rooms with vinyl floors, whereas the rest of the rooms have wood. The hallway (very small) gets dusted (especially the AC return-vent) and swept/wet-Swiffered.
Friday: Bedroom, Laundry & Change Bed—Laundry/changing the bed are the two tasks on my list that I’ve never fallen behind on. Now if I could just make everything else a regular habit like this! (When I pull the bed out so that it’s easier to get around the far side of it, I sweep behind/under it, too.) Straighten up room, dust, sweep/wet-Swiffer.
And that covers every room in the house, leaving the weekends free from cleaning. Now to get it in such condition that each day’s housekeeping only takes a few minutes!
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How do I organize my life so I have time for writing?
I don’t. My life is so crazy busy that my writing just gets plopped in there somewhere. Usually in the evenings after dinner when I have kiddos situated doing something or after kids are in bed. Hubby also is kind and will take them on saturday’s to the park so I can have quiet writing time. Oh, and lunch break at work. Yeah… there is no organizing this mess of a schedule.
What tasks do I complete before I write? I cant’ think of anything that I MAKE myself complete, except putting kiddos to bed or getting them settled down for the evening. CLeaning isn’t my priority. If it was, I’d never write. Ever. If I stayed home during the day, it would be different.
All I ask… if anyone is ocming to my house, please forwarn me so I can get my house clean first, kay? (That said… hubby is home during the day and does some of the cleaning, so it isn’t COMPLETE filth…)
Distractions: Kids. Kids. Children. Work. Facebook. Twitter. Kids. Eating. Exercizing. Kids. Dieting. Kids. Blogging. Kids. *grin*
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I have a similar schedule, Kaye. 🙂 And you best get cracking on that book! You have anxious readers to appease!
{not that I’m mentioning any names or anything….}
Jolanthe
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I do like things to be clean. I spent yesterday getting my desk organized and set up in some semblance of order, and unpacking some more boxes.
I have no choice but to clean things one room at a time, and one day at a time. Going on an all-out cleaning spree is a surefire way to overdo and put myself in bed for a day and barely be able to string words into sentences.
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