Tag: (business) Time Management

Geeking Science: Notifications & Interruptions

Erin Penn

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

Every time a person switch tasks, energy is drawn from their cognitive processing. Humans are built to switch tasks every 20 minutes or so; varies from person-to-person and by age. Have a sit-till task, then a doing task. Learning, then resting. Sermons break up long periods of sitting with some song. Working in the field for a while, then a break to take care of the animal. If you are in a lecture, you might find your eyes and mind wandering at the twenty-to-thirty-minute mark.

Modern life overloads this switch task capability with notifications. Beep, beep, beep goes the phone. Co-workers popping in the office for a “quick question.” By the end of the day, the cognitive processor is done with adjusting tasks and decision making. Suddenly pizza or fried chicken looks like a good option on the way home instead of the healthy meal vaguely mapped out in the head from the last grocery trip. Never mind food going bad in the fridge, health issues with salt, and budgets being destroyed. You don’t have time or energy to make a decision.

You are not alone. Research has shown constant interruptions decrease the financial decision-making skills. By living from interruption to interruption, one only lives in the “now”. Long-term goals and critical thinking escape out the window when someone is always coming in through the door with the next new thing. This is a problem for day-to-day life.

And for your writing. If all your cognitive juices are used up before you even drive home, tapping them for creative energy to write at the end of the day becomes impossible.

I can’t write much during the tax season, especially when I’m assigned to a Walmart location. I need to answer the phones and answer all the “quick questions” of passerbys – while dealing with the client, keeping aware of the surroundings to protect their information, monitor emails for needed information, and manage the line. Oh, and the texts from my co-workers who have questions (as well as texts from friends and family about other things in the life, deciding on my food, and taking care of the social media related to my writing/editing occupations).

Ways to free up energy focus on reducing the decision-making and task-switching. If possible, group phone notifications to just three times per day at work. The 8 am coffee break and settle in to work; noon for lunch “conversation” for personal notifications or one for after-lunch getting back into the saddle, then four or four-thirty to close out the day. Five or five-thirty for the drive home for personal responses. People who trim the constant beep-beep-beep down to just three groups per day say they are more productive and less stressed. (Glick, 2022)

Other ways to reduce the cognitive load include making a list of the tasks you WANT to accomplish in the day. When one task is done, look at the list and move on. This way you don’t have to wrack you brain after each task for a new one. Create habits like at the end of the day, flip the hourglass for one group of writing (It’s still working for those following at home about my writing/editing life!). These habits reduce the switch-task costs. Figure out was to cut out distractions, the “just a moment” interruptions. Putting a sign on the door for the work-at-home saying “work hours are 8 to noon and one to five – Any interruptions mean I work over, which mean you do dishes.”

WRITING EXERCISE: Figure out one thing to reduce your cognitive load – either reduction of decision-making or switching tasks – and implement it. For example, setting up notifications to only ding three times a day or turning off the Facebook notifications altogether. Or create a habit, like laying out your clothes the night before so you don’t have to make choices before you have your coffee.

Good luck at limiting your interruptions and restoring your cognitive load to manageable levels.

Comment below what cognitive load burdens are heaviest for you, what you are working on for the Writing Exercise, and how it turned out this week. Follow up in a month or two about it’s impact on your time management and self-care.

Bibliography

Glick, Molly. “Phone Notifications are Messing with Your Brain.” Discovermagazine.com. 2022 April 29. https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/phone-notifications-are-messing-with-your-brain – last viewed 5/5/2022

My Strategy Plan for 2022 (Making It Your Business)

Erin Penn

Photo by Jeriden Villegas on Unsplash

For this month’s Writer’s Exercise, I discussed Ms. Klansky’s strategic plan implementation postings and then challenged people to create their own. Strategic Plans are great to have, especially if audited because you haven’t made a profit three out of five years on your tax documents. Having Plans on hand helps prove an INTENT to make money.

I wanted to do the writing exercise myself to shake things up that have slid because of the pandemic. With a strategic plan in hand, I can focus on my writing.

Mission Statement:
Create entertaining and marketable stories which show healthy relationship choices, present educational items, and challenge people to do better.

Setting Goals:
1. Increase sellable words volume.
2. Get blog up-to-date by December 2022. (Edit: According to a reasonable production amount, goal changed to March 31, 2023)
3. Produce novels regularly, setting up a successful production line by December 2022.
4. Stay healthy.

Developing Strategies (Brainstorming):
1. Increase sellable word volume

  • Write Daily – showing up / Butt in Chair (BIC); Daily word goal (worked before for about two months); Daily time goal (never worked). Prime the pump mini-stories to kick-start the day (distracting for me). Control doom scrolling and internet time – so BIC is focused properly. Ritual to set the mood and drop into writing quickly.
  • Writing day/”Date Your Writing” – A day set aside for writing or a time set aside specific to writing, like a date which cannot be superseded.

2. Blog up-to-date – Approach by doing one type of blog at a time. Or maybe a year at a time. Keep up on the now and do a couple extra daily. Figure out how much I need to do so I can figure out how to split it up.

3. Produce novels regularly – Focus on getting a series out at a time. Focus on singles because easier to complete. Is series or singles better? Outline – draft – or jump in? I’ve always thought of myself as a planner, but I seem to be working better as a pantser with the blogging. What process? Which stories?

4. Stay Healthy – Movement, Doctor appointments, keep health insurance $$$, and eating. Walk / collect litter every day; yard work, work for post office two or three days a week, buy healthy food to eat at home. Dentist and doctors visits.

Specifying Actions:
1. Increase sellable word volume

  • Write daily through one flip of the hourglass.
  • Caveats – missing one day a week is allowed.
  • Evaluation – Review monthly to see if this habit is still working for me. (Note: It has been working okay for a week now (March 2022)).

2. Get the blogs up to date. – Make December 1 to March 30 “Blog Season” to keep writing skills up during package months and tax season, but acknowledging not having the energy for bigger works.

  • During Blog Season – Write at least two blogs a day until caught up. (Edit for evaluation: Fourteen blogs weekly)
  • During Novel Season – Do three blogs a week to maintain blog so don’t fall behind
  • Evaluation – Make sure reach weekly requirements.

3. Produce novels regularly – Create two genre novels a year while working for post office and doing taxes.

  • “Novel Writing Season” – From April 1 to July 30 (novel 1); From August 1 to Nov 30 (novel 2) – four months each.
  • Tuesday is “Novel Writing Day” – All day for the novel and only the novel. Flip the hourglass at least three times. (Morning, afternoon, evening) Not allowed to schedule against it, unless moving the Novel Writing Day to another day.
  • Word goal per week for novel – 5,000 words for the first three months (65,000), fourth month is editing and cleanup. Aim on novel writing day is half the volume (2,500) and five other days of (500) each.
  • Evaluation – Daily counts, but more importantly weekly evaluation on Saturday. (Week counts will be from Sunday to Saturday).

4. Stay Healthy

  • Doctor appointments – Make and keep the four recommended doctor appointments: Eye Glasses (done in Feb); Dentist; General Doctor; Woman Doctor. Evaluation: Make one a quarter. Are they complete at the end of the year?
  • Daily exercise – On days not working for the post office, do yardwork or collect litter in the neighborhood.
    • Caveat forgive during tax season.
    • Evaluation: Reassess monthly and see if need to be redirected.
  • Healthy food – Plan weekly meals on Monday.
  • Overall Evaluation: Keep weight below 200. Happy goal would be 185 by the end of 2022.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 11/26/2016

Erin Penn

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

It’s the end of 2021, and I feel like I did nothing. Which is wrong. But between COVID, the post office weekend job, and taxes getting started yet again during this mess, what I really want to do … write … has had very little time.

But … brushing self off … time to remind myself deadlines are good and start aiming for a few again!

“Quick-Tip Tuesday: Deadlines!” by David B. Coe (Magical Words 11/26/2016): goes over the basics.

1. Treat all deadlines as though they are real deadlines.

If you create deadlines for yourself, like a short story by March 31st. Deliver on it. Practice now so that when you sell, you know how to meet deadlines with everything else happening around you.

2. Keep deadlines honest.

Match the deadline to your capabilities. If you can write 3,000 words per week (over four days), then don’t say “a novel a month”.

3. Set intermediate goals.

A novel is too big a chunk for an easily achievable goal. You wouldn’t go – I’m going to get a doctorate degree in 10 years without setting a bunch of intermediate goals like attending classes and finishing courses.

Mr. Coe goes into more detail. Again the link is:

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 3/3/2011

Erin Penn

82946022 © creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime.com
Product vs. Project
Two major processing methods exist to produce stuff, and the concepts hold equally as well for physical/manufacturing (industrial) as for ethereal/information (technology). 
Product provides mass production the ability to have individuals (or machines) to specialize; the object being produced is moved through the line. At the beginning of the line is all the dissembled items and at the end of the line is the finished delivery product. Production Line never ends, several items are always in process at varying stages. Fixing and streamlining a production line tends to be easy because the same thing is being done all the time; you can see where the holdups and bottlenecks of the process are and management can adjust them until the “slowest” part of the line becomes a different part. Each slowest part gets fixed in turn, until everything is as efficient as possible under the present technology and needs of the production line. The downside is production never ends. Each day is more of the same.
Most chores within a home are products. Making meals three times a day goes from groceries restocking through dishes dried and put away. Sweep, mop, and dust once a week. Mow, weed, and pick up branches. Never-ending tasks, but needed for survival. Just like heartbeats and breathing. A school year is another product task line – the student body moves from kindergarten through senior year.
Projects, on the other hand, are one-off tasks. Once done, they are done. But making them more efficient is nigh impossible, because the bottleneck on one project might not be the bottleneck holding up finishing the project on another. In information technology, most items being produced are projects. 
We are about to go into the “project” time of year for homes. Thanksgiving dinner requires a different group of materials than usually is in the house; Christmas presents need to be bought; Halloween costumes need to be decided on. While we may be using last year’s blueprint as a guide, the costumes and presents must be new, and the T-day dinner is nothing like normal food production and throws the normal meal production line into turmoil for about a week. Within school, there might be special projects to break things up for the teachers and students.
Where does writing fall into this? Well, BIC (butt-in-chair) every day would be product line, as is draft to second draft to cleanup to beta reading to editor to publisher to book. Writing a series might have one book in draft stage while another is with the editor and one about to come out and marketing is needing done.
But at the same time, every story is different. If genres switch up, mysteries have a very different process from romances in the skill and tools needed.
Diana Pharaoh Frances wrote about dealing with the Production vs. Project (though used different terms) issues of writing in “The Truth About Writing Books” in Magical Words (3/3/2011):
Most people are either product or project oriented by nature and/or training. By tapping into the mind-set that works best for you, you can harness a business model that best suits your energy production.
WRITING EXERCISE: Create a business model for your product/project nature.
My attempt
I’m a project person. I like thing done. Some personality types like things undecided and are most comfortable with something always flowing. I’m working toward done. I check in my head how long something is taking, look how far I still have to go, and know about how long I have until finish. Like everyone, I always under guess-tamate, but I’m working toward something.
So for my books, I need a project to finish. Unfortunately, right now I’m completely “ooo, shiny” – moving from one idea to the next with my project windows in hours, not weeks. I need to crack down and create a weeks-type project process. And now – with holiday package season kicking off for the post office and tax season around the corner – that isn’t going to happen. Soon though. 2022 will be the year!