I’m a little obsessed right now.
Not with being more productive. I’m already pretty good on that front. Work is my thing, like it or not.
What I’m obsessed with is efficiency. Doing things that move me toward my goals. So—not getting more done in the same amount of time. Getting the right things done, in the same amount of time.
In January, I didn’t work anymore than usual. I definitely had the same 24 hours a day as I always do. But holy crap, I got a lot done. I thought you might be interested in seeing what exactly that means.
How Many Hours?
I worked on writing during the one-hour writing sprint we do on Youtube at 9am EST Monday-Friday. I wrote during that hour on the weekends as well. Plus the 10 minute writing sprint every single day. 35 hours.
I also worked for about eight hours during the all-day write on January 2 and I plan to on January 30 as well. 16 hours.
Every Friday this month, I evaluated my schedule and how much progressed I’d made on each project and decided if I needed to spend some of my day off writing. I wrote for about two hours each on January 14 and January 21. 4 hours.
I’m writing this on Thursday, January 27. I’ll probably write for a couple of hours tomorrow, so that I don’t have to play catch-up during the all day write. 2 hours.
The only writing that I did outside those hours was on the theme emails and the posts I wrote for Substack. 4 hours.
The video recordings are not included in the amount of time I spent writing. They were not scripted.
So that’s a total of 61 hours writing. Or an average of just barely over 2 hours a day.
The Work!
Okay, here goes! I’ve divided this list into my work ‘buckets.’ Or the types of writing that I worked on this month.
Fiction: traditionally published
5000 words during our January 2 all-day write. I also shared the first chapter with my workshop group, which required a read-through edit.
(We have another all-day write on January 30 and my plan is to write 5000 more words of this story that day.)
Fiction: indie published
I planned my novel Sonnet and as I write this, I’m at 15,000 words. I expect to be at 20,000 words on January 31.
Fiction: serially published
I finished editing episode one of The Undergrounders and sent it to my editor.
I finished edited episode two of The Undergrounders and it’s ready to be sent to my editor next month.
Each episode is about 15,000 words long. They were already written, but as a novel. I edited them for serialization.
I created my Substack, where I’ll publish episode one next month and wrote four posts of about 1000 to 1500 words.
I completed and sent off the brief for The Undergrounders cover.
I recorded three episodes of The Serial Killers vlog with Adrienne, Zach, Li, and Terri.
Short non-fiction
I wrote a 12,000-word short non-fiction book about creating a personal writer’s style guide, edited it, and sent it to my editor.
I’ve applied about half of the edits I received back. I’ll have those finished by January 31.
I’ve worked with Adrienne on keywords and choosing a title, as well as giving her feedback for a cover.
I’ve started to think about next month’s short-nonfiction book (a collection of writing prompts.)
In case you’re curious, my income from short non-fiction increased from about $300 to about $550 this month. There is nothing that sells books better than another new book.
Long Non-fiction
I created a proposal for a Writer Archetype book that I’ll be able to use this year as I work on writing that book.
Low-Content books
I worked with Adrienne on creating a low-content FRED (the Ninja Writer’s accountability calendar.) She designed it, though. Cause—I am definitely not an artist!
I wrote the two-page introduction for the print FRED calendars.
Sent for proofs, marked them up for edits, then sent for proofs again.
They’ll be available this weekend! I’m so excited. They’re gorgeous.
Brainstormed more low-content books.
Emails
I wrote four Friday newsletters around our monthly theme (an introduction to social media for writers.)
I wrote a 15-minute read on Medium for the final newsletter.
I created several resources.
I recorded a video with Adrienne and Juneta for Newsletter #2.
I created and wrote a short email course to go along with the theme.
Blogging
I wrote ten blog posts this month.
Just in case you’re curious, my views increased from 22,841 in December to 33,286 in January. My income on Medium just about doubled from about $300 to about $600.
Other
I wrote the workshops for the Ninja Writers Mastermind’s four meetings in January.
I created a template for a new workshop that I’ll send out to some Ninja Writers in the next week to see if they’d be interested in giving me feedback. (AKA vetting.)
I completely planned my next writing year. I know exactly what to work on every single day of 2022.
The Words
Let’s see. Here’s the breakdown of this month’s writing, in an average of two hours a day:
Wrote about 20,000 words of fiction
Edited about 15,000 words of fiction
Wrote about 12,000 words of nonfiction
Wrote a 5-page nonfiction proposal (about 3000 words)
Wrote ten blog posts (about 15,000 total words)
Wrote four Substack posts (about 5000 total words)
Wrote four newsletters, plus the associated resources and recorded a video (about 3000 words)
Created a short email course (about 1200 words)
Helped to create a low-content book and published it (about 1000 words)
Brainstormed more low-content books
Created three vlog episodes (The Serial Killers)
Wrote four lessons for the Ninja Writers Mastermind (about 4000 words)
That’s about 76,200 words written or edited in 61 hours.
I am on track for all of my projects for the second month in a row. It’s funny—I catch myself worrying that I won’t be able to keep up, if I think about it too hard. But so far, there isn’t any indication that I won’t.
In other words, I get a little anxious because I’ve got so many things I want to do and what if I can’t??? But I haven’t had to struggle, at all, to keep up. I just do what’s in today’s box on my editorial calendar.
Day in, day out.
I didn’t work any more than I usually do, but I got so much more done. I put forth the same amount of effort. But that effort all went toward the exact projects I needed it to on any given day.
Creating an editorial calendar for my whole year is a game changer.
Amazing. trying not to get overwhelmed by your volumne and take home the lessons on planning! I am already past my monthly goal of 30 hours on editing Man Pregnant! thanks to you!!!! all the best