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 Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 6:34 am Post subject: Freelancers and Pros (and any with related experience) |
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Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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Location: Your TARDIS
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I'm just curious, what techniques do you use to stay on top of everything when you get busy with lots of projects?
Do you have calenders, reminders, daily word counts that must be written?
That all seems self-explanatory, but I just wondered if anybody had some good techniques or strategies for staying on top of it all?
(Disclaimer: this is a proactive question, I'm not int trouble! I just want to pick your brains)
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Jim Groves
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OD's Resident and Original Loki |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 7:37 am Post subject: |
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I sit in the corner in the fetal position and slowly rock back and forth... It doesn't actually resolve anything, mind you. But it amuses my wife and kids.
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John Ling
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| ChristinaStiles |
| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 8:02 am Post subject: |
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I plot things out on calendars in terms of due dates. I don't have a daily word limit, as I don't write on the 4 days I work (I have 13-hour days with my long commute). That leaves weekends for me to get things done, and I just give myself a general idea where I want to be by the end of each weekend. I'm one of those perceiver types on the Myers-Briggs type, so I kind of go with the flow rather than plot everything out to the nth degree. I need to learn to be more "J" (judging) than "P," though. Maybe when I grow up. 
EDIT: And, I'm so happy to have Ben keeping me on track with this project! I will benefit from the added structure.
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Christina Stiles
Journeys to the West Lead, Midgard Tales Co-Lead, & Dark Deeds Lead Designer
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Bite Me! The Gaming Guide to Lycanthropes |
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 8:54 am Post subject: |
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| ChristinaStiles wrote: |
| EDIT: And, I'm so happy to have Ben keeping me on track with this project! I will benefit from the added structure. |
I actually like have a minder myself.
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Jim Groves
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| Daigle |
| Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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Short answer? Just. Keep. Going.
There are days when I know I have to knock out X number of words each day to not be behind on my projects, but I’m just not feeling it. I’ll sit down at the keyboard and can’t even bring myself to open the document(s), but I’ll find that if I get started, even if it’s a slog the first half hour, I’ll be rolling along nicely in time.
Now, I tend to take on multiple projects at the same time, and that requires me to use a calendar and keep myself on point about each one of my responsibilities on a daily basis. In addition to using digital calendars (Google, my phone), I also keep a small card on my desk with each project and it’s deadline in order. All I have to do is glance off to the side of my keyboard to remind myself that someone needs something so I need to get to work.
I try to write every day, but sometimes that doesn’t work out. Life comes up. My favorite times to write is either early after I wake up and no one else is stirring in the house or late at night, but neither of those are conducive to the 9-5 day job scene, so I get most of my work done on the weekends (or nights before I come into work looking like hammered poop.)
As I said above, I often take on more than one project at the same time. It requires a lot of honesty about myself to accurately judge what I can handle and what I can’t. I enjoy having these multiple projects because if one night I’m working on manuscript A and hit a creative dead end, I can always switch to manuscript B and get something accomplished for the night. I recently found my stress test limit this fall when I found myself with five projects at the same time, three of them due all within 10 days of each other. During the middle of that, I gave each project a dedicated day and worked one day on each of them in order until I got them all to a place where I either needed to focus on one for a few days in a row or wanted to focus on one for a few days in a row. |
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