Time Management Tuesday: Managing Chaos With Approximating Correct Behavior

I was a big believer in approximating correct behavior when my children were little. If they got anywhere near close to a behavior I was hoping for, instead of complaining about the near miss, I rewarded whatever they did. I took it as a win. My idea was that step-by-approximating-step, they would reach what I was shooting for. I can't recall how often that worked, but at least we avoided a lot of conflict.

Writers can manage some of the chaos in their lives by encouraging a similar attitude in themselves. Particularly in situations in which we've set up short-term objectives around a schedule, we have to be careful not to fall apart when (notice I didn't say if) the schedule can't be adhered to as we fantasized it would, when we can't reach the behavior we were hoping for.

Falling apart causes chaos. 

A Case In Point

Last month I took part in FlashNaNo2020. The plan/schedule for that was to write 30 flash stories in 30 days. I veered off into flash essays and memoirs, so I wasn't sticking to the plan for that right from week 2.

It also became clear at the end of the first week that I wasn't going to meet the planned, "correct behavior," writing 30 pieces of flash in 30 days. I had to put that correct behavior aside and accept that I was going to have to approximate it. The alternative to approximating correct behavior would have been to give in to the dread what-the-hell effect. "I'm obviously not going to hit the behavior I want, so what-the-hell? I might as well give up on this whole thing."

The what-the-hell effect is a lot like what passes for chaos at my house.

What Can Writers Gain From Approximating Correct Behavior?

 

Consider National Novel Writing Month. How many people actually complete a 50,000 word draft of a novel during National Novel Writing Month? Many of them probably realize early on that they're not going to make it. They can fall apart into the chaos of either struggling with work and personal commitments in order to continue trying for the correct behavior or or they can feel that they are incompetent failures. OR they can accept an approximation of correct behavior. In which case, they might come away with a 10- or 20-thousand start on a new writing project. That is a win they can run with in the future. Ask anyone who has written a book.

 

The pressure to meet your desired behavior on a traditional writing retreat (meaning writing goals) must be intense. You've put down some money to be there, you may be walking away from a day job or family to write. Fall apart on Saturday afternoon when things aren't going well? Or shoot for approximating correct behavior and go home with something instead of nothing?

 

As far as my FlashNaNo2020 experience is concerned, I ended up with 15 pieces of flash. I dipped into my writing journal for many of them, which was very gratifying. I'd wanted to do something with some of those thoughts for years. One of my writings from last month was published at a humor site last week. I rewrote one traditional short story as flash and am considering submitting it this month.

Between those 15 new stories/essays/memoirs (some of which need some more work) and the material  I produced at my flash workshop this past summer, I have quite a bit of new writing to submit. This is important, because I've read of a number of writers who manage to get 5 to 10 stories published in a year. They do that, though, by making huge numbers of submissions. You need content to submit in order to do that.

Descending into chaos when you can't maintain the correct behavior you think you need to write doesn't get you material to submit. Approximating correct can.

 

Time Management Tuesday: May Has Thirty-one Days

Remember The What-the-Hell Effect?

It's two o'clock in the afternoon. I haven't done any writing. What-the-hell, the day is shot. I might as well quit until tomorrow. Yeah, you've heard about this before.

The What-the-Hell Effect relates to self-discipline and self-discipline, or lack thereof, has a big impact on managing time. Dealing with the What-the-Hell Effect involves being mindful and always keeping in mind that there's no reason to quit until tomorrow when you have a couple of hours of light left! Metaphorically speaking.

Time is gone. You can still do something with the time you have left.

We've Been Down The What-the-Hell Effect Road Before

I wrote about the What-the-Hell Effect seven years ago in relation to the May Days project I often take part in. And damned if I'm not going to write about it again in relation to this year's May Days.

Seven years ago, I missed chunks of my May Day work time because I was sick. This year we had a modest family health emergency that involved us hauling out of here at five the afternoon of April 30 and spending Friday May 1st helping out with some young relatives. Everything has resolved itself well. But, you know, it was the first day of this new May Day initiative, and I knew I had some other family things coming up I wanted to do and it just seemed like, well, what-the-hell? That's over.

Except that May has thirty-one days. I repeat, thirty-one. I lost two days last week, one of which was a Saturday and, let's face it, I probably wouldn't have worked then, anyway. And, yes, I may lose three to five more work days to family. Out of thirty-one.

Okay, I also have more pandemic work to do, since I need to make some more masks in odd times, and there's always vegetables to cook and freeze before they go bad, because it's going to be a while before I get more food in.

Still, May has thirty-one days.

I worked multiple hours yesterday and for maybe an hour this morning. I might be tied up Friday, but I should be able to get some hours of work in tomorrow and Thursday.

After that, there's three more weeks left to May.

The What-the-Hell Effect isn't so much about the time you've already lost, often for legitimate reasons. It's about the time you still have and could lose.

Work some of it. Any of it. That's all you've got to do.

Time Management Tuesday: The What-the-hell Effect Is Looking Really Good Right Now

I don't remember my other attempts at National Novel Writing Month being as rough as this one. I haven't found any posts relating to my first attempt back in 2003 or '04, and last year I knew by the time I was 8 days in that I'd made a mistake. I remember more excitement the first time and less angst last year.


Even this year, I was feeling pretty good before Thanksgiving week. Sure, I was only able to work 3 days a week most weeks, if I was lucky. But that didn't seem bad when you consider that last summer I was only able to work 3 hours a week. And the first weekend I was able to put in a few minutes of work here and there. I don't usually work on weekends, so it seemed as if  I was cooking with gas, as they say.

Why Bother Continuing To NaNoWriMo?

But Thanksgiving. Wow. Had a great time, by the way, but I didn't work from the Wednesday before the big day until Sunday afternoon. It doesn't take long to get used to not working. And then when it was time to go back to work, I had only four days left for the month. Even though I never had any expectation of reaching the National Novel Writing Month 50,000 word goal, I'd only finished three new chapters. I have at least eight more to go. This is me we're talking about. I'm not writing any eight chapters in four days. I'm not writing any eight chapters in forty days.

Man, the what-the-hell effect is looking good. Because, what-the-hell, since I'm not going to complete anything with the NaNoWriMo project, anyway, I could quit and work on the revisions that are hanging over my head. They're important. It's not like I would be blowing off NaNoWriMo to start baking for Christmas or do the laundry that's piled up after having house guests. Or getting ahead on some cooking. Or recover from Thanksgiving.

But if I kept slugging away yesterday and today and keep on keeping on tomorrow and Thursday, I may finish a fourth chapter. Hey, a chapter is a chapter.

Also, forcing myself to stay with this is building up some discipline. You can never have too much of that. I can't, anyway.

Could The NaNoWriMo Pool Of Writers Tell Us Something About Discipline And Using Time?

According to NaNoWriMo Statistics , 384,126 people took part in National Novel Writing Month last year with over 34,000 of them hitting the 50,000-word goal. The 350,000 who didn't make it are far more interesting to me than the ones who did. For instance:

• Why didn't they make it? How many quit and how many worked right up to the finish line but just didn't write enough?
• When did those who quit quit? Was it at the end of the month, because, what-the-hell, there's not enough time left to make a difference? Was it much earlier when they couldn't keep up with the 1,166 word daily goal? Because, what-the-hell, they were too far in the hole to ever write themselves out?
• Do people who do National Novel Writing Month more than once see an improvement in their result the second and later times?

Seriously, aren't we talking a research project waiting to happen? A research project on what being discouraged does to self-discipline and time management.

Time Management Tuesday: Getting Up Off The Mat...Again

Enjoying Ill Health On Retreat

I am sure you all missed my usual summary of my week last Friday, which I cannot link to because it doesn't exist. Yes. That is why you didn't see it. It's not that I didn't do anything last week, it's that I didn't do as much as I'd planned to with all those wonderful 2017 goals and objectives I was talking about a few weeks ago. It wasn't just that I was back from Retreat Week, and it's hard to get back into work mode after retreating. No, what happened is that I got sick on Retreat Week. And while I wasn't all that sick, when I got home, I didn't get better. By Monday I was coughing all day, and while I was able to make a tour of some town libraries to pick up Cybils books Tuesday morning, by that evening I was miserable with a headache, and the next afternoon I was on the couch all afternoon with a fever, and the fever came back Thursday night, and Friday I was told I had bronchitis.

So there has been no consistent sticking  to goals in a time efficient and productive way. And while I'm feeling better this evening, I'm afraid it won't last, even though I've been chowing down antibiotics for three days, haven't had a fever since Saturday, and am hardly coughing at all. And if it does last, I need to step up my elder care work to relieve the family member who has been covering for me these last two weeks and then there's a follow-up appointment I haven't even made yet to a doctor to make sure my chest has quieted down.

All of which will take time. Time when I won't be working.

Stop Whining, Gail

 

Fortunately, I had something similar happen--in January, again, as a matter of fact--three years ago. Actually, that was much worse, because it involved surgery. I got over that and went back to work. What's a little bronchitis?

Let's go over the lessons I learned then.

First Off, Get Zenny

Last week is over. It's time to give up regret over it not turning out the way I expected it to. The work I need to do for family is in the future. Dwelling on it will only cause anxiety. Stay focused on the present and what I can be doing right now. If I'm in this house right now, I can be working.

Rely On Small Units Of Time

When you're sick, or recovering from being sick, thinking about working in week-long or day-long or sometimes even afternoon-long units of time can be a big mistake. When it can't happen, you get discouraged. You risk succumbing to the dread What-the-Hell Effect. When you're sick, or recovering from being sick, you may have a much better chance of hanging in for forty-five minutes. Or thirty minutes. Or even twenty minutes.

You can get something done with a number of small units of time. Which beats getting nothing done at all.

I kept the blog up last week, for instance. Blog posts are great for small units of time between fever spikes. I got my Chinese New Year post done and up, which actually supported a goal for this year. I finished revising a chapter. Okay, it was a three-page introductory chapter, but it was an important piece of another goal. I've got a good start on next month's Connecticut Children's Lit Calendar, and while a few times this past week I was too uncomfortable to read, I have only one and maybe three-quarters books of Cybil reading left to do.

It is not what I imagined doing last week. But if I can put away what I imagined I was going to achieve, I can recognize that last week wasn't a waste. Without the unit system, it would have been.

Speaking of my Chinese New Year post, as I just did: I'm offering a chance to win a copy of Andrea Wang's marvelous The Nian Monster. Check it out and leave a comment.

Time Management Tuesday: "Done" Lists

Sometime this past year I read a suggestion that workers forget about "to-do" lists for managing time and focus their attention on "done" lists.  Since I spend time each December doing something similar for my whole year, this seems like a good opportunity to consider this time management option.

If I've written about "done" lists before, I can't find it now. Nor can I find the original article that included this material. Getting a handle on that sort of thing seems as if it would be good for time management, doesn't it? Another post.

Why Keeping Track Of What You've Done Could Work

The theory behind preferring "done lists" to "to-do" lists is that much that goes onto "to-do" lists is never done and will often just be dropped. In fact, I can also recall reading decades ago about prioritizing "to-do" lists into A, B, and C categories, planning to eventually drop the Cs altogether at some point, if they lingered on the list too long. Which kind of raises the question, What's the point?

"Done" lists, on the other hand, can become motivators, particularly if you create real lists and you're the kind of person who gets a kick out of some kind of visual reward.

A Couple Of Examples From The Life Of Gail

Exercise "Done" List

First off, let's look at an easy application from my personal life. I have no trouble exercising each day. I'm a bit of a plodder, but I'm happy to walk, sit on a stationary bike with a book, use an aerobics DVD, do some resistance training while watching TV, some yoga, go biking. What is more difficult for me is to organize exercise around specific goals--maintaining strength, improving flexibility, or any of the other functional fitness things we're supposed to be doing. I'm a bit of a binge exerciser. I've tried planning to do X number of minutes of some activity Y times a week, but I doubt I've ever made it through seven days with that kind of thinking. I always went back to running with whatever felt good at the moment. Except not running, of course. I've never been a runner.

Soon after I read about "done" lists, though, I came up with the idea of keeping track of what I've done for types of exercise instead of planning what I had to do. Yes, there are four types of exercise I should be doing each week, and I should be doing each one of them a certain number of times. But instead of assigning days, I jot down what I did with a number, the number designating that it is the 1st, 2nd, or whatever time I've done something in a week-long period. I'm getting a lot more success with this system, in large part because I see that I've done something once, and I'm motivated to do it again so I can see that I've done it twice.

Having done something, motivates me to do more. I've been doing this with exercise for two or three months now. That's far longer than I've ever made it with planning out what and when I'm going to do ahead of time.

Submission Boards "Done" List

A second, more professional example involves what I'm calling my Submission Boards, which you'll see to your right.Technically, this is a very poor way of keeping track of manuscript submissions. What you should do...well, I won't go into that, because, though I've kept track of submissions a variety of ways over the years, in all likelihood none of them were "what you should do."

But the Submissions Boards...the Submissions Boards are another example of how having done something provides motivation to do more. When I could see on the first board that I'd only made a few submissions this year, I definitely wanted to submit more. And when I got close to thirty submissions, I wanted to hit the big 3 0. Yesterday I hit the big 3 3 for the year. That's what bicyclists call a third of a century. (Really, they call 33 and a third miles a third of a century, but I haven't figured out how to do a third of a submission.)

National Novel Writing Month might also be described as a "done" list. If you're doing well, having written for fourteen days in a row is a big motivator to write for the fifteenth day. And if you've been not only writing every day but meeting your word goal, you're going to feel good about continuing to work. 

The Opposite Of The What-the-Hell Effect

Remember the What the Hell Effect? It describes how we often give up on a goal when our self-esteem is low because we feel we've failed at doing something we wanted to do, so what the hell? We might as well drop the whole thing. "Done" lists are the opposite of that. We see we've done something, and we're so encouraged that we keep working.

"Done" lists are also a pretty powerful example (at least in my experience) of an external support for willpower. Workers are ""offloading" some of their mental work/working memory to their environment."

Time Management Tuesday: National Novel Writing Month

Today is the first day of National Novel Writing Month, which I had hoped to take part in this year for the first time since 2004. ( I had remarkably little to say about the experience here. So unlike me.) However, because I did a second revision of the mummy book, I didn't have time to prepare. National Novel Writing Month involves writing a 50,000 word draft in one month. It's extremely difficult to do without preparation.

Set Aside Time

I'm a supporter of what I call Set Aside Time, a time scheduled for a specific task. For writers, this might be intensive writing, a binge, you might say. That's what National Novel Writing Month is about. I've heard of even established writers, people who write regularly all year round, taking part in NaNoWriMo in order to jump start new projects.

Word Count And The What-The-Hell Effect

One suggestion I'd make for anyone taking part in National Novel Writing Month is to not let that 50,000 word count requirement work against you. If you're going to make it to 50,000 words in one month, you need to write in the area of 1,666 words a day, every day. Weekends. Thanksgiving. The whole thing. That daily average doesn't sound like much? If you don't make it a few days, the average you have to make for the rest of the month grows larger. And larger and larger. That can become grim.

Remember, willpower failures are most likely to occur when we experience setbacks and feel bad about them. If you start missing your daily goals by week three, or week two, or the end of week one and feel you now have no hope of making your 50,000 word month goal, don't let yourself feel bad about it. You run the risk of giving in to the What-the-Hell-Effect. What the Hell? I'm not going to make it, anyway. There's no hope. I'll just quit.

If you just quit, yeah, there's no hope that you'll make the 50,000 words. Keep going, and who knows? You might experience a couple of really good days and get back on track.

More importantly, though, is that if you don't quit, you may finish the month with 30,000 words on a new project. Or 20,000 words. Or 10,000.  You could finish the month with any kind of start on a manuscript, material you wouldn't have if you hadn't kept working.

Sure, if you don't make the 50,000 word goal, you won't get whatever badge or reward the NaNoWriMo folks give out. (I really don't know what they do.) But is the point of your involvement with National Novel Writing Month to get the NaNoWriMo treat? Or is it to write? Because if it's to write, any writing you do is valuable.

Fine Talk From Someone Who's Not Doing NaNoWriMo This Year, Gail

NaNo Materials I Need To Go Through

I'm not doing National Novel Writing Month in the traditional sense.  What I am going to do, though, is the prep work I should have done before this month. What I'm hoping to have by the end of November is not a completed draft, but the prep work so that I can write a draft in the future. That will be a whole lot more than what I've got on this project now.

We'll talk more about this later.

Time Management Tuesday: The Longest Day Of The Week. Seriously.

Anyone else notice Tuesdays seeming particularly long? Me neither. But it's supposed to be a thing.  "...time can feel like it's passing more slowly on Tuesdays compared to other days of the week."

There are a couple of theories as to why this happens. The one that I can just barely understand goes something like this: Weekends we don't do so much. We're not filing away a lot of events/tasks in our memories. Monday we're transitioning into the work week, still not doing as much as we will later in the week, still not filing away a lot of events/tasks in our memories. "On Tuesdays, we're in the thick of it. Hence, it's possible that our brains generate more discreet memories on Tuesdays, making Tuesdays seem as though they're longer than other days."

A lot about time management involves psyching ourselves out. We work in 45-minute units with brief breaks so that when we start a new unit we think we're starting the day over with a fresh load of will power. It's also a "trick" that provides us with an external support for will power. We try to treat our time slip-ups with compassion so we don't succumb to the what-the-hell effect. Is there some way we can use the illusion that Tuesdays are longer to actually do more?

My guess is no, since it sounds as if those who feel Tuesdays are longer days do so because of their memories of what they've already done and not because they perceive Tuesday as being long, and thus providing more opportunities to do things, while they are actually living through the day.

The theory above lends support to my impression that Mondays are lousy transitional days, though. "On Mondays, we're just getting caught up." All day?

Time Management Tuesday: That Do More With Less Time Plan Fell Apart For A While

My May Days Project got off to a really bad start.

The Plan

You will recall that I was planning to generate work on a project that I'd set aside last year and, at the same time, work on increasing my word count as a way to do more with less time. So I've been using 2,000 to 10,000: How to Write Faster, etc. by Rachel Aaron to help me do this. Aaron writes that a key element in writing faster is knowing what you're going to write before you get started. So in addition to bringing myself up to speed with this project by revising the few chapters I'd already written, I was going through my materials on characters, historical elements, timing, etc., to help me plan some scenes, which as far as this organic writer is concerned, would be knowing what I was going to write.

Last Tuesday, two days before the beginning of May, I took a look at the scene file I'd started last year. Yikes! It was a mess. I had made a list of scenes, but the beginning scenes didn't entirely match what I'd actually written (not a problem, it's the result that matters) and later scene plans weren't all that helpful, in part because of how the story now started. Well, I said, you will spend tomorrow, Wednesday, cleaning this stuff up and getting some scene plans in order.

What Could Go Wrong?

However, Tuesday evening I received a request for chapters and a synopsis for another manuscript that I had submitted to someone. Yikes again! This was good news, right? Of course, it was.  Someone was interested in one of my projects. But I didn't have a synopsis ready to go. As I told you this past weekend, I spent five days writing it. That included the Wednesday I was going to spend on scene planning and the Friday I was going to spend writing. (Thursday is family/runaround day at Chez Gauthier, and I've given up pretending I work on weekends.)

We have talked about these time management issues here before. That synopsis was what is known as reactive work. I needed to drop the creative work I was doing to react to an incoming request. It was also an example of situational time management. I had to adapt very rapidly to a new situation.

What The Hell, Right? No.

The synopsis went out Sunday, so my situation has changed again. What should I do now? I wasn't able to finish my planning and I wasn't able to get started with writing. What the Hell. I might as well do something else.

That is what's known in self-discipline circles as the What-the-Hell Effect. It's a major reason for self-discipline failures. Instead of staying on task with a diet, people say what the hell at ten in the morning because they ate two doughnuts at nine and figure they might as well give up and start again tomorrow. In reality, they've got many hours left in the day during which they can stay with their program. The same is true with managing time, whether you're talking about a day or a week or a month. I have a lot of time left in this month that I can use for my planned project, even though I've lost some of it early on.

Fighting The What-the-Hell Effect Leads To Results You Can See

Last week was then, this is now, and now is an entirely different situation to work within. Additionally, I don't need to feel bad about myself for not working on my May Days project last week. (Feeling bad is the big reason for giving into the What-the-Hell Effect.) I was working and working on something significant, just not the significant something I planned to work on. Yesterday I continued with the last of the revising of the early chapters of my May Days manuscript, and I have the next few scenes planned. Since I'm an organic writer, just knowing what I'm going to be doing a few scenes ahead may be the best I can expect. We'll have to see how the rest of the month goes.

Oddly enough, I had What-the-Hell issues with last year's May Days project, too. And, yet, the work I ended up doing that month led to more work later in the year, and I'm back on the same manuscript now.  That, lads and lasses, is an example of why fighting the What-the-Hell Effect is so important.