Is It Time for Spring Cleaning?

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

I love the freshness of spring. Baseball season starts. We freshen up our place from the trials of winter and plant flowers for spring along with other activities. The darkness of winter fades and we celebrate the newness of life with new growth and flowers.

As I ask in this article, is it time for spring cleaning? I’ve found that the more I’m organized and block different parts of my schedule, then it increases my productivity and output. As I’ve mentioned in past entries, almost daily books pour into my mailbox. In general, I unpack them and put them on my bookshelf but over the last few weeks the area for this book has filled. As a part of my spring cleaning, I sorted through some books and took a hard look at each one. Do I have the time to read it? I will look at a few pages and see if the writing is going to hold my interest. If “no” is the answer to these questions, then I remove the book from my shelf and get the books ready to go to a good home elsewhere. This book sorting process is a necessity to organize my office several times a year including spring. 

Creating a Pile Doesn’t Work

Like my bookshelves, I do the same evaluation process with the papers on my desk. From my experience, it doesn’t work to take a piece of paper or a stapled article and put it into a pile. Instead I have developed a system to know exactly where I’m keeping that article and why I’m keeping it. 

I admit every author is different in this area. One of the most prolific writers was Ray Bradbury. Recently an article about Bradbury came across my screen with a photo of his office with piles of paperwork. This novelist created a different system for organization which worked for his writing life. My encouragement is for you to create a working system for how you organize your desk, paperwork, books and other tasks so you continue moving forward each day. 

If You Are Stuck in a Rut...

I have a couple of projects which have been stuck on my desk and have not moved--which is a problem if I want them to get published. I’ve been stuck in a rut and proscratating on this work. I suspect you have a pitch or two which is also stuck. Spring cleaning is a great time to plot and take a new course of action. 

First determine what you want to accomplish? Do you want to increase your speaking? Do you want to sell more books? Do you want to publish more magazine articles? To achieve these goals, you have to take action and increase the amount of your pitches. Maybe you want to be on more podcasts or radio shows? These programs can be an effective way to sell more books and don’t require travel or other elements. The key to booking a radio broadcast or a podcast is pitching to the decision maker?  Craft your pitch and even use a pitch template from someone else if you need some ideas. Then get these pitches into the world. 

When you pitch, you will get turned down (rejected). This process happens to all of us including me. As I’ve written in these articles in the past, you are looking for the right fit and this process involves getting a number of rejections before you get acceptance. Learn what you need to do from others, then continually pitch. It sounds simple but takes consistent effort for it to actually happen. 

When You Haven’t Received a Response

Spring is a great time of year to do follow-up work where your pitches went into a black hole without a response. Did the other person receive the pitch? As editors and agents, we lose things and they get stuck in our email and never processed. I encourage you to use the gentle follow-up approach to prod that other person. Many writers are afraid to follow-up then they wonder why nothing is happening. One of the critical steps for every writer is to follow-up. 

Here’s some other ideas and approaches for your spring cleaning:

• Use a current market guide to make new pitches
• Plan to get to a writer’s conference
• Make new connections on LinkedIN 
• Join an online writer’s group and participate

Each of these actions will take effort on your part as a writer but could yield great results. As I’ve written in the past, it will not fly if you don’t try and try on a consistent basis. 

Each of us have the same amount of time or 24 hours. How you use that time will affect your results. Is it time for you to take some spring cleaning actions? Let me know in the comments.

 

Tweetable:

Spring is a great time to get organized and increase your productivity according to this prolific writer and editor. Is it time for your spring cleaning? Get the details here. (ClickToTweet)

Much of the publishing process is outside of the writer’s control. 10 Publishing Myths helps writers have a realistic perspective and take action. Get 10 Publishing Myths for only $10 +FREE shipping + over $200 of free bonuses.

What Fills Your Daily Schedule?

There is one resource in the possession of everyone: time. Also everyone spends time doing some activity. As you take control of your schedule or time, you can increase (or waste) your day.

As a writer, how to you fill your days? Do you have a plan or schedule? Or is it random and uncontrolled? I work as an acquisitions editor and a writer. I'm grateful for the flexibility of my daily schedule. Yet to some, this empty calendar can be a concern. How do you fill your time?

As an acquisitions editor, I have some writers and literary agents who reach out to me and want to schedule time on the phone or a meeting in person. Other times I attend or speak at a conference and travel away from my office. Yet overall these types of events or meetings are rare to fill my daily schedule.

In this article, I want to give you some of the tools and action steps I take on a regular basis with my life in publishing.  The steps you take will be different but I hope these words will give you some new ideas for your own writing life.

For years I've been active on Twitter and every day I grow my audience on this social media platform with five actions (detailed here and still being done). There has been admittedly hours of time spent in small chunks to achieve this following. It is a regular part of my day whether I am at home or traveling.

Here's some basic principles to help you:

1. Create a system to handle any action you take on regular basis and keep moving forward. For example, if you are writing a book, set a word count goal. This goal can be for the week or even daily. Then consistently write enough words to meet or exceed your goal and you will keep the project moving forward toward completion.

2. Be aware or actively look for tools to help you automate and meet your goals. For example, with my Morgan James Publishing phone calls to authors, I use an application called DialPad. When I call someone using this program, my direct dial New York phone number shows on the recipient's caller ID—even though I live in Colorado. It is a company branding tool that immediately says New York publisher. This tool also keeps a running list of any of my phone calls listing the date and length. It give me a systematic place to keep track of my phone calls. You may or may not use DialPad but find a way to keep track of such information (if it is important to your work).

3. Consistently work on different stages of the work. For example, some of my work is calling authors who have a contract and answering their question.  Another part of my work is processing new submissions to see if they are the right fit for Morgan James and if so, then I champion these authors to my publication board and colleagues. I'm regularly working on brand new authors and also answering email and phone calls from current authors.

My phone has a feature called Reminders. When I have a deadline for my writing or anything else that I need to accomplish, I will often create a reminder. As I use these tools and check off my tasks, I move forward with a productive day.

Your process of filling your schedule with productive activity will be different from mine. Hopefully I have given you some ideas. If you have another tool or tip, please comment below.

Tweetable:

Become more productive. Use three principles from a prolific writer and editor. (Click to Tweet) 

Use Your Limited Supply with Wisdom

While you may not think about it, we have a commodity with limitations: time. Each of us have a finite amount of it yet some people appear to be more productive than others.

I love the title of Bob Bly's book, Make Every Second Count. I've known some productive writers and they tend to be experts at time management.

I've always been an observer of productive writers. Many years ago I interviewed one of these writers. During our session, I had to pause my recorder for a few minutes, excuse myself and take a quick bathroom break. When I returned to the room, this author was not waiting patiently for my return. Instead, he had grabbed those few moments to work on one of his on-going projects and make productive use of the minutes. To some people those actions might have appeared impatient but I could see the productivity.

Back to Make Every Second Count, in the opening pages, Bob Bly says,"How you use your time is largely up to you. Make Every Second Count shows you how to transform time from an enemy into an ally--and become the master of your time, rather than its slave. The best time to start? Right now." (Page 10-11)

Each chapter is packed with specific advice whether you need help with speeding up your work habits, setting goals, saving time and money when you travel, increasing your personal efficiency, using technology to save time, effective networking online, going mobile, delegating outsourcing, getting organized or managing information overload, this book contains something for everyone.

I learned a great deal from it and highly recommend this book as a valuable resource for everyone.

As with any book, the key action step is to apply the instruction into your every day life. Just look at this series of tips in Chapter 13 on Managing Information Overload (and who isn't in this category?):

1. Be selective.

2. Subscribe to a customized/ news/ data service.

3. Get your voice mail under control.

4. Reduce your email correspondence.

5. Protect yourself. Refuse to accept information input you deem unimportant or irrelevant.

6. To overcome this threat to your personal productivity, be highly selective in what you scan, browse, acquire and otherwise take in.

7. Specify your content level. Frequently people communicating with you give you much more information than you need to make a decision.

8. Cleanse and purge frequently.

9. Combine information input with another activity.

10. Know when you have enough information. (pages 202–205)

Not all of these points standalone but give you an idea of the valuable information in this book.

Bob Bly is one of the most prolific writers that I know. Whether you are unpublished or much published, you can gain from reading Make Every Second Count.

Upgrade Equipment Increases Productivity

In some areas of the marketplace, I am one of the first people to jump into it. For example, I've been on twitter for many years and I'm committed to tweeting and growing my following in this area.

When it comes to office equipment, I prefer to use equipment which works. As a general principle, I do not chase the newest gadget or gizmo which catapults into the marketplace. I had been using the same laser printer for years. In recent months, my printer had been groaning and throwing some extra black ink in places that were not attractive along the edges of some pages.

Several weeks ago, I decided to upgrade and change printers. As a part of that process, I switched from a laser printer to an inkjet all-in-one printer.

In the old configuration of my office, I had a workhorse laser printer, a fax machine (which I rarely use) and a flatbed scanner. I researched and did some reading about the differences between laser printers and inkjet printers and learned that much has improved in recent years with inkjet printers. I used google to go to well-respected sites and read reviews of printers from experts and customers.

In addition, I stopped by my local office supply place and spoke with one of their tech guys about printers and looked at various options and brands. I asked a few trusted friends for their input and recommendations.

Then I made my purchase and got an Epson Workforce 845. I ignored the sales person at the office supply who said I needed their $30 super installation service because of the complexity. It was not complicated to install but extremely simple and automated.

The upgrade in my office has simplified my equipment and I eliminated my fax, my laser printer and my scanner. Now all of this function is contained in a single machine.

The Epson Workforce is wireless and with little effort I was able to connect a netbook in our house to the printer.

Also this machine has a sheet-fed scanner. It's particularly handy when I receive a contract from my office. I can print the contract, sign it, scan it and send it back to the office in a short amount of time.

This printer also prints on both sides of the paper. Even though I make a number of Ebook products and read Ebooks from others, I do not like reading these products on my screen. I'm old fashion and like to print the paper, hold it in my hand and mark it as I read it.

Some Ebooks and PDF documents are longer and hard to staple or require a clip. Now I can print these documents on both sides (and save paper) and produce something easier to handle.

I still have a few more functions to learn on this printer but overall, I've found changing equipment has been easy and not disruptive. Also the change has increase my productivity. In terms of expense, I spent less than $200.

What about your office equipment? It is time for you to change to a new piece which will increase your productivity?

Boost Your Writing Productivity

Each of us have the same number of hours in our day but some people seem to use them much better than others. Last night I finished reading a book from my friend, Bob Bly which came out earlier this year, Getting Started As A Freelance Writer. A prolific writer, Bob and I have been friends for many years.

In April, we were together in New York City and he gave me a copy of Getting Started As A Freelance Writer. I brought the book home and put it on my shelf as a book that I'd like to read--but I did not do it right away. Why? I believe it is the title for this book. I've been writing for over 20 years and I wondered if I needed to read a book about how to "get started."

What I discovered is a book which overdelivers and is much more than it appears on the surface. Many people want to know how to begin the journey of a freelance writer. To learn a new skill like freelancing, you are wise to follow someone who has "been there." Bob Bly writes with authority and wisdom about the details of a freelance writing career.

Whether you are just starting out or have been in the writing business for a long time, you can gain vast insight from this book. The book covers the details of so many issues which concern writers like how to get properly compensated, how to concentrate on the main thing you want to do (write), how to run your writing career as a business (and all of the details), what are the range of possibilities for your writing and how do you grow your business.

In the introduction, Bob points out a key distinction of this book: "One thing that makes this book different from other "how to become a freelance writer" books on the market is the experience and financial success of the author." (page 2)

The information in Chapter 13: Maximizing Your Personal Productivity" is worth the cost of this entire book. Bob gives six keys (and the explanation in the book): Don't do everything yourself, don't shy away from the Internet, don't become addicted to Internet chat, don't get up, don't go out, and don't undervalue your time." (page 170-171). Also Bob includes nine ways to increase your personal productivity.

Getting Started As A Freelance Writer is packed with useful information for every writer--beginning or professional. I highly recommend you get this title and study every chapter. I highlighted and flagged a number of pages in this book as I read it cover to cover.