5 Things to Make You a Happier, More Productive Human and Writer

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic, relaxing weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead. I have so very much left to do in order to be ready for Chapter.con, but I have it worked into my schedule for next week. Yay! But that's not what this post is about. Today, I'd like to give you a quick list of ten things you can do that will help you become a happier, more productive individual. Ready? Grab your coffee, and let's get going!

1. Take Care of Yourself
This might be the single most important thing you can do. If you're not functioning at 100%, you're doing yourself a disservice. Need a mental health day? Take it. Trying to find a way to not go crazy every day? Find an outlet. Do something for you each and every day.

2. Stop Stressing About What Other People Think
If there's someone you don't want to interact with, stop. No one should own you or your mental space. Don't let those people eat your time. You have more important things to do.

3. Schedule Yourself
New to the blog? You can find my tips on scheduling here. An old hat? Y'all know exactly what I'm talking about.

4. Let Things Go
Don't let others' actions nag at you, and don't beat yourself up over mistakes you've made. Apologize and move on. If that means moving past that person, go back and read number two. Let it go. Sometimes, "it" is a person.

5. Write (or be Creative) at the Same Time Every Day
This way, your muse knows when to show up. If you're asking her to pop her head in on odd days, chances are, you'll end up staring at a blank screen (or canvas) pretty often, not knowing where to go next. And if it's not working, go do something else for a minute then come back, but don't give up.

Got anything to add?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

A Free App to Help With Your Writing and Marketing Goals

Happy Friday, everyone! Ah, it's the end of the week, and you have a whole weekend of R&R to look forward to. Doesn't it feel good? To start your weekend off right, I'm going to introduce you to a tool that's A) 100% FREE and B) Amazingly helpful to get you organized (and keep you that way). Ready? Get your clicking fingers ready, and let's get going!

Allow me to introduce you to Asana. Clicking the name will take you to the website. You can sign in with your Google account. They have an iPhone app, too, so you can manage on the go!!

Here's a screenshot of my personal tasks:

This is a place where I can put all my book writing and launching information. As you can see, there's nothing on it at the moment. I'll be spending the weekend plotting timelines for my next two book launches. It will include dates to hit word counts and dates to schedule release day promotions. I'll add a project and tasks here in a few to show you how that works.

But! I also have a page for collaborative works:

We'll get to why that matters in a moment and why there are little pictures of other folks in the top, left corner. Stay with me!

Not only can you plot out your timelines, Asana will nag you via email of your incomplete tasks per your designated release date. If you want, it'll also email you when you have something coming up. It all depends on how you set up your tasks.

Let's go through one now.

As you can see, when I hover over the Add Task button, an Add Section button appears. Since I'll be scheduling two different books, I want two different sections. Click Add Section.

Fill in the relevant information.

Now, click the ellipsis in the top, right corner and select Convert to Project.

Click Convert. Pay attention to what happened on the left.

Now you can add tasks within that project with different sections like writing and marketing.
Let's do that now. First, click on the project name on the left side. Then click add section. Type in Writing, assign the task to yourself, pick a due date (completion of actually writing the book) and then click the second button that looks like a branched t with dots.

This will allow you to put in your word count goals. Be sure you set due dates and assign the tasks to yourself to get email reminders.

Fill out as many or as few as you like. I did just four so you could see what it's like.

Now, close the window and go back to the main project board. Add another section. Call it Editing and assign the task to yourself. Add all the dates you want to have edits done by (these aren't real because I haven't gotten into due dates with anyone yet... Just for show).

Keep going until you have marketing dates setup, too. You CAN overlap them with editing or writing. Don't worry. It looks like it's all truncated now, but here's where the magic happens!
Now, all your tasks are in there, and you're ready to look at the whole. Go to the top and click on My Tasks.

Boom. There's a list of everything you have coming up. If you'd like a different view, click on Calendar.

As you scroll, you'll find items you've added to your tasks in the order they're supposed to be completed. How cool is that?

Now, if you're working with other writers or people on a project of any kind, this app reallllly comes in handy. We've used it a ton with the F5 projects we've done. It helped us set due dates for everything from book trailers to marketing to writing and beyond. Each week, it also sends out a project status email that tells everyone in the group what's been done and what's left to do.

But the best part about the whole thing? IT'S FREE for up to like 10 collaborators. You can add them via email, and their photos pop up on the top left. Plus, you can sync it to your phone's calendar or export the whole thing as a CSV or print to PDF for sharing with someone else, add files to the tasks, and soooo much more. You just click the dropdown next to the project name. See?

I love it for my own stuff, and it saves trees. I hope you find it useful!

What do you think? Plan on trying it out? Let me know how it goes!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Midlife Crisis or Just a Good Idea?

Happy Thursday, good people of the blogosphere! Today I'm going to talk about something I've been pondering (I've been doing a lot of that, eh?). If you'd like to join in and discuss, feel free. If not, just sit back and enjoy the inner-turmoil of a nearly forty-(what?)year-old. Grab that coffee or tea, and let's get going!

As you all may know, I'm a freak about schedules. They give me order among the chaos that's life. Since about June of last year, my schedule has been all shot to hell. I blogged about a lot of it here because I needed a way to get it out/off my shoulders. Well, now, things are starting to calm down and come back to the way they should be.

So, I made a weekly schedule to accomplish some things I've been needing to do (write, business stuff with IBGW, grow a couple of my platforms, etc...) and hit it hard.

But I did something I hadn't planned for: I changed the way I eat and added an hour a day for exercise.

Yesterday, I started to think about why I did that, and I realized I'm only a week away from my fortieth birthday. Yep, that's right, I said forty. When it hit me, I had a moment of panic. There are still so many things I want to accomplish in my life. I have books out the wazoo that I want to read, write, and publish, too.

Because I have MS, this also dragged the question of how many years do I have left to do all those things? I know I don't feel like I thought a forty-year-old woman should feel. I still have the energy of a twenty-year-old cheerleader some days.

Could this be the beginning of the end, and how long will the end really take to greet me?

Thinking about that has me contemplating where I'm going with my life. Am I going to be content working on things for others forever, or do I want to dive into my work and keep breaking down conventional walls?

Was changing my eating habits just in time, or too late to make a real difference? Am I having a midlife crisis, or was all this just the sensible thing to do?

I'm a little frustrated. Like I said, there are still so many things I want to accomplish, and I feel like every tick of the clock is robbing me of another moment.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

There goes another minute of my life.

Of course, all this may be stemming from writing Utterances. I can't say a whole lot about the book right now, but I think you'll all love it when I'm done. I'm such a sucker for anything to do with the human condition and learning/surmising what makes people do the things they do and how life occurrences change the way we think.

I'm happy to say my schedule is working out fabulously though. Just look at the blog! What you can't see is that I have a clearer head, and I feel like a million bucks. Maybe it was just a good idea.

That brings me to my question of the day:
Do you ever examine your own humanity? What are your biggest goals and/or life questions? Is there anything BIG you want to accomplish before you shuffle off this mortal coil? Do you find it difficult to get a grasp on a schedule?

Talk about it!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

I Suppose You've Noticed

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I hope you're all having a fabulous week so far, and you're raring to go for the weekend. Just two more days now. Today, I'm gonna talk to you all about what's going on and why the blog has been spotty. Ready? Grab your cup of Jo, get comfy, and let's get going!

As you all know, I don't talk about my personal life very often. This will be one of those rare times. You've invested your time and interest in my blog, so I'm gonna be honest for a moment.

And, no, I'm not apologizing. Missing posts when I have so much going on isn't anything I'll ever apologize for.

So, here's the skinny:

First, my health went to hell at the end of May. I've seen so many doctors in the last two months, I'm pretty sure I've earned a badge of some kind. No, I'm not gonna go into what happened or what's going on; just know that it's an ongoing thing, and I'm still trying to find ways to balance stuff. It WILL happen, and I'd love your patience as I figure it out. 2016 can suck it.

Second, I've been doing things offline for the new F5 collaborative project. Days when I can't look at my computer screen to write or blog are spent working on things we need (details will be coming SOON). Speaking of which, if you'd like to help us when we start rolling things out, fill out this awesome Google form! Thank you in advance!



Third, I've been doing a lot of stuff around my house, and my sons have been here visiting. It's time consuming.

I'm still on track to do a lot of things I wanted to do (and committed to do) this year, but I gotta get a handle on my health first. That and my family will always be priority one.

Today's a good day, so I'm able.

Sending you all light and warm wishes on this rainy Wednesday in Georgia. :)

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo