Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Don't Go Away, No Matter What the Award Says

Here's some good stuff I found this week from a couple of my favorite blogs:

Cricket McRae talks about To Do Lists and priority tasks in Insane Time Management at her blog, Hearth Cricket.

In A Lesson on Focus at Two Old Horses and Me, Jean McBride gives us an example from the workday of her two Scotties and wonders how much she could accomplish if she had that kind of single-minded determination to stick with a project for an extended period of time.

And now look at this delightful award I received from Yvonne at Welcome to My World of Poetry.



No, I don't really want anyone to go away, but I do need to learn how to manage my time better and resist new projects until I'm caught up on the old ones. I'm a victim of my own eagerness to take on anything that sounds like fun, but even fun needs to be rationed.

So now you see why the two blog posts I mentioned above were especially interesting and helpful at this busy time. Good time management requires focus. And the simpler the plan, the better. Good advice.

19 comments:

Natasha said...

You are describing me, Patricia. And the mug I need is one that keeps reminding me "Don't sip more than you can swallow."

Simon Hay said...

Good luck with all those projects. Time management! Shudders.

JournoMich said...

I love this mug, and I love Rayna's comment, too! I fall under both categories.

Thanks for the reminder.

Michele
SouthernCityMysteriesse

Mary@GigglesandGuns said...

I know how to avoid work but I need a lot of work learning to avoid interruptions.
Mary

Anonymous said...

Patricia - Congratulations on that award! I must find a real-life mug that says that. I would love to be able to actually use it sometimes. You make a solid point, too: if writing is going to be a priority, it's so important to manage one's time so that it can.

Patricia Stoltey said...

Good morning, everyone. My time management project for today is to ignore all newsletters and Yahoo! Group digests and deal only with deadline tasks. I'm hoping for a very productive day.

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Pleased you liked the award. blended in well with your post.

Yvonne.

Unknown said...

I love the mug, I need on of those! Congrats.

CD

Unknown said...

Good luck, but take some time for the coffee that refreshes.

Patricia Stoltey said...

I'm betting we could find a mug like that at one of the online sellers like zazzle.com. I'll have to look -- as Kay says, we always need to make time for coffee.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat,
Thanks for the shout out! I wish the two little terriers were mine, but they belong to another horse lover. Love the mug - I definitely need one. Along with a huge dose of focus and time management. Thanks for keeping us on task.

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

Having serious time management issues of my own, I enjoyed both the links. I also like the sentiment on the coffee mug.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I'm really trying to manage my time right now!

Jan Morrison said...

Patricia! I just found this great time device - go on Mytomatoes.com - there is a whole book you can download and read but you don't need to - you can just use their system right on line or get your own tomato timer (or any sort of timer). You work for 25 minutes - the bell rings and you have a five minute break. I got something done today (a submission) in four tomatoes! Yay. It is very fun and works....

Patricia Stoltey said...

At least I know I'm not alone.

I'll check out mytomatoes.com, Jan. Sounds like a fun experiment.

N. R. Williams said...

Time management is something I struggle with too. For example, I am only now getting to some blogs.
Nancy
N. R Williams, fantasy author

Anonymous said...

Time management is essential for writers and bloggers. Love the coffee cup. I shouldn't get one though as part of the agreement I have with my family is they can interrupt any time they want.

Stephen Tremp

Jemi Fraser said...

I always need help with time management! It's so hard to get everything done :)

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