Tag: daily schedule

A reader on another post said this in a comment:

I’m super impressed by how quickly you produce books! Would you mind sharing what a typical week’s writing schedule (along with marketing and everything else that goes with writing) looks like for you?

Here is what a typical week’s daily schedule looks like for me:

4:30-5:30: Exercise. On nice mornings, that’s taking my dogs to our dog park and running inside the perimeter of the fence while they follow. I usually do 2-3 miles. That way, I don’t have to battle leashes and 120 lbs of dog throwing me off my pace. No one else is ever there that early. On inclement weather days, that’s going to the pool and swimming laps for 45 minutes.

6:15-7:30: Boys up, fed breakfast, lunches packed, driven to school.

7:30-8:00: Morning chores and first load of laundry into washer

8:00-12:00: Write. Write Write. Nothing else. No social media. No email. No phone calls. Just writing. I write very fast. I can get about three chapters roughly written in this time frame

12:00-12:30: Lunch. Away from my desk. Before going back into my office, add a load of laundry to the wash and move laundry to the drier.

12:30-2:00: Marketing, blogging, emails, social media. Sometimes, I’ll keep writing. It depends on my flow from the morning.

2:00: Pick up boys from school. For the 20 or so minutes in the parent pickup line, more social media marketing (usually interacting on LinkedIn or Google+)

2:30-5:00: Boy appointments, activities, homework, chores, my daily chores, laundry folding. Twice a week, they have hour-long Tae Kwon Do classes. During those hours, I write blog posts from the parent seating area.

5:00-6:00: Dinner prep

6:00: Dinner

7:30-8:00: Boy bed routine.

8:00: Wind-down time with hubby, often some form of social media or email happening from my phone at this time – but I don’t like that and am trying not to do it.

10:00: Bed.

I do this 4 days a week. Thursdays, I’m not home during the school day. I have Protestant Women of the Chapel bible study and fellowship that is from 9AM-12PM. After, I do my weekly shopping and then pick the boys up from school. Thursday mornings, instead of exercising, I write from 4:30-6:00.

Saturdays, our family takes a Sabbath rest from work. The only exception to this are the Saturdays I’m teaching or speaking.

Sundays, after worship, I handle the accounting and paperwork side of running a small press, and work with Gregg on our upcoming weekly schedule.

I have production schedules lined up until the end of 2017, with strict scheduling of what book is getting written when. This has me writing 10 chapters a week, and editing a book for a week after I’ve written it.  If I finish ahead of schedule, I will take the time off until the schedule has me starting the next book. I intentionally take off when my kids are home from school. In this school district, that is a full week in October, two full weeks at Christmas, a full week at Easter, and about 9 weeks for summer.

In 2017, I will be working on a homemaking devotional/guide over the summer, so I won’t be taking it off in a pure manner.

I hope this helps you get an idea of how I work. Most of it is simply discipline. If it’s writing time, then it’s writing time. That’s not always easy to do when there’s no one standing over my shoulder, counting the words I’ve written for the day!

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