Breaking the Silence

My brain didn't stop post A to Z challenge. I promise! What did happen was a break in the non-existent freelance work and a workload that makes my bank account happy (me, not so much), as well as mad website designing for my soon-to-be business website.

As I've been running around like a crazy person, neglecting my blog and Twitter and friends and sometimes human contact for days on end, I've been thinking a lot about schedules and routines. Namely, that I don't have any. I thought I did. But this month's extra work has shown me that, no, I really don't.

Of course, my first solution to this was to run out immediately to purchase every day planner, calendar, file cabinet, and organization plan out there. But that only exacerbates the real problem: my self-will. On to Plan B.

Plan B was and is not fun. Plan B involves much more grey in my black-and-white planning than I want. It means I have to be willing to bend, to sacrifice some downtime for the important stuff, and actually DO stuff.

It's the doing stuff that has me a bit off my rocker, if you know what I mean.

Here's what Plan B consists of:

•  Listing each new job and its deadline in a notebook as they arrive
• Closing off each week as it fills and moving new clients to the next week
• Writing all of the above on my desk calendar when each is booked...
• ...and writing each job number on individual physical folders and their computer equivalents
• Organizing the paperwork for each new job as it comes (so I don't have piles laying around)
• Filling out a modified to-do list the night before, organized from most to least important

That's just my freelancing. I want to implement this organization system in my fiction writing, as well, since my brain seems to go with it (argue with it, yes, but it still goes with it).

On top of Plan B, I'm also trying to figure out how to insert finishing my website, blogging, social media, and short story submissions into the mix while still getting some downtime. And sleep. I guess I need that, too. (Sometimes, I'm certain that getting organized is more stressful and time consuming than simply doing the work.)

To that end, I'll be listing monthly goals the first Friday of each month, for my sanity and your amusement, starting June 1st.

Special Friday shout-out goes to Lisa Campbell at All Things Campbell. I love her blog makeovers and the ones she did earlier in the month are awesome. Sorry for the belated linkage, Lisa - the above litany got in the way of a more prompt post.

And now my lunch break is over and it's back to the grindstone for the last of my clients this week and a few more crossed-off items on my to-do list.

How about you all? How are your to-do lists looking? 

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