Joanna Penn speaks of ways productive

Happy Friday!

Having trouble applying butt to chair for this week's 400 words? Here are a slew of producitivity tips from Joanna Penn and her readers:

Do not check email or social before I have done my first creation block of the day

e.g. 1500 words on latest WIP. In order to achieve this, I have removed my email app from my mobile phone and am using Antisocial software to block access to those while still allowing me on the internet for research (which I often need as I write). I started doing this at the beginning of the year, but I fell off the wagon. [Now] firmly back on it.

Read the rest of them here!

Long have I known about this tip, and yet rarely if ever have I been able to resist the siren lure of my email (and the many blogs I read) before breakfast. I've even borrowed a book about this from the library and subsequently sat on it for months. One day I will do this, though not today. Clearly.

How about you? When you are productive, how the heck do you do it?

Writing and day jobs

From Joanna Penn on her blog The Creative Penn, the pros and... other pros of being a writer who has a day job:

I can write what I love to write. I’m not driven by the need for money so I don’t have to write freelance. I don’t have to worry about the outcome of what I’m writing because it’s for pleasure, fun and the future. I loved writing Pentecost, I had so much fun. I don’t know if I could have done that without the freedom to write what I love. If I’d been fixated on writing for income, I would have focused on different goals. Writing a novel took a great deal of energy I could have used to write and launch other products for more income, but would not have advanced my fiction writing aspirations.

The bills are paid so there is less stress around the time-lines for writing/blogging success.I’m trying to build a brand and a reputation and as a writer and blogger, that takes years. I can’t speed the process up so I’m happy to earn elsewhere and spend time doing this for fun and building for the future.

[...]

Working elsewhere creates a desire and drive to write as I have to fit it into spare moments. I compare this to when I took three months off work in order to write a novel and didn’t write anything worthwhile. It was depressing and demoralizing and stopped me writing for nearly five years. I couldn’t create anything when I had unlimited time. There are many studies on how creativity is boosted when there are boundaries. It somehow helps the mind create rather than hinders it.

Read the rest here!

"I couldn't create anything when I had unlimited time" pretty aptly summarizes my year in grad school (we're still several boxes away from those particular notes, and I'm guessing they're about as morose as the ones in my Freshman year box...).

And, too, now that I've quit my night/weekend job I find myself less stressed but also less driven. Maybe I'm just recovering from my year-and-a-half work/writing/life marathon. Yes... This is what we will choose to believe.

Interesting read, anyway. SPOILER ALERT: If you check out her more recent entries you'll see that she did eventually make writing/teaching her full-time job. If and when I ever do that, I hope I can do it with as much discipline and success as she's managed thus far.