The Danger of an Over-Loaded Schedule

We all have a finite number of hours in a day, but if you’re anything like me, you try and cram too many things into one day.

I use a diary to keep track of my time. It’s an A5 notebook where I write down everything I need to do every day. And not just writing projects. I include everything I want to do. But nearly every day I discover that things take longer than I thought. Even things I’ve done before many times can often take longer than expected.

And do you know what? It drives me crazy.

The worst thing about it is that if I don’t get everything done, I feel like a failure. I sit there in the evening, diary open, rolling things over to the next day while wondering where all the time went. I begin every day with good intentions, but by midday I’m struggling to keep up.

So now I’ve figured it out. Plan how long it’s going to take to do each thing, then double it. Other things always come up that need doing, like an email that needs a quick response, or a phone call I wasn’t expecting or there’s an issue with a piece of software that needs updating.

Just a couple of days ago, I needed to quickly print a couple of pages, but my computer kept saying that it couldn’t communicate with the printer. I kept retrying it and trying different things, but it wouldn’t print. It took me almost 30 minutes to figure out that the printer software needed updating because of a recent computer update.

So, a job that should have taken 5 seconds ended up taking almost half an hour. This is why a time buffer is needed for everything.

And it starts with knowing how long things actually take, and then you can buffer in extra time.

It’s the only way I know to be able to get everything done, and sometimes even have enough time left for fun.

 

Mission Critical For Life

 

 

 

 

Never Even Consider Copying Someone Else

Do you know what’s the most important thing about being creative?

Being authentic.

Being yourself and writing in your own voice.

There is no other way.

Years ago, someone tried hard to be me. He even bought my website for writers (Writeaholics.net) and published all my old articles on it.

Naturally, it was a huge failure.

Why?

Because he’s not me. The articles on that website were written in my voice so there was no way he could mimic that in the future. So, he didn’t even try.

And because he wasn’t me, he also couldn’t earn money from that website like I did. For one thing, I had a huge number of subscribers who I kept in touch with every week. But I don’t think he knew that. So, while he was failing to earn money from my old website, I began a new site, carried on making money from it in my usual way, and kept on emailing my subscribers.

There was no way that he could earn money from that website because he wasn’t me, so he couldn’t write like me, and he also wasn’t aware of how I was earning money online. How could he?

No one can work the same way someone else does. It’s impossible.

But if there is someone whose books and work ethic you admire, then there’s nothing wrong with letting what they do spark ideas of your own.

Just so long as they are your ideas, and you stay true to yourself.

And if you want to find out more about the guy who bought my website and tried to be me (he even published my old “about” page with my photos and all my information about myself until I told him to take it down), you can read the article that I wrote about it at the time by clicking the link below.

 

Writeaholics.net: Why I Don’t Trust This Website

People Forms Habits, Habits Form Futures

    That title is not my own. I ‘borrowed’ it from motivational guru, Mike Litman who said it years ago. And it’s still true.

The reason that we create habits is to make our lives easier. When something we do becomes habitual, we no longer have to think about it. Take walking for example. When you were a baby, learning to walk took a lot of mental and physical effort. But as soon as it became a habit, you could do it without thinking, and you still do.

It’s the same when we learn to drive. At first it seems hard to have to cope with thinking about so many different things at once while trying to be safe on the roads. But once you get your license and start driving more, it becomes a habit and you can get behind the wheel and drive without even thinking about it.

We acquire many habits during our lifetime like daily showering, brushing our teeth, and even walking the dog. These are things that we do without even thinking about them.

I find it’s the same with household chores. I do them several times a week and always at the same time, and I do them without even thinking. People often ask me how I can be bothered, but I tell them that, first, I don't have a lot of furniture (I’m quite the minimalist) and second, I’ve been doing chores for so long that it never bothers me. I’m so used to doing them without thinking that I call it ‘busy hands empty mind’ time so I usually listen to audios while I work because I don’t have to think about what I’m doing.

But you’re probably wondering what this has to do with writing.

Well, you can use habitual routines to get your writing done every day.

If you don’t usually sit and write every day, then doing so takes a lot of thought because you have to remember to do it and you probably have to stop doing other things.

But once you make yourself sit in your writing chair at the same time every day, it quickly becomes a habit, and before you know it, you’re sitting down without even thinking about it.

Most mornings, I do my usual morning routine and do whatever chores I usually do each day and then I go straight to my writing chair. 

When I first started writing professionally, sitting down to write every day was a chore in itself at first, but once it became a habit, it was easy, and now I look forward to it. I like to get other things done first every day so that I can sit down and write, knowing that other things have already been taken care of.

It’s a writing habit that I’ll take with me long into the future because people form habits and habits form futures.

Stop Procrastinating

And Take Back Control Of Your Life

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/sp.html 

Don't Let Your Books Be Stolen to Train AI

We all know that many thousands of books have already been stolen to train AI software. Not just literary classics and best sellers, but self-published books too. It seems no books are exempt from being plagiarised by AI software companies. I did a check and found they're using my books too. 

But what can you do? And more importantly, how can you find out if your books have been stolen?

To help, here’s a link to check if your books have been used in this way. Just search for your author name.

Here's another link for an easy way to complain, and hopefully to get it stopped. Complain loud and long if your books have been used in this way.

No doubt AI is going to be the scourge of authors and writers until laws are put in place to stop our work from being stolen to train AI bots. The best way to help is to buy more books to help real authors and writers.

I’ve seen a few things online lately that are said to be written by AI. I can believe it because what I’ve seen so far is awful, especially fiction written by bots. It seems soulless. I know that AI software can help with some aspects of writing, but it cannot do the writing for us, or at least it can’t do it well.

And, if you want to know more about what’s happening and what you can do about stolen books, there’s an article from The Society of Authors that’s helpful.

Stay safe and keep writing.

https://cheritonhousepublishing.com