I’ve had an interesting weekend! A very cool thing has come up that I can’t talk about publicly right now, but I’ll let you all know if and when it comes to fruition in a few months. It’s going to chew up a bit of my time for about another week, and then life gets back to normal. Naturally, this is messing up my current “primary goal” but that’s OK. When a great opportunity comes along, the smart thing is to shift priorities. I really can’t say more about this right now. 🙂

Looking back at comments from last week on our time-management discussion, I find a few that need answering.

Camille wrote:

First, I hopped the train out of order. And since then, I’ve been trying to do several of the things on that list simultaneously. (Sorry, I confess! I’m Multi-GOALed. But I’m thinking about working on that.)

OK, The NOVEL is what got me enrolled as a Freshman, and gave me a reason to get serious about the craft. Are you saying I need to set it aside until I’m a Junior? I thought that by working on my blushing novel during intense learning phase, I’m:

1. Making Words On Page — which count toward that 1 Million words every novelist needs to write to get into Publishing Heaven.
2. Exercising the craft tools I acquire.
3. Finishing something I started, for what it’s worth.

Upon enrollment as a Freshman, I was enlightened by these profound words of wisdom:
• Work on your craft
• Go to writing conferences
• Take classes on writing
• Read books on writing
• Meet other writers
• Join a critique group
• Write, write, write!
~From Fic 101 — What to DO if you’re a Freshman

So, as a Freshman, is it counterproductive to “focus” on a heartbreaking work of staggering genius while learning the craft? Does this weaken my primary focus?

Randy sez: By all means, work on that heartbreaking varmint! Work hard on it. Give it your best shot. Some novelists actually do sell that first novel. Just be aware that you might not be one of them. Stephen King didn’t sell his first 5 or 6 novels. I think the first one I sold was #6. A lot of writers have to write about that many before they break in. After that, of course, pretty much anything you write will probably get published.

Those first unpublished novels are not wasted! They are necessary steps along the way. You will never get good unless you give yourself permission to be bad–in some cases, very bad.

Write, write, write! And that means write a novel. I don’t approve of spending time overmuch on writing exercises (although I have recently started doing daily writing exercises designed to make me a better writer.) But I believe the best training for writing a great novel is writing a crappy one. And then a better one, and a BETTER one, until you achieve Novel Nirvana and get published.

Karla wrote:

I LOVE Simple*ology! I am taking time out of my busy schedule to get it going — printing the books and binding them and everything. I think I’ll “get it” eventually, and I think it’s really going to help moody me on those days when I have a hard time focusing for the moping I’d rather do. The daily praxis rocks. And I am learning what things I have in my life that drain me that I didn’t even realize did!

I love it too. I’ve always been quite productive, but I have been noticeably more productive since I started that strangely-named-but-oh-so-useful Simpleology 101. Part of what I like about it is that I am absolutely certain every day that I’m on the right track to reach the goal that’s most important to me right now. Because if you do that pesky Daily Praxis in Simpleology, you know what you want and you are on the shortest path to reach that goal. (There is no guarantee that you’ll reach the goal, of course. But being on the right path is a good thing.)

Donald wrote:

I understand the point that Brausch is making, and the motivational and psychological reasons for his argument. But he messes with the language irretrievably. “Try” of course means that one is acting, though it’s a word that captures some ambivalence about either one’s level of commitment to the action (or to achieve the goal that will result from the action) or one’s uncertainty about the prospects for success.

Brausch is making a point about the latter meaning. He’s saying “commit, darn it” — “stand up” in his lingo. And this is fair enough. We all need a kick in the pants sometimes. To put his idea in another context, seeing is believing, but sometimes believing is seeing, and it’s this latter aspect that Brausch is cheerleading about.

But to apply Brausch’s argument to the part of “try” that gets at uncertainty of outcome is foolish. Many runners compete in a race, but only one wins. They all tried to win, and took action to do so (by running in the race).

Randy sez: I hear what you’re saying here. The word “try” is certainly ambiguous. But I like his main point, which is that all too often, “try” is just an excuse for “not taking action.” If I ask my daughter to feed the cat, I do NOT want to hear her say, “I’ll try.” In that context (when it’s a simple matter of doing something she knows how to do), the words are just a lame way of saying, “I’m not going to do a darn thing.”

I’m guessing a number of you have seen the movie FACING THE GIANTS. It’s a “Christian inspirational football movie” if there is such a genre. The acting is kind of spotty, and it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of java, but I find it inspiring. There’s one scene that I really love.

The coach is telling his team how they need to commit to the team. He challenges the captain of the defense, a guy named Brock, to do the “death crawl” for 50 yards. (The death crawl is where you have to crawl on hands and feet–no knees can touch the ground–while carrying another guy on your back.)

Brock says he’ll try. The coach says, “No, I want your best effort.” Brock agrees to give his best effort. Then the coach blindfolds him so he won’t know how far he’s got to go and won’t give up until he’s totally exhausted.

Brock agrees to this while his teammates smirk. Nobody is taking this seriously.

The death crawl begins, and pretty soon Brock is getting tired. The coach keeps telling him, “Your best effort, Brock. Give me all you’ve got. Your best effort!”

This continues for yards and yards and yards. Pretty soon, the teammates aren’t grinning. They’re on their feet watching Brock crawl and crawl and crawl some more.

The coach is hollering, Brock is sweating. The coach hollers some more. “Give me all you’ve got!” He counts down how many more steps to reach the goal: “Ten, nine, eight, seven . . . down to zero.”

When he gets to zero, Brock collapses. He’s lying there gasping, asking if he made it fifty yards. The coach takes off the blindfold and says, “Look where you are, Brock. You’re in the end-zone!”

And he is. Brock’s gone twice as far as he thought he could. He’s learned that he can do amazing things, but “trying” isn’t enough. “Trying” would have got Brock 20 yards. Brock didn’t merely “try,” he acted. He kept on taking action–far beyond what anyone thought he could do. Except that darned coach, who knew all along what Brock could do.

Folks, don’t settle for “I’ll try.” Take action and keep taking action until one of two things happen:
1) You realize that the goal you chose is impossible, or
2) You realize that you don’t want this goal anymore–you want a different one

I’ve been talking this week about that pesky time-management thing. This is something virtually all writers seem to struggle with. I know I do. But I’m getting better at it.

Camille wrote:

Getting it pubbed is a long term goal. Getting the 1st draft done is a medium term goal(?) So what would be a short term goal? Should I set up a daily word count goal? (duh) How can I enforce this?

Randy sez: Actually, a handy thing to do is to break it down a bit. The Simpleology guy says that when you’ve got a big target, what you want to do is work backwards from where you want to be to where you are now. So I put together a list of “how to get published” here. This shows the sequence of publishing your book, working backward from the day the book hits the shelves to the day you first began writing.

* Launch your first book
* Edit galleys on your book
* Work with publicist on campaign for your book
* Do revisions on your book after editor makes comments
* Send “polished draft” to your editor
* Receive phone call from editor buying your book
* Have your agent submit your book to publishers
* Get an agent
* Meet agents at writing conference
* Write a stellar proposal
* Polish your first three chapters
* Finish your novel
* Start writing your novel
* Design your novel (Snowflake it of course)
* Get an idea for your novel
* Finish your “Junior year” of learning the craft
* Finish your “Sophomore year”
* Finish your “Freshman year”
* Decide that you want to be a novelist

Now, many of you know that for me, this sequence took 12 years. That’s about 8 years too long, but that’s the way it was. Please notice that some of these elements are quick and some are slow. Some would be classified as short-term targets in the Simpleology analysis (something you can do in 1 to 10 days), and some of them are medium-term targets (you can do it in a few weeks to a couple of months) or long-term targets (might take 6 months to a year).

For example, deciding you want to be a novelist takes a very short period of time. Getting an idea for a novel might be a few days. Designing it takes a few weeks. Writing it takes months. Working through your Freshman year generally takes 6 to 12 months.

Of course, you can try to take the steps out of sequence. This usually works about as well as trying to take Calculus before taking Algebra and Geometry and Trigonometry. You can do it if you’re a genius, but you are just wasting time if you’re not.

Note that the longer-term targets on my list above need to be broken down. You can break down each of this using the same Backward Planning technique.

Camille, I don’t know exactly where you are on the list, but what I want to tell you is that the shortest path to your ultimate goal is that list. That goes for all pre-published writers.

It’s tempting to say, “But that’s gonna take years!” Yes, it takes years to get published. You knew that. I’ve been saying that for . . . years. There is no reason why anyone reading this blog could not be published five years from now. You just need to decide to do it, and then take action.

M L Eqatin wrote:

Randy, I presume that when you refer to “Thinking about it,” you mean just the cliche, not the action.

Randy sez: Yes, I’m referring to all substitutes for taking action. If you ask your son tomorrow morning to mow the lawn, and tomorrow night you ask if he mowed it, which of these answers do you want to hear?
a) I thought about mowing it.
b) I worked on mowing it.
c) I didn’t know how, so I got someone to teach me.
d) I mowed the lawn.

Ideally, you want to hear (d). If not, then you want to hear (c), but you never want to hear it again, and the next day, you want to hear (d). If you hear (a) or (b), then the brat is blowing smoke and you know it.

When I ask someone how their novel’s going and they say, “I’m working on it,” or “I’m thinking about it,” invariably that means they’re not doing anything. If they say, “I’m reading Dwight Swain’s book to understand MRUs,” then I know they’re improving their craft. If I hear, “I wrote three chapters last week,” then they’re DOING IT. That’s taking action.

I got an email a few weeks ago from a guy in Nigeria. He said that he came across my Snowflake idea last December. He started writing his novel in January, finished it in February, found an agent in April, sold his novel to Hyperion in July, and is now working on another one. That’s taking action! (Don’t ask if I verified any of these actions; I can’t and haven’t.)

PatriciaW wrote:

I assume you mean “thinking about it”, as in the vague, wishy-washy sense, a procrastinator’s favorite tool in which there really is no clear, focused, structured thought toward a specific end. “Have you decided what you’re going to do yet?” “Uhmm, I’m thinking about it…”

Randy sez: Yes. I am not putting down thinking. I believe in planning ahead (and putting it down on paper). I am against covering up for inaction by claiming that you’re “thinking about it.” You, the writer, know perfectly well whether you are really taking action.

Rob wrote:

Okay. I confess I’ve been “working on” my new novel. The problem is, for this book I’m going to have to do some extensive research (something I don’t have a lot of experience doing) and research feels like such an abstract thing to me. I did list a few things I need to know more about, but how would researching a novel break down into tasks to qualify as a primary goal?

Randy sez: I’m sure we’ll talk more about research later on, so I’ll be brief. I recently spent a few weeks doing research. That’s because it was first on my task list for my next novel. Let’s use Backward Planning again. Here are some steps you can take, in reverse order of how you would do them:
* Declare your research “finished.”
* Read the last book on your list of books to read.
* Read the next to last book on your list.
* …
* Read the first book on your list.
* Get on Amazon and make a list of books to read.
* Identify the topic to be researched.

Instead of books, you may need to substitute web research or interviews with real people or whatever. But making a list is a powerful tool to getting a big project done. You can always revise the list as you go, but make a list and then get cracking on it. Take action. If your list is not a list of actions, then revise it until it is. If you don’t know what to put on the list, figure out who knows what should go on the list and ask them. There is always some action you can take. Take it.

Take action! Don’t settle for “thinking about it” or “working on it.”

For more about Backward Planning, do the Simpleology thing. It’s good. It’s free. It’s pretty darn powerful. It’s what I use now and will continue using until I find something even better.

I’m going to repeat one of my main points from yesterday, because I’m not sure it came across clearly:

Successful people are focused. And focus means choosing one primary goal at a time, to the exclusion of all others.

Of course, you are doing all sorts of things every day. Many of them have nothing to do with your primary goal. Life happens. That’s obvious. There is nothing wrong with doing all sorts of things that aren’t related to your primary goal. But if you have more than one primary goal at any given time, you are diluting your efforts and slowing yourself down.

Please notice that I’m not talking about having multiple “things to do” every day. It’s a given that we all have many “things to do”. The question is how many “primary goals” we have. When I look at my list of “things to do” for today, I had:
1) My daily Simplelogy routine to set my daily task list
2) Several sessions of email
3) A couple hours of consulting time
4) A language-study session
5) A writing-practice session
6) Several hours of work on my book proposal
7) A bit of annoying personal accounting
8 ) Some reading in a magazine (background research)
9) Some revisions to my web site
10) A bit of work on a software library I’m writing
11) Blogging (right now)

Of these “things to do”, #1, #2, #3, #7, #9, #10, and #11 were just things that needed doing that had nothing to do with my primary goal. (My primary goal right now is to write a Snowflake document for my next novel. When I finish that, my primary goal will immediately shift to writing the proposal for my next novel. I am focusing as much of my time and energy as possible on writing that pesky Snowflake.)

#4, #5, #6, and #8 DID have something to do with my primary goal. In total, I spent 4 hours and 35 minutes on my primary goal, which is not bad at all.

Now imagine that I had 3 primary goals. So in addition to wanting to write a Snowflake document, maybe I ALSO have a primary goal of writing a cool new software product AND a primary goal of building a shed out in the yard. Then instead of having 4 and a half hours on ONE primary goal, I’d have had an hour and a half on THREE primary goals. And you can’t get much done in an hour and a half.

I’d also be splitting my mental energy three ways. In all likelihood, I’d be more excited about one of these than the other two, so two thirds of my productive time for the day would be spent on things I was LESS excited about. That’s not good. Your primary goal should be the thing you’re MOST excited about. (In Simpleology 101, this is called a Major Target. In fact, you have a long-term, medium term, and short-term major target. What I call a “primary goal” is that short-term target–it’s the next really important thing you want to get done.)

Honestly, I don’t think you can have more than one thing that you’re MOST excited about. Whatever that is should be your immediate primary goal. If you have more than one, you are diffusing your mental energy and splitting your time.

Now a few of you made comments that I’d like to respond to:

Lynn wrote:

My assumption is you are focussing on one primary goal during a set time period – is this correct? And that your goal has been scraped away until it is small enough to be called more a task than a goal? I ask this because I have several “projects” that have deadlines, and if I focused only on one project, to the end that the others are left undone, then I would not keep my commitments. Yet, if I work at each project a bit at a time I am more likely to get them all done by their deadlines. To do this I have to break the projects into a series of tasks. I’m assuming my ‘tasks’ are the same as your ‘goals’?

Randy sez: What I call a “primary goal” is a short-term project (something you can achieve in a few days to a week or so) and it should be the thing you’re most excited about. This is the thing you should be pouring all your excess time and energy into. Of course, there are always long-term projects that need time put into them. For example, I am doing consulting more or less continuously. But that’s for somebody else. It’s not for ME. My primary goal is something for ME.

Bonne wrote:

Well Randy, I’m all for focus and I’m going to look at Simpleology. It’s true that all people who are really great at something are very focused on it and don’t worry about developing weak areas that will only improve to mediocre at best. That being said, as a mother first and writer second, there must be two primary goals.

Randy sez: Being a mother is just part of your life. Being a writer is too. Neither of these is really a primary goal. A goal needs to be specific and concrete and objective.

You probably have a long-term target to “get your novel published”. That is a good solid goal. It’s very specific. (You want to publish a novel, not just write some words.) It’s concrete. (A novel published is concrete, not abstract.) And it’s objective. (It can be verified by anyone that you published the novel or that you did not.)

Likewise, your medium term target might well be to “develop your skills in writing a character.” Again, that’s a good goal, and it’s a subtask of your long-term goal. It might take a few months to do that.

A reasonable short-term target (a “primary goal”) might be to “read Dwight Swain’s book on characters and apply it to your current book idea.” You could do that in a week or so. It’s a good goal, IF you spell it out and then put your energy into doing it. If you don’t clearly specify your goal, you’re likely to not put nearly as much energy into it, and it might take six months to go through the book, simply because you never clearly stated it as a target and never focused your energy on it.

A good time-management process would have you clearly spell out your long-term target, medium-term target, and short-term target. Then it would focus your attention on getting the short-term target (your primary goal) completed as quickly as possible.

Camille wrote:

I’m sorry, but I gotta defend some of us MT’s. If someone is using the phrase ‘multitasking’ as an excuse for not getting much done, then they aren’t really multitasking, they’re just spinning and twirling. Also, as a MT I’m more likely to complain than brag about it. My busy home and my office admin job require me to do multiple tasks at once.

There may be some misunderstanding about the term. If someone professed be working on multiple GOALS at once, I would agree that they’re not going to get much accomplished.

Randy sez: Multitasking is fine when you are dealing with “just normal life”. You gave an example of about ten things you can do all at once. Those are all fine. They’re normal everyday tasks. My comment was about people who want to “multitask” on several different “primary goals” at once. And that is a prescription for defocusing your efforts. But you noted that in your comment, so I think we are violently in agreement. 🙂

To be effective, we need to spell out our targets, long-term, medium-term, and short-term. Of course, we can have many of these in mind for the future. But at any given time, we need to be pursuing exactly ONE short-term target with high intensity. This is the one I call the “primary goal” and it should be whichever thing you are most excited about (or which is most pressing on you).

I promised yesterday to talk today about “taking action.” This is extremely important.

One problem I see a lot is people who are “working on it.” That is most always a statement that nothing is much getting done, but it sure would be nice if that task would just sorta solve itself. Let’s be brutally honest. “Working on it” is a dodge. It’s fuzzy. It means almost nothing.

Whenever I hear myself saying “I’m working on it,” I’ve learned to ask myself exactly how I’m working on it. Have I broken it down into a series of steps I know how to do? Am I taking action to actually do those steps? Or am I taking action to learn how to do those steps?

There are really only two actions you can take:
1) Doing a task.
2) Learning how to do the task.

A successful person is a person who takes action. “Thinking about it” is not taking action. “Working on it” is not taking action. “Doing it” is taking action. “Learning how to do it” is taking action. Nothing else is taking action.

Homework assignment: Is there some project you’ve been telling yourself that you’re “working on” or “thinking about”? Are you REALLY taking action on it or are you not? This is a tough question, but it’s one I regularly ask myself, because it cuts through the bull.

I’ve been watching my former city (San Diego) go up in smoke over the last couple of days. It’s painful and my schedule has gone right out the window as I keep checking the web for news every hour or so. This fire seems destined to be much worse than the one I lived through in 2003, so I can only imagine how bad things are right now.

On to time-management . . . Yesterday, I told you all about the system I’ve been using lately, which I really like (other than the name): Simpleology 101.

Destiny asked a question about Simpleology:

Ummm…this software sounds nice but I’m not allowed to download anything much on my computer, and I would love to also learn a bit I could do without Simpleology 101 (till I get permission to download it from my parents)

Randy sez: There is nothing to download. You just sign up on the Simpleology web site and then log in and start using their software on the web. You can optionally download some software tools, but I prefer not to. Since I have two computers, by using the web site, my data is always in sync.

One thing I’ve learned from the Simpleology training course is that successful people are focused. And focus means choosing one primary goal at a time, to the exclusion of all others.

Of course, you are doing all sorts of things every day. Many of them have nothing to do with your primary goal. Life happens. That’s obvious. There is nothing wrong with doing all sorts of things that aren’t related to your primary goal. But if you have more than one primary goal at any given time, you are diluting your efforts and slowing yourself down.

I know there are plenty of people who brag about “multitasking.” My own observation is that this is nothing more than making excuses for not getting much done.

So how do you prioritize things so that you have only ONE primary goal? That’s actually not too hard. First you make a list of all the goals you’d like to reach eventually. Then you choose one to focus on RIGHT NOW. Just one. Focus on that till it’s done. Keep working on it until it’s finished. Then pat yourself on the back and pick a new goal from your list.

It’s tempting to cheat and make TWO primary goals. But if you’re using the Simpleology tools, you can’t. There isn’t any way to set two primary goals. The software won’t let you do it.

At first, I didn’t like that. But then I realized that it’s a good thing. It motivates you to FINISH tasks. And finishing is something that I’ve had issues with. I’ve got my wife using Simpleology too, and she’s finding it much easier to make To Do Lists than she did before. She just works through the daily exercise and then prints out the screen–instant list!

I’ve had a LONG day, so I’m going to bed early tonight. Tomorrow . . . a few thoughts on taking action.

You all voted today on what we should talk about next. Time Management edged out Self-Editing by one vote.

So we’ll be talking about “Best Practices in Time Management” for the next few days.

I’m glad this topic won, because it’s something that I’ve been trying desperately to get better at for the last year and a half. When I was laid off from my day job 2 years ago, I thought I’d have all the time in the world to do all the projects I’d ever wanted to do.

I was half right. I started working on all the projects I’d ever wanted to do — all at the same time. But I still had exactly as much time as I had before. And I got defocused pretty quickly.

After about six months, I realized that I needed to learn to manage my time better. So I started looking. And thinking. And looking some more.

There really aren’t any deep secrets here. The key things everyone tells you to do are these:
1) Prioritize
2) Focus
3) Take Action

I’ve gotten better at those, and have written several columns in my e-zine on various facets of time-management. But one thing I really wanted was some software to help me out with the boring, repetitive parts. I couldn’t find what I wanted.

Here is what I wanted my software to do:
1) Help me decide my priorities.
2) Help me sort out the Big Picture from the Little Picture.
3) Keep track of tasks for the future, but hide them until I’m ready to do them.
4) Roll over items that I didn’t do yesterday to today.
5) Keep track of tasks I’ve delegated.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any software to do that. So I came up with my own scheme using a series of To Do Lists on paper that manage my life in smaller and smaller time increments (years, quarters, months, weeks, and days). That’s worked well for #1, #2, and #3 above, but I couldn’t easily roll over daily tasks on paper (I had to copy them by hand) and I didn’t have a good scheme to track tasks that I’d delegated. And it was ON PAPER, which is a hassle.

For awhile, I was seriously considering writing my own software so it would do exactly what I want it to do.

Then I found a tool that’s ALREADY WRITTEN that meets all 5 of my requirements above and it has a few other advantages:
1) It’s web based, so I can manage my time from any computer connected to the web.
2) It comes with a 20-day training program to teach me time management skills.
3) Every day it walks me through a procedure to set my goals for that day.

The funny thing is that I’ve known about this tool for about six months, but I didn’t start using it until recently because I didn’t like the name: “Simpleology 101“. I thought it sounded too simplistic to be useful. And I hate simplistic solutions to complex problems. But I finally decided to give it a whirl, even if I didn’t like the name.

I love this program! I’ve been using it for the last 5 weeks, and I have suddenly become a LOT more focused. Simpleology 101 helped me define all the things I really want in life and then it asked me to choose one to work on RIGHT NOW. I did, and . . . that was the key to getting me focused.

Of course, Simpleology 101 isn’t magic. It’s a little bit of work every day. I spend my first 10 minutes every morning going through a procedure to set my goals. But I actually enjoy doing it, because the program walks me through each step and keeps track of all my decisions. I don’t have to remember the process. I don’t have write anything on paper. All I have to do is make executive decisions.

Here’s the best part of it. Simpleology 101 is FREE. (Simpleology 101 is about Time-Management. There are some followup courses on managing your money and increasing your energy that you have to pay for. But those are optional. I liked Simpleology 101 so much that I bought 102 and am working through that right now.) Quite simply, I think Simpleology 101 is the best thing going in time management.

So I hereby declare Simpleology 101 to be a “Best Practice in Time Management.”

Here’s a link to Simpleology 101.

In the next few days, I’ll talk more about what I love about Simpleology 101.