S01E39: When Schedules Are Strengthened

Samantha and Matilda have incredibly different schedules, and they're discussing what works and what doesn't in this week's episode!

Next week Sam and Matilda will talk all about accountability and the tactics they implement to help keep themselves on track. 

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

Nothing this week but don't forget to subscribe, tell all your friends, leave a review and follow us on social media! 

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books about Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Samantha Cummings, here with my co-host, Matilda Swift, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through Missteps Journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is professional schedules.

Before that, what are your wins and twinges of the week?

Matilda?

Yes.

I feel like I, like my win is kind of small in that it's like the things I've done for this podcast.

It's going to sound small, but it has really been helpful.

We, I think we've talked about this before, we make these kind of series of four episodes based around what we are currently dealing with.

And it's often things that we know we need to do next, but we would put off without having a podcast to make about it.

And the topics that we're doing now are ones that sound really small, but they, they feel big things to master as they kind of related to like practicality, but also mindset.

So the stuff I've done this week that we'll talk about in a little bit feels so good, feels so useful to have really made progress with.

So that is a big win this week, which may sound very mysterious and I'll maybe talk more about it, but also just loads of little things.

I've had so many nice little things this week, like I'm planning a couple of different retreats.

I've started picking up some DIY around my house again, because I want to get things finished.

I'm feeling very full of possibility, which feels great.

And it feels like the payoff to like a year of really hard work on mindset and process and things.

Yes, how about you?

Oh, I'm full of wins this week.

I finally got back to, and this is like talking about scheduling and stuff.

I finally got back to just like working every day and having like setting out my tasks every day using my little planner to kind of get me into the zone.

And it's been great because I've taken a couple of weeks off or really a few weeks off now.

I've not really doing much, just like picturing, pasturing around, getting my book ready for publication.

And now I'm like back in, back in the zone, absolutely loving it.

I've got my book coming out tomorrow, so I'm like pre-excited about that, like woohoo.

So that's all fun and games.

I had a long weekend where I lived as though I were a millionaire author and like met up with a friend and just had a great day and was doing all the mental work of thinking about what I want my life to be like.

I've written like a little list of the things that I've liked it really well.

I also backed up my computer like a good girl.

So I dug out my external hard drive and backed everything up.

I looked at my news descriptions this week.

This feels like such a good autumn cleaning week.

Yes, definitely.

And then I also found the manuscript, the file for the next book that I'm releasing that I need to start working on because I didn't know where it was saved.

That was like this whole thing.

It's like, oh, as an ADHD girlie, I have multiple files, multiple places where things could be saved.

So I was trying to think, oh, where would I put this one?

And I found it.

I had like an epiphany on Friday afternoon, and I'm like, oh, I didn't look in that place.

And I could have lost the book completely, but I found it, and I'm very happy about it.

So I am feeling really, like you say, just really optimistic and excited about everything that's coming, because I feel like this ball of energy and work, and this whole crazy thing, is finally getting some good motion going, and yeah, it all feels really exciting.

And I'm just really hopped up on probably caffeine, but also just life, loving life.

That's how I feel, which feels very Pollyanna-ish.

But I was like, just everything is so good at the moment.

Yeah.

Loving it.

And it's not like it's accidentally going well, is that we are reaping the rewards of all the work we've done this year.

So it feels extra good.

Yes.

And one of the things that we've done this year is work on our schedules, which is another pronunciation clash we're going to have this week, like niche and niches, we're going to say schedules and schedules.

I am taking my schedules.

Schedules.

Yeah, that's fine.

But it's a very glamorous topic.

Not because that's how it's spelled.

That is the American pronunciation is schedules.

I'm going to stick with schedules because I am very classy and British.

Yes.

I know.

I've been too Americanized by TV.

Yeah.

I mean, they have got some good TV.

But yes, so it's not a very glamorous topic and it's...

I hope people can listen to this because I think it can be an off putting, off putting like small and dull topic.

But really, it's the thing that stands between you and your full time author dreams.

And so, you know, until you really get a schedule down, you're just...

it's a hobby.

To me, it feels like, and I have been kind of guilty of this as well, of like, times when it's, it's not in a routine, I can be very up and down with my productivity and really getting a schedule can make a big difference.

So let's start by talking about what your schedule has been like in the past and kind of how it's evolved to what it's like now.

So have you had a different schedule when you were starting out with writing?

Oh yeah, like I used to just write a book and then shelve it and then just kind of have months where I didn't do anything and kind of thought that that was going to get me to the career that I wanted to be.

I didn't work every day.

I didn't work on my writing every day.

I didn't have any processes set up.

I just was writing books and then when I felt like it was editing the book, and then when I felt like it was getting it ready for publication.

This year has been, well, last year as well, I guess, has been a revelation.

So last year is when I started, like I did like a little planning group that I'm running this year as well.

And I had already kind of like come up with my own plan of how to write a book, like how to plan a book and how to write a book, a whole schedule for it.

And last year at the end of October, November, I did it with other people and showed them like, this is how I do it.

And it was great fun.

And I think it helped a lot of people.

And then that's kind of like how I've worked.

Like ever since I've written quite a few like books over the last year or so.

And I followed this process.

And it's like my like true blue tried and tested planning and writing schedule now.

Like I know what I'm doing.

I love it.

I'm turning it into a workbook because you know, why not?

Yeah, I gotta love a workbook.

But my biggest thing that's changed for me this year is the other stuff.

So like the planning a book and writing a book is like a huge part.

It's like you've got to do that if you want to publish books.

But I didn't have like a schedule for anything else.

And the start of this year, I would say like the start of last year, because we both did this at the same time.

You told me you were getting that, the plump paper schedule, what we're calling it.

The planner.

We'll call it a planner.

And I have never stuck to a planner in my life.

But before we started this podcast, when we were talking about doing this podcast and doing our mastermind groups, and I decided that I wanted to do this full time and really get my act together.

I thought, oh, I'll get the planner and I will stick to it.

And I'll figure out as I go, like what works best for me.

And now I do, like I literally fill out my planner every Saturday and Sunday.

Well, I'll do a few things on Saturday, but like Sunday evenings, I will make my plan for the next week and stick to it because it's in the schedule.

And it's been so, so good.

My only problem is that when I fall out of a project, so say I finished writing a book or I've just finished, like about to publish a book and I've taken a few weeks off, my only problem is I don't do anything in between times.

But maybe that's fine.

Maybe that's like a good time to take time off.

But yeah, without having this planner-

into it the other side.

Yes.

I think because I have my planning and writing schedule and know exactly how that works for me now, I do just find I can slip back into it and I'm not scared at all to now get back into working.

I think that if I hadn't have figured out what works best for me, I think at this point of the year, I would just be thinking, well, I'll just won't do anything till January.

You know, the age old New Year's Resolution mindset.

But that's like three months of inactivity that is like that, that just scares me to think that that would be three months down the line, like I would have lost that time.

And that has such a knock on effects for publishing.

It's so hard to get back into it as well if you, if you're not in a routine, or I found definitely.

And then when you're kind of, when you're struggling to get back into something, then you can think, oh, this is really hard.

And then you're like, do you want to do it the next day?

And I was, you know, I'm not feeling, I'm not feeling very well this week.

Maybe I'm feeling really better.

And it's like, then I'm busy at work.

I'll be back another week.

And then, yeah, I think like getting back into routine is, it's a big energy.

And if, you know, if you don't have to have that time, then, then I think it's quite risky getting out of a routine for me.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

It is risky.

Yeah, without this planet, I would, I wouldn't have, because I've built up such a habit of setting myself tasks every day for like for weeks, well, for the whole year.

But like every week, I'll set myself a task every day.

Even if it's just writing in the planner, day off.

That's a task that I can take off.

That's still like keeping in, in the vein of planning my time.

And yeah, like I owe so much to this planet.

I was like, I look at it as like, it's like a child to me.

I look after it so nicely.

Like I write little notes in it.

You know, I've got a little ribbon as the bookmark.

I really treat it like, like a revered thing because it has changed my life.

And it's so stupid.

And for loads of people who have always used a planner, have always had a diary, that's not me.

So this is like such a big change and a big difference for me.

And I think it is probably because I changed my mindset of going from, this is a hobby that I hoped will work its way into being a career, which is just wishful thinking.

Like deciding that I was going to make it into a business and really, like really desperately want it to become something more.

So putting that effort in.

It's all kind of worked together to bring me here where I feel like I'm now, I'm working at such a better pace and just feel like, like I'm an actual author now instead of like, just a jumbled mess sitting at a keyboard.

How about you just like gobbled on for god knows how long.

I think it's really for the year.

I think it's interesting to think like how much of our progress and organization this year is independent, and like how much of it comes from being accountable to each other.

And we've got an episode next week on accountability.

So we'll kind of talk about part of it then.

But I don't really have a good sense of how much of it we could have done by ourselves, because so much of what we've done is like setting ourselves like weekly targets of things to for the next week for the podcast.

And that makes using something like a planner, it makes it feel, it's motivating me to use it.

And it's motivating me to do lots of different things in terms of scheduling, because I can actually see progress and I can try different things and I can iterate things that are working and get rid of things that aren't working.

And kind of, I'm seeing things as progress this year in a way that previously I'm a bit old or nothing.

I really like to be very good at something very quickly.

So I have also got diaries that I've abandoned.

So I'd start using it and I'd be so good at it and I'd keep it, you know, meticulously.

And then I'd stop and I would never pick up again, because it's dead to me.

And so I also have a plan planner.

And interestingly, I kept it really, really well for maybe the first six months of the year.

And I would write everything in it that I need to do each day.

And it was such long lists and like, lists that I really don't want to look at because they're so long.

And, and they're all like, you know, very long to do this.

At the weekend, I would maybe have like 20, 25 items on the list.

And, and now I'm not using it in the same way.

And in fact, I'm going to switch to the, so Plum Planner, the good thing about them is they have a lot of different layouts.

And I'm going to switch to the layout that you have for next year's version and try that.

because I think I've now taken some things out of the planner and put them in different places, which I'll talk about in a minute.

But yeah, I really like this.

In fact, I was talking to another author at Retreat last week, her planner.

And so it's, you know, it's a nice thing to talk to other people about as well, having a good planner and kind of like sharing and chatting about different ways people are organized.

But the good thing about PlanPaper, this is not a sponsored ad, we just really like it.

I know.

We should be sponsored.

I have a disk bound version.

So rather than it being connected at the company with the facility, they said if you punch and you've got this big, big, big gold disk, so I put mine together with so it means that next year I can put in the bits I'm adding and I can keep in my notes from carrying over next year.

So I've in fact been carrying my planner around with me, even when I've not been doing the data base, because it contains a lot of useful notes and, and I can now see how I'm going to use it a bit differently next year.

So yours is more of a goal focus.

Mine was like a to do list.

Oh, yeah, it really helped me do that to do this version.

But the thing that I've done with my to do list, a lot of my to do list was the same thing over and over and over again.

So for example, this podcast on Mondays, I edit the podcast and that involves like six different steps.

And I would write this in my planner for Monday and take them all off.

And I have various things like water my plants, you know, clean the floors, do some of my newsletter, things that I do every single week that I was writing in my planner.

Sometimes they get moved along, sometimes they get ticked off.

I would add more and more things.

And it just got really unwieldy.

And it, it felt like it wasn't forming any habits.

It felt like I was constantly, like the planner was telling me what to do.

It was like the planner was in charge, and I was not in charge.

So that was really useful to kind of see what I need to do all the time.

And what were my regular tasks?

I've taken every single regular task out.

And this would maybe a knock on from my Q2 goals was kind of a lot of my Q2 goals didn't get done because they needed small weekly efforts rather than like they were big, big tasks.

I was like, I was just not doing anything because they were enormous things and I couldn't, I hadn't broken them down.

So at the end of Q2, I broke everything down.

And I also took out all the things from my planner that I was doing weekly.

And I now have, I started with a chore chart.

So a chore chart for like things around my house.

And that's the first thing that I did that was taking stuff out of my planner and it has things in like, put the recycling out, meal prep, clean the toilets, do the laundry, make the bed.

Like things that I just got so sick of thinking about.

And I just, I want to start the week to go through and put days against everything.

And it's different every week.

cause say you've got a week where you're busy on a Tuesday, you've got an unusually busy thing to do.

And that means that you can't just have something on the same day every week.

So, you know, get to think about it at the beginning of the week, I can move things along cause it's a dry erase board.

And so that worked really well.

And it felt like a weight was lifted, which it sounds like such a minor thing, but it's what worked for me.

So I'm not saying this is the thing for everyone, but the thing that felt really useful this year was I'm feeling much more observant of my own tools and techniques, partly because I'm having to explain them to you and talk about them and kind of reflect back on them.

So I started with that, worked really well.

Then I added one for my sub-publishing tasks.

So I've got things on there such as, and I broke my newsletter task down.

So for example, I've gone to weekly and I've got two activities on a Tuesday, one of which is get the images and reduce the size of them, put them up, load them into my newsletter provider, write the content, and then on Wednesday, put all those things into the newsletter, send it.

So it's like those are two different things on each day, and then it gets sent off and it feels very easy.

It feels easy to add things because I now know the process to break them down and put them into my week.

So those two chore charts, they're both very full.

So I think there's maybe 20 items in total between the two of them, but they're all small doable things.

And I haven't had things on there that just never got done.

And I've been like, you know what?

This is not working.

So I'm taking this off and I'm gonna have another think about it and how I'm going to get this done.

So I have those and then and then I've added another chart.

So another thing that I didn't really want to, I had in my planner that was working well, but I just didn't look at my planner often enough to get the daily things done, because it's got it's got a cover around it.

So I took some things out of it that I wanted to do every day, such as yoga, morning pages, read, put together a bowl of like five pieces of fruit, like things that were good and intention, like go for a walk, stuff like that.

You cannot do it if you're not thinking about it.

You can go, oh, I'll go for a walk tomorrow.

So I've put this on the front of my fridge, it's like attached magnets to it.

I put the front of fridge, there's 10 little things you have to slide across.

I've done thing every day.

So I've got that.

And I've also got a big whiteboard on my fridge for like, what do you, what is like immediately top of mind you need to do?

So I have all of those and a planner, and I also keep a to do list in, in a discord server.

And I know for many people, that would seem like places.

But because, because they all came out of one thing, so they came out of my planner, where I was trying to keep everything at once.

And I was like, okay, how can I take some of this into one space that I'm going to use in this way?

And then some of it I want to take into a different space.

And it's like I have put them all in the most obvious, easy to manage, doable space for me.

And it feels incredibly easy now.

And I think to other people, it will feel like you're being ruled by 10,000 charts, and you've got like a million tick box tick off, but it feels great to me.

I 100% can understand because say if you had loads of like, you took your chore chart for the kitchen was like wipe down the surfaces.

I'm looking at the fridge, take out the bins.

You wouldn't put that chart in the living room or the bathroom because you wouldn't, you'd have to go to the other place.

You'd have to be like, oh, but I'm in this room, so I'm going to have to go.

So you just put like a blocker in place.

So if you're putting your to do lists and everything in the places that you need to see them, to do them, then that to me is even if they are all split up, if they're in the right place, then that's perfect.

So I think that if that works for you, that's really good.

Yeah, it really does.

And that I think has felt great this year.

One thing that I really struggle with kind of post moving back to the UK, post pandemic is that I, we've talked about this before as well, like I just felt really scattered and I don't have anything requiring a routine because I have worked from home, I don't have any kids, it's very easy to have no routine, but that's not satisfying and it's not productive.

So I've had to really strive to kind of get that sorted.

And I think having, I went on this retreat a couple of weeks ago to York, that was fantastic and with some of the Cozy Authors.

And one thing that many people in there talked about was like a struggle to kind of keep your day in in focus when you don't have the constraints of a day job.

And that is something I really, really want to get in place before I don't have a day job.

So we've kind of talked big schedule stuff and I want to talk about now writing schedule.

So yeah, so I've been working on that this week.

Let's then do the same question we did before.

So go back to the beginning.

How is your writing schedule like on a day to day basis evolved over time?

I used to write kind of whenever I could.

So when I first started writing, it was kind of secret.

And I would like, I'd write right before work when there was like, when no one was up, but then I'd get home and I'd maybe go to my room and write a little bit more.

And I was kind of just like break it up throughout the day.

Did you live with somebody?

How secret was it?

No, that was when, okay, no, this is when I was living with my parents.

This is pre-living with my boyfriend.

Yeah, like didn't tell him.

It was the complete secret.

No, he's known the whole time.

And yeah, so I kind of, I didn't have a schedule.

I just kind of wrote here and there.

And I used to find it really difficult to even hit.

So I used to like do a lot of writing for NaNoWriMo is basically one of the only reasons I would write a book when I first started.

And so the task was to you had to hit 1,667 words a day.

And I always found that writing in short bursts made it seem so difficult to hit that target.

It just felt like I just really struggled.

It was such a challenge because I was like just doing little bits here and there and not getting into a flow.

Now I know when I write best and I know how long I need to write to hit a certain amount of words.

So I am not a morning pages person.

I don't, I've said this before, I'm not a morning person at all.

My writing day doesn't start till at least two o'clock in the afternoon.

My actual like perfect mental clarity time is like between six and eight o'clock at night.

That's my zone.

Are you after a work day?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

So after a work day, I am most active with writing and stuff.

But yeah, between six and eight, well, between six and nine, I'm much more of a night person.

I like to get everything out of the way before I write.

And I think I just really like that space to, I mean, I'll be thinking about what I'm going to write the whole day.

So I love the space to imagine things and really like get myself into the zone of like when I sit down, I know what I'm doing.

And that is my, like my writing schedule now is if I was working, I'd come home from work, probably have some dinner, and then about seven o'clock, sit down and write and write for maybe an hour or two.

And then I could write over 2000 words and be done.

And it feels easy.

It feels so easy to write a couple of thousand words now.

At the weekend, I would like to say that I do a different schedule because you've got all day, but I still don't.

I still write at night time.

And maybe a little bit earlier, but still, I don't like writing before 2 p.m.

No way.

Not a chance.

Do you try to write earlier or do you just know yourself and you say, I'm going to write at 6 p.m.

and I'm enjoying the rest of the day?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I sometimes think, oh, I should write a little bit earlier, then get it out of the way and have the rest of the night.

But I am driven by food.

And I know there's no point starting before breakfast, because I'll just be thinking about breakfast.

And then once I've eaten breakfast, I'm just trying to get to lunch.

So I think, what's the point of writing before lunch?

I'm just going to be thinking about lunch.

So I need to get lunch out of the way.

And then, because there's so many hours till dinner, that's like, oh, all this time now.

I can like, I'll maybe do a bit of writing before dinner.

So I can't, I just don't, my brain is just like, you can't write before lunch.

What are you talking about?

Yeah, so that's just me.

And I'm okay with that.

What would your ideal, yeah, what would your ideal schedule be like if you're a full-time author?

Have you, and do you work towards trying to find that?

Yes, I have found that, because that is what I do at the weekend.

So Saturdays is, Saturday is my, well, Saturday and Sunday are my full-time author days.

And I don't take Saturday or Sunday off.

Weekends don't exist.

I take my weeks, my days off during the week usually.

So I wake up, have breakfast, go for a majorly long walk.

And then the mornings before lunchtime and stuff, I like to do all of my admin stuff.

I much prefer doing admin things first and checking off my to do list of all the other stuff before I start writing.

And that's what I do.

Like on my Saturday list, it's always like all of my little admin-y tasks before I even think about writing.

And then Sundays, I don't tend not to do admin on Sundays.

Sundays is just writing.

And Sundays, because we film the podcast or record the podcast at eight o'clock, I kind of just like see the whole day as being more of a fluid day, but ending at eight o'clock.

So it kind of brings everything forwards a bit.

So I do write a little bit earlier on Sundays.

But yeah, just like never before too.

If you ever had a situation where you're on a deadline and you have to get a lot of words out, so would you start a different time for that?

Or is it really...

Yeah.

You can only start later.

When was the last time I had like a super deadline?

I still don't think I started earlier.

I would much rather work later.

So I would much rather sit in my office till 11 o'clock at night than do morning stuff because I am like so much more active at night.

And like, yeah, I just like love the coziness of sitting in a dark office with lamps on rather than looking outside and thinking like, oh, I wish I was outside.

Like, I just love looking out of a window too much during the day.

I'd like the excitement of like just seeing nature.

I think I don't want to sit at a desk when I could be outside.

So yeah, no, it's not for me.

It's not, I'm not a morning person.

This is one of our polar opposites at Draven.

Yeah, so I have been writing for a long time.

I, you know, I'm sure like everyone wrote when I was younger, but like seriously, I sort of started writing seriously when I was like in my early 20s, and I did a masters in creative writing.

But everyone in that field is like literary fiction.

And in that world, it's unimaginable.

And like an extreme deadline to try and write one book a year.

Like you hear a lot of people, even who are like, you know, crime authors, who talk about like, gosh, you're on that one book a year train from your publisher.

Wow, that's a real, real hard stretch.

It's like, I, there's definitely something to it in terms of if you're trying to write really, really literary fiction, like you really need a lot of brain space to kind of go in and out of something and to draw a lot of things into it and to experiment and like spend a lot of time throwing words away, so intentionally.

But it means that you people really don't have any sort of like sense of a schedule, like you just write when the muse takes you, which is, it's interesting now being on the other side of it and like writing, I write crazy mysteries.

It, it's such a self imposed sense of like how much you can write.

And when I, when I moved to Hong Kong, it's probably when I started really writing consistently.

And part of that is because, and I really, really am so grateful for this.

In Hong Kong, everybody takes their hobbies really, really seriously.

And I think to an extent, that's because you tend to move there at a certain time of life when you usually are, before you've got kids.

When you're still kind of adventuring and doing fun things, you've got quite an attitude of like wanting to do stuff.

And also people tend to have quite a high disposable income there because it's a very low tax place.

So people, and also it's a small, it's like a big city, but in a compressed area.

So there's a lot of things like stuff is always happening.

So it has, it creates this feeling of always like back when you were at university, when you just like, yeah, I'm not just writing.

I'm like, I write every day and I'm, I'm making a novel this year.

And everyone's like that.

So I found writing groups and, and I also had a job where I didn't start until 10 in the morning.

And I am a morning person.

Like I like waking up early.

And so I would just get up and start writing for work.

And I would go to a cafe and that felt like my, my like, I was giving my best brain to myself before I, you know, waste on the day job, which is not a waste.

But you know, it felt like I can write in the evening, but I prefer to write before having put lots of thoughts to my head, and like lots of adminny organization, emaily things.

So yeah, so I just got into a habit of writing from eight or ten every morning.

And then I also used to work Sunday to Thursdays, and I had a friend who was a full time author.

And so I would join her on her writing days in a cafe, and we would write all day Friday.

And that it felt like so fun.

And none of that writing was really direct at anything.

It was kind of different books that I had no sense of what I was going to do with them, and they didn't really go anywhere.

And so it was like, it felt like just play almost.

And like I was just dedicated, not even play, maybe I dedicated time to myself.

Like I was really just allowing myself to do something I just wanted to do.

But it set up really good habits of writing consistently.

So when I moved back to the UK, I changed my hours for various reasons that were not really in my control.

And sometimes for half the year, I have to start working at 8 in the morning.

And I kept up, I've kept up working two hours before work, writing two hours before work.

It feels hard.

It feels hard to write from six to eight in the morning in winter, because to do that you have to get up at five in the morning in winter.

It doesn't feel great enough.

And so I am thinking about making a change.

So one change I've made is I no longer get up before work to write on a Monday, because I, as well as being an early morning person, I'm also a late night person.

I said to you, don't like sleep.

So I will put off sleeping, because I've got too many things to do.

And so on the weekends, I will go to bed quite late.

Like my hard day life for myself is one in the morning, but I try and get to bed at midnight, and that just never happens.

So I'll get into the habit of going to bed at one in the morning on the weekends.

And then by the time it comes to Sunday night, it's really hard to go to bed really early to get up at five.

So I've given up getting up on a Monday morning, because it was starting to be really bad for it.

I wouldn't feel like writing.

I would just maybe read, and I'm like, well, it's a waste of my time.

I've got up early to do nothing, and then maybe go back to sleep.

So I've done that.

But I do still get up early on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and I have an extra writing session on a Wednesday in a writing group.

But I only write a thousand words in those times.

I could, I think, write more.

But I have had times when I really push myself to write more, and times when I don't, and I'm not going to be inconsistent at it.

I do like to like edit as I go, and I think it has a bit, means I have less editing to do at the other end of it.

So I think it's productive.

So I, when I've been a bit faster, it's actually not saved me time overall.

So I'm happy with like a thousand words on a weekday, and then at weekend days, I try and write for two out of the three weekend days, and I'll write 3000 words a day then.

But really what I could do is write all three weekend days and write 3000 words each, and I would end up with pretty much the same amount of words.

So I am considering making a change to my schedule.

But it really only works if I don't have any socialize, socializing at the weekends, which is hard to control.

Things come up, family, people have birthdays, you know, you and I meet up one day of the weekend.

So I don't know, I think what I really want to work on at the moment is getting my weekend days professional, because I am a last minute person.

I am like a homework on the bus person, but I have it.

I do not, if I have time, then I don't like, I'm not good at making myself do something in a way that I'm annoyed at myself at the time.

I'm annoyed at myself, like, you'll be up late doing this, you'll be annoyed.

And then present me as like, well, that's a future me problem.

So I don't care.

But I'm, I yes, I'm happy to play around with my week as a member, I really am focused on my weekends, because I want to see them as an example of like, what would my ideal workday be like if I were writing full time, and go to the retreat in York a couple weeks ago was a really big help for this because we had a clear schedule.

And the thing that I normally do at weekends is start good.

So I'll start really well, I'll have an early session, not super early, I've often got something to do in the mornings, like I went to get my hair cut on Friday, I went to the gym on Saturday, and I went to gym class.

So I'll often start something.

And then I'll try to start writing like 10 ish and it's often 11 ish.

I'm fine with that because then I'll finish a chapter by lunch or 1000 words by lunch.

And then that's when the day starts to go wrong.

because if I've done something or I've got like a thing to do or an error in to do, I could like stretch my lunch and then it's maybe like three or four.

And then like, well, what I could do is, you know, do something productive in the afternoon and then do an early evening and a late evening session.

And then the early evening session gets pushed like seven or eight in the late evening.

It's like midnight and I hate it.

I really, it makes me hate myself, which I don't want to be in that position.

So this weekend, I made myself a timetable, like a literal time schedule.

And I, I was not great at following it.

I was quite good, which is I'm annoyed about a bit, but it's a practice.

So I made myself a schedule of like, right from both days I had things in the morning, so right from like 10 to 1130, then have a break and then write another session, then have a lunch break, and then have another session.

And I think what I want to do over the next few weeks is just find the schedule that works.

I can work with, not against.

And because that is, we've talked about this a few weeks in a row, is like, I'm just really trying to stop fighting against my natural instincts.

And if my natural instinct is to have a long lunch, then I should do that.

I know often at lunch, I'm often doing something.

It's not that I'm just sitting around doing nothing.

It's that I'm, I'm resistant to getting my brain engaged again.

And I don't know why that is, but I want to see if I can figure out a way to be more productive in a way that isn't wasting energy fighting myself.

I think I've just gone over everything, I'm so sorry.

No, it's fine because I did the same thing.

I, I think it's quite a commonplace thing to where people say, oh, they have to do all the things that distract them, and like, do them first to get them out of the way.

And I think that's probably why I write later is because I know that I have to do all the things that are going to distract me before I start writing.

And I'm fine with that because that really does work for me.

Like on a Saturday morning, I go for a super long walk.

So this Saturday, I went for a walk.

And as I was kind of heading towards home, I thought I could go home now, but I was no way near hitting 10,000 steps.

So I carried on.

And then I got home and done 10,000 steps.

It felt great.

But it was a bit later on in the day, then I had to have brunch instead of breakfast.

But then I knew I had loads of things on my admin to-do list, because I was getting back into the zone and stuff this week.

So I had loads of things to do, preparing stuff for my writing course I'm doing.

And what else did I have?

Ordering some calendar for the wall and setting up emails, and all of this stuff, and emails.

It always sounds like it's not going to take very long, but doing emails takes forever.

And just scheduling and all that stuff takes me forever.

But I wanted to play a video game.

So I sat on a video game, and I sat for two hours playing a video game, because I knew that if I didn't do it, I would just be thinking about, when am I going to do it?

And I really am okay with that, because that's me.

Like, I can't fight against who I am, just for the sake of trying to be more professional.

Like, the professionalism has to work around the way that I work.

And I think that sometimes the reason people fail, they can't stick to a schedule, is because they're trying to, they're trying to be someone that they're not.

And I have done that, where I've tried to write in the mornings, and I've obviously didn't keep it up, because it wasn't how I felt.

Like, I didn't enjoy it.

And so I stopped doing it.

And now, like, I do enjoy...

I love my weekends.

I love everything that I do over the weekend.

Feels like, it feels so good to just have, like, an admin day on a Saturday, and not do admin stuff really during the week.

And yeah, I just feel like I have finally figured out how I work best, and that has taken a long time, but it's obviously been a lot easier working with you, and like you say, setting ourselves tasks every week, and to record for the podcast, that's probably been the biggest game changer.

The reason that we've both moved along so much this year is that we've come up with all the different ways that we think we should be moving forwards, and then we've been doing it and talking about it.

And that's been something to put in my planner.

So having this podcast has been the backbone to everything else, because on a Wednesday, I always have to do the podcast upload.

I've got the socials planned in, so every day I'm like doing social stuff, and then Sunday comes around and it's like recording the podcast.

And then through the week, I've got to do the stuff that we're going to talk about on the podcast.

So, like, that's like, I think everyone needs to start doing a podcast effectively.

Yeah, 100%.

Get a planner, do a podcast.

You can't fail, you have to do it, otherwise it's embarrassing.

Yeah.

But I think, like a lot of stuff that we do is stuff that I have always meant to do, right?

I have long meant to do.

I have in the past tried to make myself like a daily schedule.

So I said, at the weekends, I'm going to do this time.

And I just haven't, I haven't really, it's been too easy to give up.

I think that's it.

Like, we're going to talk about accountability next week.

And I think a lot of what keeps keeps us moving is like having that accountability where you're not just doing it for yourself, because you're if you do it just for yourself and you're having a bad day, you're like, well, I am having a bad day.

So if I'm doing this myself, myself is having a bad day, don't do it.

And then you can, I can just easily put myself out of things and and I needn't, right?

It's just a bad habit.

But it's, I don't think I'm alone in that bad habit of like putting things off that you should do.

But having this podcast and the talk with you really helps me say like, I'm going to try my best to stick to a schedule so I can reflect on what really doesn't work, rather than saying like, oh, I think schedules might work for me.

I'm not sure, maybe I'll try it one day, perhaps I'll get to it.

But actually having to have this time booked in on a Sunday evening, I literally have to talk to you about schedules.

Maybe try a new plan this weekend and like literally write down a schedule and take it off as I did it and see how that went.

And I wasn't I also didn't have to be perfect because the process is the thing.

Understanding how it works and reflecting on it is the thing not making it perfect.

because now I get to go away and say, okay, I've reflected on actually when you're talking before about you found the ways that work for you.

I think I am going to keep mourning writing sessions.

I sort of lean towards not doing it because it feels like hard work.

But actually also to me, it feels like it gives me a re-commitment every day to my writing.

And I think if I only wrote it weekends, I wouldn't feel the same and I wouldn't stay in the story the same way.

I think I may be happier being a bit flexible if I wake up and I feel really, really tired.

I used to when I was, you know, 10 years ago when I started writing like this, I used to be like, no, get up and get on and if you get to the cafe and you just sit and read for a couple of hours, that's enough.

I was like, I'm getting older.

So I'd rather just go back to sleep and I will I will appreciate the sleep.

But so I've just been rambled on, I feel like I'm having a very rambling evening because I'm in the middle of it.

Like I'm in the middle of trying to change my schedule and like trying to get on top of my schedule.

I'm not even in the middle of it.

I feel like I am close to an epiphany of like getting this set up.

So anyway, I am going to keep my mornings and I'm also going to keep changing my schedule and like keep working on it and reflecting on it and talking to you about it and getting a schedule that that when I transition to full time, I already have a schedule in place.

I don't suddenly think like, I've got all time in the world.

I've just relaxed.

The words remind themselves.

No, I don't want to be one of those people who, and I can see I would be right.

I can 100% imagine myself as a person who stops working full time and either writes no more or writes less.

because I am so good at filling time.

Like I have a to do list.

That's why I don't start doing my to do list before I write, because I have a to do list a mile long, and I would never start the writing.

So I have to do the writing first and then the to do list.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You do have far more to do lists than me, but I forego the cleaning and like the tidying of the house and all of the stuff that you're like, I'm a very minimal cleaner.

Yeah.

You just have to have a chore chart because otherwise you wouldn't do anything.

Well, that's my problem.

I just don't do anything.

Screw it.

And then like once a month or so, I'm like, oh, I should really clean and then I just blitz everything one go.

So that's how I work.

Yeah.

I much more prefer to put all of this first, like, which is great in some ways.

But yeah, I'm like sitting in the messiest room you could imagine.

And, you know, it won't get cleaned for maybe another month.

That's life.

You can't see it.

I think part of that, though, is like reflecting on yourself.

Like, I have found that when I do that, it doesn't seem to bother me, but I know that when I've tidied and cleaned, I feel better.

So like, I live by myself and I have a lot of pots.

So I used to have a really bad habit of just letting the pots mount up until...

I don't have a washing machine or dishwasher.

I don't have a dishwasher because I don't need one for one person.

So I used to get into a bad habit of just like letting them all pile up until I run out of pots.

And it's like, okay, now I'll wash.

And it didn't bother me except for the fact that now I've started...

I put it on my to-do list every day is wash the pots.

I feel better.

And I think I'm not good at...

I'm not I'm not good at knowing what's gonna make me feel better in the moment and acting in my best interest.

I am very good at like just trying to indulge what's gonna feel best right this second, which isn't always best for me in a holistic sense.

So I need to have these charts to say this takes care of holistic Matilda.

Well, fun loving, immediate life pleasure, Matilda will take care of anything else she can get.

Yeah, I'm still working on that part of my life, but I'm happy that I've got the writing part down.

The most important part.

That's the most important part.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think that probably brings us to a close on this because as all the topics that we talk about, it's just constantly in a state of flux.

We are where we are right now.

And come the start of next year, we might have changed completely, or maybe we're going to just reiterate what we've said and we're already perfect.

Why change?

Do you have anything else to talk to?

Yeah, that's what I was going to say is like, what is your next step with this?

I think I do want to...

I really want to feel like my weekend days are a solid representation of what my workdays would be like if I were writing full time.

And I want to get to writing at like my maximum capacity without burning out.

because I do think that is a real hard balance for me to get.

I often feel like right at the edge of burnout.

And I don't want to risk that.

But also the fact that if I went to full time, I'm kind of trying to make a schedule that it would work at five days a week.

And currently I work seven days a week.

Yes.

I kind of feel okay with where I'm at right now.

So my weekends are like how I imagine my full time authorship would be.

So Saturdays, maybe I could have a couple of days where it's just like mostly admin.

And then the other days of writing, like I'm kind of set on my scheduling right now.

There was something else I was just about to say.

Schedules, schedules.

My brain is just going completely blank.

But yeah, like I'm kind of like, I feel like I'm doing a good job.

Maybe I'll find that I can do things better.

But like, you know, that's just what's going to come about by doing it.

Yeah, like I feel really like I shouldn't be saying this, but I do feel like I'm doing well.

I'm not scared.

Yeah, it is great.

The only thing that I really need to work on is my downtime.

Like you say, I'm definitely doing only five days a week, and I already kind of take two days off during the week, but that's just based on, like because I have other commitments.

So I do at the moment only really write, do write and work five days a week or six, depending on if I can squeeze them in.

But the thing that I need to work on the most is trying to figure out when my down time would be in between projects.

because I have the projects that I want to work on set up for next year 2025.

And I think that I could do what I want to do, which is to release three books next year.

But looking at how I've scheduled that, that would mean like not having any downtime whatsoever, or very minimal breaks.

And as much as I love like writing, and I want to obviously do this full time, the plan really is to have this be a full time thing, but to have the benefits of and the flexibility of working for yourself as well, which means being able to take a holiday whenever you want.

And feeling like you're winning rather than just working, like just working in nine to five, but just writing instead.

Like I need to figure out how, like the other side of the writing life, like the fun side, not just the business side.

I want to know what the fun side looks like as well.

And that's something that I haven't, I don't know, I don't know what that's supposed to look like.

And maybe I won't find out till I'm doing it, but I really want to, I want to know like, how do you schedule time in?

How do you decide when's the best time to take a break?

I don't know, that's probably my biggest hurdle.

Yeah, I think one thing that I really make a mistake on, because I'm short of time, because I have a day job, I schedule things back to back.

So it doesn't do me any favours.

I could do like an input week in between everything, but I often have like, write the first five hours on this book, then flip to write, like edit this book, and then flip straight to write this book.

And for this current project I'm doing, it works really, really well because I'm, these three books, the first three books in the series, they have a background mystery that is very tightly plotted over all three books.

And I need to kind of keep more three atop of mind at the same time.

But I would like this three to kind of function as a set and then have some sort of break after that.

But I don't have that scheduled in because I feel a bit scared of letting go of a schedule that then I lose all control.

And it's so, it's just effort to get back into it.

And I think I'm afraid of that effort.

But can I, I think I would like to maybe schedule input weeks.

I think S.

Black talks about this sometimes.

It was like having reading weeks.

And I think what I would like to put in is, is I keep maybe the same schedule, the same schedule I have when writing.

But, you know, reading, even if it's on holiday, you know, doing some intensive reading or some intensive brainstorming or something, or just something fun.

For me, I'm not so worried about like trying to schedule in holidays and things.

It's more the mental breaks between projects.

But yeah, I think they're both kind of much of a muchness.

They're both the same thing of like, how do I make, make a long-term schedule that allows for real life?

Yeah.

because that's, that's like a huge part of why, that's part of the big dream of being an author, full-time author is, like, obviously you dream about all the books you're going to put out, but you do dream about the downtime.

Like, I certainly do.

I certainly have this thing in my head of like, oh, when I'm doing this full-time, it means I'll be able to do way more of this stuff.

But will I?

I do other creative things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I want to, like, take up my ceramics course full-time.

And yeah, there's just so many things that I want to do, but will I?

Can I?

I have to.

Yeah.

One thing I've started doing in this, like, my latest kind of organized process is scheduling an extra week, a buffer week in each long section.

So the long sections are like right in the full draft.

And I'll schedule an extra week.

Part of my motivation for doing that was because I, I get sick, you know, relatively often because I might be in condition.

Even if it's just like I'm having a week where I just feel too fatigued or anything, or I can feel something coming on, it's better for me to stop and not push through others.

I just do get sick.

So I've scheduled an extra weekend for that.

And what I want to try and do is always keep ahead of that if possible, and have that any extra time as free time.

And say that you learn that extra week, spend it reading.

I have got extra weeks at the end of the current batch of work I'm doing.

And I have in fact scheduled in other work to do.

So I'm not doing great.

And that's like, I was like, I've got all time.

Maybe write some short stories.

I maybe need to go back and review that plan.

I'm going to take a time off for Christmas, obviously.

Yeah, obviously.

Yeah, I've got, well, I say this, I do have a holiday booked, but it's always a writing holiday.

I always take my laptop and write.

That's okay.

To me, that still feels like a holiday.

But it's not.

Yeah, working progress, working progress.

Yeah.

Yeah, something for us to work on for and revisit at some point.

But I think it does feel really useful to talk about this and to reflect on it together.

And hopefully anyone listening is also thinking about their schedules and being realistic about it.

That has really helped me.

It's like really being realistic about what am I lying to myself?

What am I saying I'm doing?

And every single time I sit down to do it, I don't do that thing.

Like I would constantly be like I'm going to write three chapters a day, morning, afternoon and evening.

No, I'm at 1am every weekend.

I'd be like, why am I still writing now?

I hate myself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's definitely good to keep track and be honest.

Quote me on that.

Got to come up with some sort of little slogan.

Right.

So I guess we can wrap this up.

For next week's topic, we're continuing with this series of professionalizing, and our next episode is on accountability, which is kind of like the next step after scheduling.

So do you have any initial thoughts on accountability?

I do, because I think actually, scheduling and accountability for me, they feel very tied together in my head, because I am not great at being accountable to myself.

Or I sort of am, but I think I am both mean and lazy to myself or at myself.

I'm very self-sabotagey.

So I, because I know I can do things if I promise to do them, I tend not to use external accountability tools.

But I am trying to use some different things that will kind of trick me into being accountable.

Like almost this podcast has sort of tricked me into being accountable.

Like it feels like a chat with a friend.

It's like, yeah, easy breezy.

But it means every week, I actually have to do a thing that I said I do, because I have to talk to you about it.

Which for me, it feels like an internally motivated thing, because I could just not do it, but I feel responsible and I feel a sense of pride in being able to do these things.

So it tricks me into using that self motivation to do something that I said I would do.

Yeah.

Yeah, I have the same thoughts on the podcast.

There's definitely accountability.

I'm really good at being accountable to myself.

I have forever been this person where if I set myself a goal, if I say I'm going to start something, I will do that for the rest of time.

I've always been able to keep up with things, which is why a lot of people ask me how I managed to fit so many things into my life and how many hobbies I've got.

It's like, because when I start something, I will do it till I die.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, said I would.

Became a vegetarian, my whole family was like, you won't be a vegetarian for long.

It's like, watch me.

And then I became vegan, like, doubled down.

This is it.

So I've always been really good at that.

The one thing I think that has changed for me is, I think I've only really ever set myself goals and tasks that I thought I could do and never thought bigger than myself or what I thought I was capable of.

And since starting this podcast and talking to you and setting goals for ourselves, my goals and everything have become so much bigger and that is the kind of accountability that I'm looking forward to talking about.

It's like the accountability that's just thinking outside of what you think you can do and kind of like what it takes to push yourself a little bit further.

Yeah, so I'm really looking forward to talking about it.

And definitely, yeah, the external, external accountability is fun.

So much better.

I, yeah, I've already been looking at some tools for it.

So we will be, I will have tested a variety of tools and kind of feedback on those.

So do this along if you're looking for some different accountability tactics, we will have some resources to put in the show notes next week.

But that is for then I am accountable to myself right now.

I have got taxes to go and do.

Yes, the deadline is tomorrow.

I am as always, definitely get it done, but not with time to spare.

I would like to improve that about myself.

It is a work in progress.

Nice.

Well, thank you very much for everybody listening.

Thank you for tuning in.

Don't forget to follow, like, subscribe, all these things.

Leave a review, tell your friends and family.

Follow us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram.

And we are now uploading to YouTube.

So if you want to re-listen to the older podcasts, but see our beautiful faces at the same time, feel free to head over there.

More episodes are being uploaded continuously until I've caught up, which is going to take a while.

Please bear with me.

Yes, thank you very much.

And we will talk to you all next week.

Goodbye.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

Stay tuned for our next episode.

And don't forget to subscribe to learn how to write your way to financial success.