Debbie Ridpath Ohi interviews Christina Katz (Writer Mama) about time management for writers.
What advice do you have for writers who are “time management”-challenged?
I’d tell them there is no such thing as time-management challenged. What we are probably talking about is that most left-brained time-management techniques don’t work for right-brained people. So people are not actually “time-management challenged.” They are likely right-brained trying to live in a left-brained world.
What I think what we’re dealing with here, Debbie, is a classic permission issue. If a right-brain person is waiting to be more like a left-brain person before they can master time, they are going to be waiting for a long time. But if they explore and experiment with what works for them within their current work context, and strive for their own definition of time-management success (assuming it harmonizes with those around them), they will start to thrive and be more productive.
This is something I’ve been dealing with for years, and I’ve only recently found the key to routine and time management. I really think it’s down to having a “do it now” attitude, and taking the small steps—consistently—toward getting a task accomplished. I’m not always consistent, I still have times when I blow it or something comes up that throws me off for a few days. But it doesn’t take long for me to get everything back in order.
Now, I’m talking exclusively about housekeeping in this case. I still don’t manage to get writing time in every day, but it happens more and more. It’s become a matter of discipline rather than fighting off the procrastination that is a response to constant nagging guilt over the state of my kitchen.
I don’t know exactly what Christina means by right-brained time management techniques, but I know how it feels to wrestle with left-brained techniques; I’ve been doing that all my life. Understanding that I need to take a fluid approach to tasks has opened my eyes, and I’m a lot more able to get things done, including writing. Writing scenes as they come to me instead of sticking a one-line scene idea into an outline, planning for a few minutes at a time, putting the story in order once it’s all there in front of me instead of writing from beginning to end, are all ways I’m working with my right-brained modality instead of against it.
“What we are probably talking about is that most left-brained time-management techniques don’t work for right-brained people. So people are not actually ‘time-management challenged.’ They are likely right-brained trying to live in a left-brained world.”
I agree completely. Each person has their own organizational system and it’s wrong to foist your method on another, especially if it doesn’t really jive with the way the person thinks. For example, I had a brief job at a marketing and consulting business where the IT chief used to lecture all of the employees about the “right” way to organize files on their computer, how to keep the desktop neat and tidy in a way he wanted, and forced them to use this method or that method to do something instead of a way that made sense to them. None of these lectures or policies were required for any IT purpose, such as backing up or security. He just knew he had the “right” way to do it and couldn’t handle anyone else having a different method. I remember listening to him lecture someone in her cubicle for an hour about why she was doing wrong and why she should keep icons off the desktop and why she should use the Launcher instead of opening the program directly, this that and the other.
Bottom line, what matters is achieving the goal in a way that makes sense to you and doesn’t require a whirlwind to do it (or leave one behind).
Ew, talk about micro-managing! I could not handle that kind of work environment. If I’m left alone, I’ll figure out my own way and it always works better.
Though I think advice and suggestions can be helpful. The writing and other groups I’ve joined that showed me new ways to do things may not always have worked out perfectly, but I almost always learned something I could put to use.
I completely agree! I do Schedule Makeovers on people, but the point isn’t to fit everyone into the same mold but to address their specific goals and personality.
The “right” time management system is the one that allows you to invest your time in what is most important to you and feel good about who you are and what you’re doing–not one that makes you feel guilty or overwhelmed.