Again, I am feeling the negative effects of not structuring my time better.

I’ve been working on several things tonight: a show application, writing up a blurb for my new short story, and doing some keyword research.

Now I’m waiting for I’m with Cupid to update on KDP. It’s taking forever. I think I might need to reformate the story. When I was doing keyword research, I found one that would be good for I’m with Cupid so I went in to update it. I found that my keywords for that short story really needed help. But other things might need updated on the project too since it’s been a long time. All I want to do is change the keywords and see if it helps the story’s discoverability any.

The whole time I told myself that I needed to set the timer. Critical voice stepped in here: But for how long? You want to get this done tonight, don’t you? How many nights do you want to work on this? Oh, my devious little critical voice. So, yes, I didn’t set the timer and just allowed myself to go about the work I was doing. I’m sure every single project could have been tightened up if I’d focused just a little more.

I keep trying to tell myself to be kind, that this is a journey for a structured solution, not a sprint. Maybe using “minutes” for some of these longer projects won’t work as well as saying, “Okay, I have half an hour (or an hour) to do this.” I also know that I hate stopping mid-project on something. I like to go until I’m done. There’s good and bad with this — like the time I worked for 21 hours straight to format a book, or 13 hours to get packed for a show, drive, and setup for said show. That’s not healthy. I must learn how to stop and put something aside for the night, and pick up the next day without getting distracted.

But obviously I won’t be starting that tonight. Right now, I want Cupid to finish.

Cheers.