Re-evaluating at the New Year

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Happy 2020, everyone!  I hope everybody enjoyed their holidays.  I went on vacation with my family (actually, I’m returning a little later today, so I’ll be a bit late responding to comments) and enjoyed spending time with them.

Although I’ve never been happy about making resolutions, I’ve always tried to take time at the new year to plan out the year, set goals (better than resolutions, I’ve found), and see what’s working and what’s not.

It was at this point last year that I decided to move forward with my plan to start another series.  I managed to publish the first couple of books in that series in 2019.  Last year I ended up writing 5 books and I’m planning on matching that this year since it was pretty doable.

The only problem with this approach is that I have less time, obviously.  Ordinarily I write about 3 books a year.  Adding an extra 2 to the calendar means that I have to be a little more organized with my time and have to evaluate where I might be able to make cuts.

One thing I’m doing sounds minor but really helps me save time: I’m grouping my errands and knocking them all out at one time. Before, I had a little more of a slipshod approach and would run an errand a day.

Something else I’m doing, especially since I’ve got an empty nest now, is reduce the number of days a week that I’m cooking.  I’ve discovered that my local grocery stores have a special section for prepared foods that are ready to be popped into the oven. Not only do they have healthy options, the cost isn’t nearly as high as I thought it might be. Plus, the grocery stores seem to be more creative with their recipes than I am.  :)

One other thing that will actually impact what I’m doing here:  I’m going to cut back on blogging to twice a week.  That means I’ll post the Twitterific Sunday post and then blog on Monday (cutting back on Fridays).  Although I’ve always felt that blogging has provided me with great writing practice, I’m currently doing so much writing that falling back to twice a week will likely only help me out.

Things I’m not changing: daily exercise, my sleep schedule, and making time to do things with family.

For further reading: 

Erin Tolbert’s “4 Simple, Realistic Ways You Can Make Time to Write” (including task delegation…something I need to explore).

Janalyn Voigt’s “Making Time to Write: Quitting to Win” (including retiring a series).

These are just a few of the adjustments I’m making, although I’m definitely looking to find other ways of saving time.  How about you?  What are your plans for 2020?  Are you ramping up your writing?  Or needing to shuffle things in your life around to make more time?

Re-evaluating life to make more time:
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