How Productive Are You?

At a job I used to work at… they tried to make us “track” our activies to see what we were spending our time on and see where efficiencies could be had.

Only problem: Trying to write down and “track” what you do at every point in the day is a HUGE TIME WASTER itself! We spent more time trying to track our time that we couldn’t get all our jammed packed schedule of work done on time!

An invisible tracker sounds MUCH better.

I have no good “schedule” due to my kids, so I’m not sure 100% how that would work for me. Hrm. Thinking about it… I really DO need to cut down on Facebook….

I’ve never used an automated system to track my productivity, just daily diaries. As a contractor/freelance writer software that tracks my activities would be interesting but potentially inaccurate, because much of what might seem unproductive (browsing the web, monitoring social media and even playing games) are part of my job as the Publisher of the Preternatural Post (www.preternaturalpost.com) and Founder of the LinkedIN group Informed Ideas for Writers. I’ll be interested to see what Rescue Time reveals.

I like Michael Seese’s answer – a concise display of excellent self-awareness!

I don’t have much choice as to when or how I can work; aside from working around a serious illness, my wife and I run a sanctuary for unwanted dogs, and their needs (and wants!) have to come first.

I simply have to work around the other factors in my life, and make sure that writing time is well-utilized. It might be nice to imagine living another life where choices in working environment are possible – but I wouldn’t trade the life I have now.

And I believe that it makes my writing better, because I have to be able to cut verbiage to the bone, on the first pass.

I haven’t used any program like that, but I find that when I sit down to work, I’m pretty well-focused. The tough part for me is sitting down. It’s not that I don’t want to work, it’s just I dilly-dally with stuff and nonsense for a while. Once I apply fingers to keyboard, though, I’m good.

Thanks for the advice! As a workaholic, I’m always interested in learning more about how to increase my productivity.
When I was a kid, I used to spend hours on writing; it was much easier to not be distracted because I didn’t have Internet access back then. This was the early nineties, when most people hardly knew anything about the Internet. Now it’s hard to spend even one hour without accessing the Internet when I sit down in front of my laptop.

Excellent post, and thank you for the link to rescuetime. Right now in my writing career I’m doing it to take a break from my day job, one in which I’m constantly focused on productivity and time management. At some point in my writing life I may want to look further into how to turn writing into a job, at which point the productivity concerns will be quite useful.

- TOSK

I have to write without music, unless you want to see lyrics on the page (in the ear, out the fingers!).

My job imposes on me what hours I write. Usually it’s at lunch or after work.

The question of how long I can go without…

Squirrel!

Umm, so I guess it goes without saying that I can’t have distractions?

My productivity really depends on how much my characters are speaking to me. Sometimes they are downright rude, either yelling in my head or completely ignoring me.

I like the idea of the software, maybe it’ll keep me on track. I’m also looking into Dr. Wicked, a writing software that starts to do rude things, like changing the color of your screen or blasting annoying sounds, if you don’t keep writing.

I’m like Stephen (TOSK) in that my writing is my break time. It’s my hobby and escape from sitting with cancer patients, counseling splitting couples, crying with parents over their deceased nineteen year old, conducting weddings with dysfunctional families who nearly come to blows and daily being told it’s all just about being a good person. That was last week. I don’t know when I’m most productive. For now, I’m using my writing to help keep life from being destructive to my happy soul.

As for now, I’m using a different approach: After defining all my book scenes, I create a project on Microsoft Project and a worksheet on Excel, and once a week or two I updated the project schedule and fill some stats at Excel. Project help me to keep track on my planned x actual productivity; while Excel gives me the stats on how many words, scenes etc, I’m writting each day and gives me a projection on the most possible date I’ll finish my first draft.

I realized that keeping track on what I did and defining goals based on my actual productivity are the best way to keep me motivated, to keep me writing even in those days that I don’t feel really “inspired”.

And remember: just keep writing – You’ll can always review and fix everything in the second draft.

I think I know the answer to those questions; but, just like the bank balance can be off when carried around in my head, so might my analysis of my productive times be off as well. I’m willing to attempt this experiment on myself. Thanks for the tools to do so. Let the fun begin!

I like quiet. I like to be alone, yet; I have written some astounding lyrics or chapters bouncing along on a city bus or while everyone in the congregation was singing some other song.

Don’t think technology would help me diagnose my time spent any better. I know I need to step away from social media andI am aware that I like long stretches (1-4 hours) of unclaimed time to write creatively. My next goal is to be able to write in stolen minutes between obligations or responsibilities and still be able to step back into the flow or voice with ease.