Karen Brown Tyson

Tag: #easy

How to Prepare for the Week Ahead in 5 Easy Steps

If your life is anything like mine, you have a lot going on. Every week is full of work assignments, family commitments, goals, and dreams. I remember ending some weeks on top of the world, and other weeks, I felt like I didn’t accomplish much.

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And sometimes, I ended my week feeling overwhelmed. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Planning your week is a great way to stay on top of everything and avoid last-minute disasters. This post outlines what works for me in five easy steps to prepare for the week ahead. As you read through, I encourage you to apply the steps that work for you and eliminate anything that doesn’t.

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you purchase using the links.

Step #1 — List

One of the best ways to prepare for a busy week is by setting aside time on the weekend — either Saturday or Sunday — to list all of your meetings, appointments, tasks, and commitments for the upcoming week. Also, include any goals or projects that need your attention. Don’t worry about how many items you list, as some of the things you want to work on may flow into the following week. By getting everything out of your head, you can see what’s ahead of you. With a plan in place for the whole week, I wake up on Monday feeling more organized and ready to take on the week.

Click here to read the blog post on how to add calm and focus to your life.

Step #2 — Categorize

Once I list all my thoughts and tasks, I group everything into different categories. I encourage you to create categories that work for you. The categories I use for my system are:

Business, faith, medical, self-care, home-life, connections, and fun.

As you categorize your tasks, you can use one or more of the following tools:

A whiteboard or flip-chart paper posted on a wall

A journal or PowerSheets planner

An electronic document

Use the display that works best for you and keep it where you can see it every day. Then, as you go through your week, mark off everything you complete. If you cannot complete a task, move it to the next day or the following week.

Step #3 — Organize

To help organize your tasks, you can use lots of systems. I like the Eisenhower Matrix, which allows you to decide which tasks are most important by categorizing them into four boxes. It’s a simple decision-making tool that can help clear up your schedule so it will be more organized and efficient.

Stephen Covey popularized the Urgent-Important Matrix in his best-selling book The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. This habit is named after Dwight D Eisenhower, who organized his obligations so that only matters of importance and urgency came across his desk.

But there is a clear distinction between important and urgent tasks.

Urgent tasks are the ones that demand your attention. A good example is an email from someone who needs a report by the end of the day.

Important tasks are the backbone of all other work. With important tasks, you have more time than you do with urgent tasks. For important tasks, apply a deadline and work on them until they are complete. Then, monitor your progress to ensure that the tasks don’t become urgent due to procrastination or missed deadlines.

Step #4 — Schedule

When planning your schedule, make sure to balance your week by choosing the important and urgent tasks from each category. If some tasks seem more pressing than others, use those as priorities for planning out what needs to be done first so they don’t fall through the cracks.

Step #5 — Reflect

Well done! You’ve made it to the end of another week. Take some time for yourself and do a weekly reflection. What are your thoughts on how things went this time around? Do any tasks need moving to next week? Make a note of anything that didn’t go well to make changes.

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February 8, 2022
Too Unfocused To Write? How to Help Your Writing in 3 Easy Ways
Every writer, myself included, has fallen into the trap of losing focus while writing. We sit at our writing spaces, intending to get lots of writing done, but we lose focus. Before we know it, we’ve spent two hours surfing the web, and we’re nowhere close to getting anything done. If you sometimes feel too unfocused to write, I will share three easy ways to refocus your writing time to improve your writing productivity.

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Too unfocused to write? You are not alone.

When you sit down to write, do you constantly check your phone or your email? It’s no secret that distractions are all around us. Sometimes it’s the phone or doorbell ringing, while other times, it’s us pushing our writing to the side to do something else.

According to a ComScore study, we spend at least three hours on our smartphones every day. So every time we stop writing to deal with our smartphones, emails, or other unplanned distractions, it can take up to 23 minutes to recover. Whether you write full-time or part-time, your time is precious. If we’re not careful, we end up wasting more time doing other things besides writing.

Frustrated with my own unproductive writing time, I decided to monitor what was going on by tracking my steps. I paid close attention to:
- how I started each writing session,
- at what point I stopped writing,
- what types of things distracted me most, and
- how much time passed before I returned to my writing.
As a result, I decided to make several changes, but I’m sharing three easy ways to help you get your writing back on track.

The three easy ways to help refocus your writing.

1. Calendarize your writing tasks

Every morning, I write down my to-do list for the day. I only focused on the tasks I had to complete for my full-time job as a corporate communicator, eventually carrying this habit into my consulting business. But I never included my writing tasks. Without including my writing tasks as part of my daily list of things to do, I easily lost my focus.

Now, I use two tools to keep me on track. First, I use my Google calendar to write down all of my tasks for the week. As I complete tasks throughout the week, I cross them off the list. The second tool I use is a desktop whiteboard which I update at the start of each day. On my desktop whiteboard, I write down the writing tasks I plan to work on for the day.

2. Time your writing sessions

Nothing helps me focus my writing sessions more than doing sprints. As a writer, it would be great to sit down and write for three or four hours non-stop. But life happens, and like many writers, I have to devote my time to other responsibilities. To manage all of my tasks, including my writing sessions, I set a timer for each task.

I have lots of apps in my arsenals like the PomoDoneApp and BeFocusedPro (in the Apple App Store) that allow me to use an electronic timer to time my writing sessions. My favorite program is RescueTime which offers FocusTime, where I can set a timer for 30 minutes or 2 hours. Also, FocusTime automatically blocks distracting websites I might try to sneak in when I lose focus.

3. Walk away from your writing session

After calendarizing my writing tasks and timing my writing sessions, I still had one obstacle to overcome: controlling my movement. After years of sitting at a desk, I was eager to start working at a standing desk with a floor mat. Despite being eager to work in my new writing environment, I still felt the urge to walk away from my writing project when I got stuck or lost my focus.

As it turns out, studies show that getting up and walking around for five minutes every hour can help you regain focus. In the study, employees who were allowed to walk for 30-minutes before working for five-hour stretches were happier and had less fatigue than the employees who weren’t allowed to move. So I made myself a deal. After each 25-minute writing sprint, I take a five-minute break. After five consecutive 25-minute writing sessions, I take a 20-minute break. By walking away from writing, I’m able to refocus and return refreshed.

Find Your Writing Blockers

Every writer must come to terms with the potential blockers that keep them from writing. Find out what causes you to lose your focus when writing. Is your writing environment loud, uncomfortable, or distracting? Within five minutes of your writing time, are you interrupted by something? Are you too tired to write? Once you find your writing blockers, deal with them quickly, or they will rob you of your precious writing time.

[bctt tweet=”The world is waiting for you to tell your story. Don’t let us down.” username=”KBTWrites”]

For more information on how to manage your writing life, check out these articles:

How to Bend Time to Fit Writing into your Busy Life

6 Powerful Time Management Solutions for Time-Crunched Writers

10 Awesome Tips on How to Overcome Time Anxiety When Writing

I’d love to help you as you take the next steps in your writing life. To get started, complete this form to let me know about your current nonfiction writing project and needs.
May 20, 2021
7 Easy Outlining Tips For Writing Your First Nonfiction Book
When writing a nonfiction book, an author can take a few different routes to get to the end. But one route many writers like to avoid is outlining. Many writers worry that an outline will restrict their creativity. However, every writer, especially those with busy schedules wanting to write a nonfiction book, can benefit from using an outline. An outline is a guide. Today’s post, the second in a series on how to write your first nonfiction book with a busy schedule, offers seven easy outlining tips.

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase using the links.

Tip #1 — Keep an open mind about using an outline

Outlines are like road maps. Ever wonder why? Much like a road map that you use on a road trip, you can get an idea of the fastest and surest route to reach your destination, but that doesn’t mean you have to take it. A road map doesn’t prevent you from finding exciting off-road adventures and scenic drives along the trip. Similarly, an outline is a guide, but you don’t have to take one route. Outlining is an easy way to see the direction and flow of your book. To take advantage of the full power of outlining, you need to approach the process with a flexible mindset.

Tip #2 — Use mind mapping to uncover the key points your book will cover

When creating an outline, it is essential to move the ideas swirling around in your mind onto paper. An easy way to do this is with mind mapping. A mind map allows you to write a central statement or main point in the paper’s center. Next, list subtopics that relate to the main point. To complete this exercise, you can use a notebook, portable whiteboard, or a large sheet of paper on the wall with Post-it Notes. Since I like to keep my ideas in a digital format so I can write on the go, I use Mind Meister, a web-based mind mapping software that allows you to brainstorm in real-time With easy-to-use templates, Meister helps you imagine the components of your book. Here’s an example from one of my boards.

Tip #3 — Start with an easy outline format

If outlines aren’t usually your thing, start with a basic outline. Using the information from the mind mapping exercise, you can either use key points, phrases or create your book’s table of contents. Each chapter’s title in the table of contents will serve as the key points in your basic outline.

Tip #4 — Use a key-point outline

If you aren’t ready to create your book’s table of contents, create a key-point outline. In a key-point outline, you can list the key ideas of points you want to cover in your book. A key-point outline is easy to make and does not require complete sentences.

Tip #5 — Use a full-sentence outline

The structure of a full-sentence outline is similar to a key-point outline. As you can imagine, a full-sentence outline requires more information than a key-point outline. However, a full-sentence outline makes it easy for the nonfiction writer to transfer more information from the outline to the manuscript.

Tip #6 — Pick the type of outline that works best for you

There isn’t one type of outline that will get you to the finish line faster. Between the key-point outline and the full-sentence outline, one isn’t better than the other. Find an easy outline that works best for your current writing project. If you use the key-point outline to write your first nonfiction book (see also our article on narrative nonfiction), don’t be afraid to try the full-sentence outline for your second book.

Tip #7 — Make your outline a living document

Throughout the writing process, you may discover new and beautiful things about your book. When you do, go back to your outline to made revisions or additions. Since your outline supports your book’s writing process, don’t be afraid to make changes to it as you go along. Outlines help you keep track of your book’s direction and focus. As a time-crutched writer, this is key in helping you use your time wisely.

Summary

Use an outline as a reference. At its best, an outline can help you flesh out your most promising ideas. It doesn’t matter if you use a basic, key-point, or full-sentence outline. Choose an easy format that best supports your writing project. In addition to helping you pursue the proper structure for your book, outlines help you save time and prevents frustration. For more information on writing your first nonfiction book, check out these ten steps to writing a nonfiction book.

I’d love to help you as you take the next steps in your writing life. To get started, complete this form to let me know about your current nonfiction writing project and needs.
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April 1, 2021