Warning:  this is a no-edit zone…

It’s about ten in the morning and I’ve been at it for nearly eight hours–since just after two.  I don’t know about you, but when I have a lot of diverse projects going, I forget how valuable sleep is because I’m too wired to even think about doing it much less to actually try it.

Right now is one such time, and last night was one such night.  Currently, I’m setting up some small companies I’ve wanted to do for a while.  I’m writing on five, not my usual four, novels, and doing the research for a new non-fiction.  In my spare time, I’m building a fourth new website and recording radio shows both for Everyday Woman, the show I host, and shows for writers, which is going to debut shortly.

The new Everyday Woman show, THE MOMMY WARS: Special Challenges and Tips and Solutions, is up by the way.  If you want to listen, head over to www.iwrnradio.com. 

In addition to the things listed above, I’ve been spending extra time with my gran–she needs it with the new baby and her new tooth injury–and working on a bombshellauthors project, one for a local writer’s group and trying to learn a new art form.  I am also exploring doing some writing workshops and podcasting them–so it’d be like attending workshops without leaving home.

This isn’t all the goodies I’m trying to focus on working at the moment.  I’m afraid to put everything in one list.  I can’t eat that bear all at once.  But in bites, he’s going down!

And I guess that’s what’s really on my mind this morning.  Multi-tasking and how writers either must be oriented to it or become oriented to it.  I’m looking back over the years I’ve been a writer and I remember no time during all that time when I felt able to solely focus on a single task.

Writers are jugglers.  They’re creating at least one project, editing another, promoting a third, planning promotion on a fourth, researching a fifth–and so on.  That doesn’t count the extras like workshops, seminars, blogging, aiding writers’ groups, answering questions or brainstorming with a stuck writer, looking over a project someone else is working on and feels something they can’t pin down isn’t quite right or any of the thousand other things we writers do. (Notice I haven’t touched personal items or family obligations/responsibilities or fun stuff at all in this listing.)

I’ve been a priority list proponent for many years.  When people ask I get so much done, I point directly to it because I’m convinced that it keeps me out of crisis-mode and in a functioning frame of mind.  I also attribute the workload carried to the annual goals planning I do each November.  Yes, it takes a little time to think about it and get it set up, but then for the entire year, I’m focused on specific goals and that helps me stay on track. I also get to celebrate my progress because I can actually see it–since I’m looking for it.

Tools make the jobs easier, and I am all for that–even on those days when I haven’t been able to sleep the night before because so much is on my mind. 

Don’t misunderstand, it isn’t worry about those things keeping me awake.  It’s excitement.  I’m enjoying the heck out of the projects I’m doing and, well, the truth is, when a creative person’s enthusiasm is fired (and it follows her to even mundane tasks), that just isn’t conducive to sleep.

Yet I’m reminded to consider the restorative properties in sleep. The healing. The purging of daily stress. The wonderful things we come upon in the stillness.

And knowing the value of each of those things–and those unmentioned–makes it clear that discipline is warranted. 

That too is on my mind this morning. Remembering the wisdom in knowing every hour slept before 2:00 A.M. is like sleeping double the number of hours actually slept.  (Experts claim its because of sleep cycles, and 2 for 1 sounds like a good deal to me.)  Remembering that sleepless nights lead to cranky days and tired bodies.  And tired bodies easily get sick.  Who needs that?

So this morning, though I’m wired for sound and ready to keep going, discipline has arrived and insisted it be set free from the closet. It’s snatched the crown off enthusiasm’s head and is ruling with an iron fist. The royal orders flow down from the hallowed hall:
“Work until lunch, goof around AWAY from the office for an hour, and then take a nap. Only after those items are ticked off on your priority list may you return to the office and unleash enthusiasm for Round Two.”

My honest first thought: Spit. Damn, damn, damn.

My honest second thought: What the heck am I going to do for an hour away from the office–that doesn’t include anything domestic? Think, woman. Think. Justify! Justify! Justify!

Mmm, well, I’ll go vote. And–I’m looking out my office window. It’s sunny and warm and, while the hammock is too obvious, my beloved Lloyd H happens to have a huge wheelbarrow parked in the shade under my favorite oak. Now that looks like a great place to hide out with a good book and snooze. I look to my To-be-read pile. EYE OF THE DREAM and PAST SINS…. I’m gone!

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,

Vicki

Vicki Hinze
www.vickihinze.com
www.everydaywomanradio.com
Everyday Woman Blog:  http://everydaywoman.typepad.com/everyday_woman_radio_show/