Friday 17^th July 2020

I had a realisation about staycation today.

I want to get lots done. I want to look back at these two weeks and feel that the time I would ordinarily be devoting to the day job got used productively. My main aim is to get this draft done. If that’s all I achieve I will be happy.

But given how well it is going, I realise that I’m probably going to be done half way through the first week (even with a read through before I send it off). That will leave me ¾ of my Staycation spare.

And that feels like a waste of time.

Yes, I have things I want to do around the house and garden. I’d like to get some Warcraft done, maybe get to level 100 in Fortnite’s current season. It would also be a good idea to use it to start some new habits.

But what I lack is a plan. I’ve realised that today.

I am at my most productive when I have several things on the go and swap between them. If I have an entire day to edit I’ll spend 90% of the day dicking around on the internet and whilst I’ll get some work done… it won’t be much more than I would have done if I’d just had an evening.

Now, I do think procrastination is useful. Sometimes we do need to take a break to be effective, but my trick has always been to use that procrastination time to work on something different.

So wouldn’t it be better if I not only got a draft done, but used down time to achieve some goal in Warcraft, or worked on something different. I’ve done so many different little projects recently that started then stopped that perhaps I could start on those. What about writing a script, or researching games writing? Could I write a draft of one of the numerous outlines I have done?

But, that means I need a plan.

For two weeks I get to pretend I’m a full-time writer…so why not treat it as such, organising my day to get various things done? I can add plenty of time for procrastination and still get a load more done.

However, the first step of a plan is a list of tasks.

Now, I’ve had my yearly goals that I’ve been roughly following, but perhaps it’s time to look a little deeper at some of those goals and come up with mini projects I can do over the next 2 weeks.

Either way, I need to spend the rest of the day coming up with task lists.