Writing your LNC Book will teach you about time management and productivity.
Writing a book can be an intimidating task. It can be frustrating when blank pages can stare at you mockingly for long hours that turn into days, weeks, and months before you make headway in your next chapter. It’s easy to procrastinate when you feel like you’re not getting anywhere.
That is, of course, unless you work out a plan that has you making progress daily on your book.
In fact, writing a book can help you manage your time more wisely and encourage productivity in multiple ways and areas of your business.
Here are a couple of things you can do to make more progress in a shorter time when writing your book.
Use the Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro technique is one in which you set a timer to promote short bursts of intense productivity. This method is effective because you operate in 25-minute increments. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
During that period of time, focus on one single task. In this case, that task would be writing your book. Whether you’re blocking out a chapter or simply writing an outline for the next chapter(s). You don’t stop for anything other than house-fire types of emergencies until the timer rings.
Then you take a five-minute break before moving on to the next task, or chapter, as the case may be. After every four short breaks, you take a longer break. This gives you time to clear your mind, charge your battery, and refocus on the work ahead of you for the day. This is a key component in your efforts to stay focused on writing your book and stop splitting focus by multi-tasking and otherwise spinning your wheels all day long.
An important factor for the success of this method is that you eliminate anything that can be a distraction. Silence the ringer on your phone, turn off notifications on your computer, and log out of your social media accounts.
Prioritize Your Tasks When Writing Your LNC Book
You have a lot of things to do on any given day. It can be easy to get caught up in minute tasks and quickly lose time to write during your day. The longer this continues, the more time you have to forget what’s going on with your book or abandon your book altogether. Steady progress is a much better way to go.
The best gift you can give yourself is time. Whatever calendar system you use for your business should have time blocked off specifically to write. Once it’s on your calendar, treat that time as if it were a VIP client. This will help you see the importance of writing your book. If it’s not on your calendar, it will never get done. Another key is that you can’t use that scheduled time to do anything else. It’s for your book. You must honor it.
Accomplish this by doing the following:
Quit spending unnecessary social media time. While some are necessary to maintain relevance with your audience, give yourself time limits for your favorite social media platforms each day. You would be surprised how much time you are spending there.
- Give up television time to write.
- Get up early or stay up late to make time for writing.
Set deadlines for getting specific writing done, then adhere to them.
This can include deadlines for:
- Chapter outlines
- Chapter delivery
- Editing deadlines
- First draft
- Second draft
- Publishing
You get the idea. There’s a lot to do, but as long as you schedule time accordingly and taking some steps daily, you will begin to see your progress in no time.
Decide how important your book is to your professional future and consider prioritizing your writing over some work functions by delegating or bringing on another team member to help take care of tasks that take you away from writing.
The reward for all this time management and productivity-enhancing effort is that you will discover you can write a book.
In conclusion, writing your LNC book requires you to take it seriously. Prioritize it by blocking off time on your calendar and sticking to it. Don’t look at the enormity of writing the whole book in a single session. That will never work and only frustrate you. Take one chapter at a time and celebrate when you finish it. Now, write the next one, and so on.
Set yourself up for success in writing your book. Many people talk about writing a book but don’t do it. Others start writing a book but never finish it. Be the person that commits to finishing and publishing your book. You’ve got this!
Let me guide you through the process of book writing. Check out the course I offer, “Get Your Book Finished.” See the details at this link.
Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs to obtain more clients, make more money, and achieve their business goals and dreams.
Pat’s related websites include the continuing education provided on LNCEU.com, the podcasts broadcast at podcast.legalnursebusiness.com, and writing tips supplied at patiyer.com.
Get all of Pat’s content in one place by downloading the mobile app, Biz Edu at www.legalnursebusiness.com/bizedu. Watch videos, listen to podcasts, read blogs, watch online courses and training, and more.