Tag: pomodoro technique

19 September 2023

Tuesday 19 September 2023: A new gadget!

I spent much of the weekend trying to focus on what work needs doing when. I spent a lot of time last week learning how to publish a magazine in Affinity. The first part of the week was learning how to make a pdf. The second part of the week was learning how to export the pdf so that it’s...

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4 January 2023

Wednesday 4 Jan 2023: Pomodoro Baby!

Tuesday started really late for me. This was too bad as it was the first day of the new year and I had great plans to follow. The problem was, we got up late, and we got up late because we binge-watched the first series of Happy Valley on Monday night. I didn’t bother suggesting we watch it when it...

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21 October 2021

NaNoWriMo Prep Day Zero

Prep Day Zero is actually all of the prep work for the prep work. For me, it’s reminding myself of the steps that work when I outline a project, and this week I’ve created tasks in my Asana project file. Including Day Zero, there are actually six prep days rather than five, but the last one is Day Five. What’s...

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22 March 2021

Pomodoros rule!

I was late again to my desk on Friday morning, but I had done a lot of work already on the mobile phone, both in bed and over breakfast. For example, I checked emails, the bank and social media, and I did another job search. At my desk, the first job I did was an hour of date work. Then...

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12 March 2021

Stormy night

Image by janrye from Pixabay We had a heavy storm overnight on Wednesday. It was more windy than rainy, but I liked this image above as soon as it popped up. Wistfully we said it was good that we didn’t have to worry about any chickens or the greenhouse blowing away. But I do think it spooked the animals a...

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29 October 2020

NaNoWriMo Prep: Days 2, 3 & 4

I’ve been working through the prep days for NaNoWriMo, trying to do everything in a certain order. Because I’ve decided on The Beast Within, much of the character work is already done, and the book is semi-outlined all the way through. So I’ve just been reading through all of that to refresh my memory, and adding anything else that’s popped into...

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27 October 2020

NaNoWriMo: And the winner is …

Today should have been NaNoWriMo Prep: Day 2. But after a long weekend, and with NaNoWriMo looming only this weekend, I had quite a lot of admin work to do. First of all I had to tidy up my online calendar. I had to mark as done all of my usual jobs and chores for the whole of October, as I’ve...

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31 July 2020

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 20 (last day)

With me finishing the revisions of Twee Tales Too on Wednesday, I already had an extra hour today. Then when I checked in to the content-editing workroom, there was no work, so that was another extra hour today. I hoped that would be enough to finish today’s work. First of all I had the last 3,106 words to write for this...

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30 July 2020

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 19 of 20 (in the end)

So this great plan of mine to be at my desk by 9am and write for 4 hours was foiled before I even got there. The poet was working from home and he had a Skype meeting (or a Team meeting) at 8am. For 4 hours. (FOUR hours!) I fannied around for a bit, doing what chores I could, making...

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27 July 2020

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 16

Oops, skipped a day … From this week, my 10-project writing planner has a new project attached. It’s a proofreading job, and I want it finished by the end of Friday. Next week, I add a different project to my planner. This week’s proofreading job means I’ll have 2 projects on the go at the same time for the first...

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8 July 2020

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 5

I say Day 5, but is it really Day 7? It was certainly Day 7 of the month, and it’s probably Day 7 for a lot of other campers. But I’m not doing a 31-day writing month. I’m doing a 23-day writing month. Because I don’t work at the weekend. Monday was a Very Busy Day. Tuesday was slightly less...

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9 December 2019

Diary of a non-fiction book: Website research

I have been beavering away at the biography, but it is dragging on a bit now. We had so many interferences and interruptions that the deadline kept on being pushed back. I was ill and then the poet was ill and then we were burgled and then we had another attempted break-in … and, and, and …  Even I’m sick...

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14 November 2019

Thursday 14 November 2019

Hmm. Not only is the old classic WordPress interface much easier and quicker to use, it also posts when I schedule it to. The new editor isn’t exactly on a winning streak at the moment … Yesterday was a good working day. I got up on time, was at my desk on time, and I finished all of my daily...

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10 October 2019

Thursday 10 October 2019

You’ll be pleased to know I finally made some inroads on the copywriting job yesterday.  I started with some handwriting practise because my handwriting is becoming quite unreadable. Then I wrote up the day’s Pomodoros, because I hadn’t had chance to do that the day before. And I wrote my daily writing blog post. Then I spread out all of...

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9 October 2019

Wednesday 9 October 2019

The morning went well yesterday, starting with me writing up the day’s Pomodoros. I was out on Monday afternoon and didn’t have time to do it at the end of the day.  I wrote my daily blog post and I wrote up the report for the writers’ group. Then I settled in to some writing for the Cadbury book. For...

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8 October 2019

Tuesday 8 October 2019

The day began yesterday with a blog post, and then I was onto the client copywriting job. I located and printed off all the research notes I wanted, and collated everything together ready to go. I also started to jot down a few things. Then the phone call came in that my deadline had been moved from next Wednesday to...

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7 October 2019

Monday 7 October 2019

Friday morning began with some Pomodoro admin and a jigging about of each one, resulting in one Pomodoro less per day and a shorter dinner break, but longer Pomodoro breaks. I certainly didn’t feel quite so rushed by the end of the day and had more time to breathe. I wrote my daily blog post, tidied up my Twitter feed,...

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4 October 2019

Friday 4 October 2019

Twelve Pomodoros a day with 5-minute breaks plus one 60-minute break isn’t really working. I’m managing the Pomodoros okay, but the short breaks are too short. Five minutes isn’t long enough to empty a full dishwasher or fill it with a full load. Five minutes isn’t long enough to sort out, hang out, fold up or put away one washload. Five minutes...

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3 October 2019

Thursday 3 October 2019

I was very pleased with my output yesterday, and I didn’t even need to switch over to the focused (i.e. not connected to the internet) laptop.  The day started with my daily blog post, for which I wrote 459 words. Then I moved on to the Cadbury book. I only had the morning scheduled in for this as I was...

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2 October 2019

Wednesday 2 October 2019

October suddenly got busier late yesterday afternoon. But it’s okay, I was half-expecting it.  It’s the new writing job I was in discussion about towards the end of last week. And it’s only 10,000 words max. I can do this … Yesterday started with me writing up the day’s Pomodoros, as I hadn’t had chance to do them the day...

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1 October 2019

Tuesday 1 October 2019

October already. How did that happen? I have a deadline this month, and then it’s NaNoWriMo next month. Looks like I have some work to do and less faffing. Yesterday morning I did the hard copy edit of the job from Hong Kong. I emailed the client to let him know, and to tell him I’ll do the screen edit...

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30 September 2019

Monday 30 September 2019

I can’t believe it’s October tomorrow. How fast has this year gone again? I have a book due in at the end of the month. I need to pull my finger out. Friday morning went fairly well. I wrote my daily blog post first, queried another publisher about whether or not they consider self-published works – but they look like...

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27 September 2019

Friday 27 September 2019

I’m running out of steam or getting distracted in the afternoons. So I’m moving more work to the mornings and more faff to the afternoons. I’m not sure if that’s working or not yet, but time will tell. Yesterday started on a positive note with a job query arriving overnight and a big publisher agreeing to consider one of my...

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26 September 2019

Thursday 26 September 2019

First job yesterday was the new NetGalley book over breakfast. I moved the daily Pomodoro write-up to the last session of the day as I usually start to run out of steam at around 4pm, and for the past few days I’ve been writing them up the night before anyway. I wrote my daily blog post first, which has now been...

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25 September 2019

Diary of a non-fiction book: Reading and making notes

The writing part is going very slowly at the moment. This is because I’m still in reading mode and still only making notes. What I do is, working in 25-minute Pomodoros, spend two Pomodoros reading and then one Pomodoro writing my interpretation of what I’ve just read. This way, it’s already in my own words for when I come to...

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25 September 2019

Wednesday 25 September 2019

Over breakfast yesterday, I finished the NetGalley book I was reading and I wrote up today’s Pomodoros. That meant the first job at my desk was a 500-word blog post and my daily warm-up. The next thing I did was write up the report for this week’s writers’ group meeting. I had 25 minutes of social media, 25 minutes of...

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