Many Things To Do: A Plan

I was recently offered the opportunity to work on a very cool project. At the moment I'm finishing up AOSA and working on another book, plus I am taking a six week online course, but this new project didn't start until late summer, so I agreed.

Or so I thought. There was some confusion on my part, and as it turns out, the new project starts right away. There's no way I want to pass up this opportunity, though, so I'm going to have to squeeze some more hours out of my day. Somehow.

My first intention is to spend the first part of the work day on billable work. It sounds dumb, but I have so many other things to do — answering email, administration, networking, blog posts, AOSA, volunteer work for the girls' school, the course, and household jobs like signing the girls up for things — that some days I don't do any billable work at all. As a result my projects drag on and I feel like a dud.

My second intention is to wake up at 6:00 every day. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I will go straight to the gym so I can work out before breakfast; Tuesdays and Thursdays I will do housework and household admin tasks, so they don't eat into my working day. That means I have to head to bed at 10:15 to be asleep by 10:45. (Seven hours and fifteen minutes seems to be enough sleep.) I hope I will settle in to that sleep cycle so that I wake up early on the weekends, too; that time I will use to read!

My third intention is to finish the AOSA project in one fell swoop. I'm waiting on a volunteer to create the epub (thank you!) and once that's done I will set aside a day or two to finish all the little admin and website jobs which I could otherwise safely (but guiltily) ignore forever.

And finally I have a bad habit of half-watching TV, half-working in the evenings. I hope I will be more effective with this new schedule and won't need to work in the evenings. If there's something on I actually want to watch, I intend to set aside other things and watch it (!); if I'm just keeping Blake company while he watches something I'm not so interested in, I will work on personal or family stuff.

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to fit all the things I want to do into my day (and cursing my excessive need for sleep.) I'm optimistic about this plan; it seems both doable and effective.

(Check it out: no sooner did I post this than I came across this book about what successful people do before breakfast.)