It seems only another writer will understand the plight of an author when they are trying to juggle their everyday life with a writing career. If you decide to write when you have time, you will never write because there will always be something that will interfere with your writing.

Below are a few tips to better manage your time in order to complete your writing projects:

1. Make an appointment with yourself.  We schedule doctor’s appointments, hair appointments, school events, etc, so why not add “writing” to your schedule. Not only schedule it, but keep to the appointment.
2. Set boundaries. Inform those in your inner circle (family and friends) that you need X amount of solitude time to write. A story doesn’t write itself and in order for the story to be written, you, the writer need the solitude time to write the story.
3.  Limit your social networking time. This is a catch-22 because if you’re marketing, social networking is a must. In order to write however, logging off Facebook, Twitter, etc era is a must. Social networking is a  time zapper and if you don’t be careful, you’ll spend hours and hours without writing one sentence on your writing project.
4.  Set word count/page writing goals. It helps to set goals on how many pages or words you want to write.  Most importantly, when you set these goals, stick to them.  Write them by any means necessary. If it means less time watching TV, being on social networks, getting up earlier or going to bed later, do so.
5. Set mini-goals.  A lot of times we get frustrated because we don’t see an end to what we want to accomplish. One way to avoid this is to set mini-goals. Once you reach the mini-goal, then go on to the next goal.

What are some other tips that you use to help manage your time?

Shelia M. Goss is a national best-selling author and a 2012 Emma Award Finalist. She has over fourteen books in print and numerous of ebooks available. She writes in multiple genres. With unique storylines, her goal is to create “stories with a twist.” For more information, visit her website at http://www.sheliagoss.com/

Shelia M. Goss

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