{"id":14903,"date":"2020-08-31T01:28:59","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T01:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/?page_id=14903"},"modified":"2020-10-19T16:00:44","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T16:00:44","slug":"time-block","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Blocking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>Time blocking helps me stay on top of the non-writing parts of my writing career. Below are three resources to help you with blocking business days into your writing career.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center\">1) The Time Block Challenge for SMIAH<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/1drv.ms\/v\/s!AnCqr-qxfBU1gap6d1weySpIfT-CPg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-30-at-8.18.44-PM-1024x569.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14904 lazyload\"\/><noscript><img src=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-30-at-8.18.44-PM-1024x569.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14904 lazyload\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center\">2) Would you like a BUSINESS DAY CHECKLIST freebie?<\/h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wpforms-container wpforms-container-full\" id=\"wpforms-14912\"><form id=\"wpforms-form-14912\" class=\"wpforms-validate wpforms-form\" data-formid=\"14912\" method=\"post\" enctype=\"multipart\/form-data\" action=\"\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14903\" data-token=\"db65f5efaa569f8e98e4382afa9c03de\"><noscript class=\"wpforms-error-noscript\">Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.<\/noscript><div class=\"wpforms-field-container\"><div id=\"wpforms-14912-field_0-container\" class=\"wpforms-field wpforms-field-name\" data-field-id=\"0\"><label class=\"wpforms-field-label\" for=\"wpforms-14912-field_0\">Name <span class=\"wpforms-required-label\">*<\/span><\/label><div class=\"wpforms-field-row wpforms-field-medium\"><div class=\"wpforms-field-row-block wpforms-first wpforms-one-half\"><input type=\"text\" id=\"wpforms-14912-field_0\" class=\"wpforms-field-name-first wpforms-field-required\" name=\"wpforms[fields][0][first]\" required><label for=\"wpforms-14912-field_0\" class=\"wpforms-field-sublabel after \">First<\/label><\/div><div class=\"wpforms-field-row-block wpforms-one-half\"><input type=\"text\" id=\"wpforms-14912-field_0-last\" class=\"wpforms-field-name-last wpforms-field-required\" name=\"wpforms[fields][0][last]\" required><label for=\"wpforms-14912-field_0-last\" class=\"wpforms-field-sublabel after \">Last<\/label><\/div><\/div><\/div><div id=\"wpforms-14912-field_1-container\" class=\"wpforms-field wpforms-field-email\" data-field-id=\"1\"><label class=\"wpforms-field-label\" for=\"wpforms-14912-field_1\">Email <span class=\"wpforms-required-label\">*<\/span><\/label><input type=\"email\" id=\"wpforms-14912-field_1\" class=\"wpforms-field-medium wpforms-field-required\" name=\"wpforms[fields][1]\" required><\/div><div id=\"wpforms-14912-field_3-container\" class=\"wpforms-field wpforms-field-text\" data-field-id=\"3\"><label class=\"wpforms-field-label\" for=\"wpforms-14912-field_3\">What City, State, &amp; Country do you live in?<\/label><input type=\"text\" id=\"wpforms-14912-field_3\" class=\"wpforms-field-medium\" name=\"wpforms[fields][3]\" ><\/div><div id=\"wpforms-14912-field_2-container\" class=\"wpforms-field wpforms-field-checkbox\" data-field-id=\"2\"><label class=\"wpforms-field-label\" for=\"wpforms-14912-field_2\">Would you like monthly author business tips delivered to your inbox along with your FREE business checklist?  <span class=\"wpforms-required-label\">*<\/span><\/label><ul id=\"wpforms-14912-field_2\" class=\"wpforms-field-required\"><li class=\"choice-1 depth-1\"><input type=\"checkbox\" id=\"wpforms-14912-field_2_1\" name=\"wpforms[fields][2][]\" value=\"Yes please! Sign me up for your monthly newsletter.\" required ><label class=\"wpforms-field-label-inline\" for=\"wpforms-14912-field_2_1\">Yes please! Sign me up for your monthly newsletter.<\/label><\/li><li class=\"choice-2 depth-1\"><input type=\"checkbox\" id=\"wpforms-14912-field_2_2\" name=\"wpforms[fields][2][]\" value=\"Not right now, thank you. Just send me the checklist, please.\" required ><label class=\"wpforms-field-label-inline\" for=\"wpforms-14912-field_2_2\">Not right now, thank you. Just send me the checklist, please.<\/label><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wpforms-recaptcha-container wpforms-is-recaptcha\"><div class=\"g-recaptcha\" data-sitekey=\"6LdPP7IZAAAAAMhu36shLlYkS-9GGjoHu6e_o4p6\"><\/div><input type=\"text\" name=\"g-recaptcha-hidden\" class=\"wpforms-recaptcha-hidden\" style=\"position:absolute!important;clip:rect(0,0,0,0)!important;height:1px!important;width:1px!important;border:0!important;overflow:hidden!important;padding:0!important;margin:0!important;\" required><\/div><div class=\"wpforms-submit-container\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"wpforms[id]\" value=\"14912\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"wpforms[author]\" value=\"1\"><button type=\"submit\" name=\"wpforms[submit]\" id=\"wpforms-submit-14912\" class=\"wpforms-submit\" data-alt-text=\"Sending...\" data-submit-text=\"Submit\" aria-live=\"assertive\" value=\"wpforms-submit\">Submit<\/button><\/div><\/form><\/div>  <!-- .wpforms-container -->\n\n\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center\">3) LESS WRITING TIME MORE WORDS (originally published by <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/swlh\/less-writing-time-more-words-e3188fc326fc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Startup <\/em>on Medium.<\/a>)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"1bd3\">I thought quitting my day job would free up plenty of time to write \u2014 it did not. I filled up my days with countless appointments and fell prey to advice that told me to find social media followers or engage with book bloggers or build a fort out of books big enough for the news choppers to notice me as they circled from above. After a year of \u201cwriting full time\u201d my cumulative word count was abysmal and I wasn\u2019t very happy. I realized I used business as a way to productively procrastinate and keep from doing the deep and difficult work of writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"1753\">Parkinson\u2019s law said tasks take as much time as you allot for them, so I devised my ideal time ratio for my writing career: 40% writing, 40% reading, and 20% business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"80d2\">The question was could I boil down all the business stuff to just 20% of my time? After a few years of practice, I got pretty close to it, and here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"7cb2\">On the 10th and the 25th of every month I block out a business day on my calendar. (Why the 10th &amp; 25th? Because I read a finance book where the author said do your bills on the 10th &amp; the 25th. As a fantasy writer I spend all day making infinite decisions about my characters and other worlds. On occasion it\u2019s nice to have someone tell you what to do and not have to make a decision.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"90d3\">On business block days I sit at my desk and tackle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"59cc\">1) Financials. Pay bills, invoice customers, send payment reminders to overdue clients, make sure my book-keeping is up to date, reconcile accounts, transfer money, review income statements, etc. Freelancers are small business owners. It is our job to have a good handle on the money we have coming in and going out. I only have the privilege of pursuing this creative career if I have enough money to pay my mortgage \u2014 bi-monthly check ins let me know if that is going to happen or not. (15 minutes \u2014 1 hour)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"8a6c\">2) Social media posting. I use scheduling software and schedule posts for every day until the next business block day. This is when I write promotional posts (i.e. Save-the-dates for upcoming presentations or conferences appearances, scholarship opportunities for my Authorpreneurship Coaching, publication announcements, etc.) This is also when I support other authors by reading and sharing their content, books, and posts. It\u2019s important to practice good literary citizenship and supporting other authors is an integral part of that practice. (1.5\u20133 hours)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"37cb\">3) Back ups. Twice a month I export my email list and website content to my hard drive. Then I back up my computer on to an external hard drive. I use an email service provider, which is currently free. At any point in time they could change their business model and I could have to pay to access my subscriber list and past newsletters or potentially lose access to my list entirely. I read a lot of sci-fi. I can\u2019t trust the cloud with 100% of my being \u2014 regular backups give me piece of mind. (5 minutes)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"ca15\">4) Calendar review. I examine my upcoming commitments and deadlines. Between client edits, speaking engagements, and writing deadlines there are a lot of moving parts. Business block days I double-check my priorities and timelines to make sure I\u2019m delivering what I need to before I am supposed to. I want editors\/clients\/bookers to find me easy to work with, and that\u2019s only going to happen if I meet deadlines and deliver high quality work. (5\u201315 minutes)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"1053\">5) Business correspondence \u2014 via email or snail mail. Conferences need a speaker bio, or a school district wants a W-9, or a blog interviewer needs headshots. A million strange things pop up when you\u2019re an author, and most of them can wait until the 10th or the 25th. I want people to know I respect their personal time, so I make sure to send business correspondence only between 8 a.m. \u2014 5p.m. Monday-Friday. If I happen to be doing my business block at 10 p.m., I use the delay-send feature on my e-mail, so the messages will deliver during the next day. Turns out when you respect other people\u2019s business hours they\u2019re more likely to respect yours. (15 minutes-3 hours)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"7914\">One of the smartest things I did was pair something I loathe doing (promotional social media posts) with something I love doing (my financials \u2014 because I\u2019m the weirdo that derives great satisfaction from bookkeeping and balancing accounts.) Both need to be done, but by pairing the two tasks together I have built a psychological reward into the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The more consistent I am with my business days the faster the business work goes. Therefore I need less time to do it. I also found that by moving all these tasks to two days I procrastinate less on my writing days, without business as an excuse to procrastinate my word count has increased exponentially. Ideally one day an assistant will do a lot of this work for me; by getting a firm grasp on how to do all of this now it will be easier for me to train an assistant when that time comes. But for now, blocking out designated business time makes my writing time more effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"4b4f\">I procrastinate less. I\u2019m not distracted by impending deadlines, and I know that my business is taken care of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-container-1 wp-block-buttons aligncenter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link\" href=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/CONTACT\/\">CONTACT JESSICA<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time blocking helps me stay on top of the non-writing parts of my writing career. Below are three resources to help you with blocking business days into your writing career. 1) The Time Block Challenge for SMIAH 2) Would you like a BUSINESS DAY CHECKLIST freebie? 3) LESS WRITING TIME MORE WORDS (originally published by&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"wf_page_folders":[259],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Time Blocking - Jessica Conoley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jessica Conoley discusses the benefits of time blocking as a tool to balancing your writing &amp; business commitments. FREE business checklist!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time Blocking - Jessica Conoley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jessica Conoley discusses the benefits of time blocking as a tool to balancing your writing &amp; business commitments. FREE business checklist!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jessica Conoley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-19T16:00:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-30-at-8.18.44-PM-1024x569.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/\",\"name\":\"Time Blocking - Jessica Conoley\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-31T01:28:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-19T16:00:44+00:00\",\"description\":\"Jessica Conoley discusses the benefits of time blocking as a tool to balancing your writing & business commitments. FREE business checklist!\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/\",\"name\":\"Jessica Conoley\",\"description\":\"Author, Editor, Speaker, &amp; Authorpreneurship Coach\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Time Blocking - Jessica Conoley","description":"Jessica Conoley discusses the benefits of time blocking as a tool to balancing your writing & business commitments. FREE business checklist!","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Time Blocking - Jessica Conoley","og_description":"Jessica Conoley discusses the benefits of time blocking as a tool to balancing your writing & business commitments. FREE business checklist!","og_url":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/","og_site_name":"Jessica Conoley","article_modified_time":"2020-10-19T16:00:44+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-08-30-at-8.18.44-PM-1024x569.png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/","url":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/","name":"Time Blocking - Jessica Conoley","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-08-31T01:28:59+00:00","dateModified":"2020-10-19T16:00:44+00:00","description":"Jessica Conoley discusses the benefits of time blocking as a tool to balancing your writing & business commitments. FREE business checklist!","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/time-block\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/#website","url":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/","name":"Jessica Conoley","description":"Author, Editor, Speaker, &amp; Authorpreneurship Coach","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=14903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}