January 2010 Make Your Writing Dreams Come True Challenge

[Celeste Stewart]

If the pen is anything like the Palm Pilot's handwriting recognition software, you may have to write each letter a specific way. For example, with the Palm Pilot, I had to tap the screen before writing a capital letter and then form the letter a specific way. It didn't take long to learn the alphabet and it soon became second nature. I was actually fairly fast. I think I prefer that to the microscopic keyboard on my cellphone.

[MediaMaven]

@Debbie: My netbook is an HP Mini and I LOVE it! Even "fully equipped" it was only about $500 and it is so much better than the bulky widescreen laptop it replaced. I can carry this around in a good sized shoulder bag. It has a decent-sized keyboard for a netbook, some models I looked at made extra space by omitting the shift key on the left and that drove me nuts. As a writer I can tell you that a mini is VERY liberating lifestyle-wise if you know that you can write in a distracting environment. I've written in airports and on planes, in coffee shops, in my sunporch, in my bed, and I'm sure a number of other places.

When I'm at my desk all I have to do is plug in four cables and it works just like a normal PC. I'm writing this at my desk right now, so I have the luxury of a full-size keyboard and mouse, it's displaying on a 20" monitor (1600x900), it's connected to an external DVD drive if I need to run or burn a CD, and the sound goes to speakers built in to my monitor.

My tips for whatever netbook you buy: spend the money to get as much RAM and battery power as you can. I have 2G of memory in this and also paid for the 6-cell battery, which gives me about five hours of battery life.

[Debbi]

Thanks, MM, for all that great advice I need to go somehwere I can get my hands on the keyboards and see what I can live with. I am too set in my ways to try to learn how to shift without both shift keys I think. How much room can that save anyway?

[nichewriter]

...

[Celeste Stewart]

Okay, back to the challenge.

Now, what action steps are you going to take to make sure those goals are met? That's what this challenge is all about: taking action. It doesn't matter what your goal is. What matters is taking positive steps toward that goal. Otherwise, it's up to chance whether or not you'll get there.

What steps have you taken so far?

My goal involves managing my time better. My steps so far:
* I have turned off email notifications and that has helped with distractions
* I'm stopping each day around 4:30 but I need to whittle that down by another hour (I've been starting an hour later at 10:00 AM rather than 9:00, so I guess it evens out)

Today I am going to close all browser tabs and windows not related to my current project.

Today's a great day to take a positive step toward acheiving your goal!

[Lor]

~~~~~~~~~~

Specific immediate goals are to continue to meet quotas I've set for myself.
Sorry, thought you were talking about 2010 in general. Misread title.

[Celeste Stewart]

So what is a specific step that you can do today or tomorrow?

(Closing my CC browser window until my next article is complete and submitted. See you then. . .)

[nichewriter]

What I have been doing in the last couple of weeks to manage my time better and be more productive:

* Only check my e-mail and browse the Web after I've (a) edited 15 articles, (b) written 3 articles, or (c) completed 20% of a client's project.

So far with this strategy, I'm able to do it every 2 or 3 hours, and I give myself 30 minutes to answer e-mails, fulfill any orders that have come in, and browse the Web. Also, for a couple of years now, I have been working using a daily to-do list. For clients projects, I have "pies" to guide me so I know how far along I am on each project. At a glance, I know if I'm ahead of schedule on a project and therefore can put more time on another client's project.

I have also been turning off the wireless connection in my netbook so I'm not tempted to take a couple of minutes to check my email or look at some website. I have also brought out my Alphasmart Dana and use it to write when I've got enough research notes that I can print out.

~S

[Lisa-Anne Sanderson]

I want to write more articles this year, attract new clients, write for more magazines, and make more money. I used to write at least one article a day but life got in the way! This wasn't very much, I know, but I did sell more.

More social networking is another goal for me. I haven't even joined Facebook yet, and I'd like to develop Squidoo lenses.
I'd also like to use my social networking more productively.

That's probably enough for the moment. I can see that my goals are not very focused so I'll have to work on that as well.