I always have an appetite to do more—more writing, more walking, more exercising. (You are not surprised, even if you are laughing at me. That’s fine. I can live with your laughter.)
And I realize we are just six weeks from the end of the year. (Six weeks!)
Originally, I wondered how I could fit “everything” into the end of the year. Then I laughed out loud. What was I thinking? There was no way I could do more before the end of the year. However, I could consider how much less I might do this year.
Let me first explain how things got this way. Because I suspect you have some of the same problems.
How We Have Too Much to Do
I wrote a newsletter on my other site called Flow Metrics and Why They Matter to Teams and Managers. It turns out that the same ideas apply in our personal lives. I’ll walk through that reinforcing loop with just one example, my Effective Public Speaking book.
I knew I wanted to do a Kickstarter on that paper book. Why? As an experiment for my publishing activities. Kickstarter is not just for people funding your efforts. In my case, it’s to get more people on my mailing list.
What did I need in preparation for the Kickstarter? The final cover.
What prevented me from getting the final cover? The speed of the cover designer.
I experimented with a new cover designer for this book. They did the ebook cover very fast. However, I also asked them to do the paper, hardcover, and audio covers. (The audio cover is easy—even I can do that.) But the time it took them to do the paper and hardcover covers? Over six weeks. Five weeks longer than I expected.
My WIP (Work in Progress) increased because the book was stuck (that’s increased aging). I managed to sort-of maintain my other work throughput—with the exception of this book.
Now, I have all kinds of other work to do to get to the end of November and then the end of the year. But my first responsibility is to that Kickstarter.
What’s Stopping Me?
I did not want to launch the Kickstarter until I had uploaded the paper books. My proof books arrived today, so once I finish what Kickstarter calls “The Story,” I can open the campaign for people to consider backing it. That’s the next work, just as soon as I finish this blog post.
All the various book work piled up behind the cover work. Now the Kickstarter work is piling up all the other work I need to do.
Those work piles are a function of my lower throughput and increased aging.
So, I decided that this Kickstarter and my regular writing are the only things I will do this year. (I do have some website cleanup, but that should be doable.) I’m not asking the how much more question. Instead, I’m asking the how much less question. That’s because I have big plans for all my writing for next year.
The best thing I can do for that writing is to finish all my WIP this year. And to note where I got stuck in my work so I don’t do the same thing next year. (That’s a form of double-loop learning.)
As you finish this year’s work, ask yourself which of these questions make more sense to you:
- Could you do more? Should you?
- Could you do less? Should you?
And, wish me luck for getting my Kickstarter ready for launch!