Monthly Archives: May 2021

You know that exercise productivity gurus have you do? Where you write down how you spend (nearly) every minute of every day to see where you’re losing time?

Yeah, that exercise. The point being that you are clearly a slacker. And look! You’re wasting all this time.

Normally, I shy away from this sort of thing. I don’t believe everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.

People with chronic pain or chronic fatigue have a very different 24 hours. So do people who need to work an extra job (or two). New parents vs. empty nesters?

And so on. You get the point.

However, it’s an exercise I like to do because it helps me understand where I’m spending my time. I might not change anything. Sometimes it’s enough to see what you’re doing and why.

But, to be honest, I’ve been frustrated lately with a lack of writing time. So I went searching for a pocket of time I might be able to use.

There are various things I do in the morning. Coffee and morning pages come first, but other blocks of time I can move around. Dogs wake up early? I can take them out and feed them before I exercise (although I prefer if they sleep in).

I felt like I was missing something obvious. Last Monday, I was struck with a possible answer. And I asked myself:

Why do I shower?

Okay, I know why. More precisely, my question was:

Why do I shower at that time of day?

Before the pandemic and working from home and everything else, I would go to the office. And, of course, my coworkers appreciated it when I took a shower after I exercised.

But I don’t go into the office anymore. I don’t need to shower at that particular time of day. Ever.

So I moved my shower to another time where I wasn’t doing much and started using that morning time for my writing.

Not only have I been writing more since I made the switch, but I’ve also been using my peak creativity time for my writing. (Yeah, I was kind of wasting it there in the shower.)

I doubled my word count this week. And I’m pretty excited about that. I’ll let you know if it will stick—new habit and all that. But so far, I’m optimistic.

In other news, I also went into the KDP Dashboard and updated all my Australian print book prices since Amazon now distributes to Australia.

Heads up, writer friends. If you have any books published through KDP print, go into the dashboard and update your prices. You might be shocked to see just how little money you might make if someone buys a print copy of your book.

As in zero dollars, as was the case with some of mine.

Not that I’ve sold a print book via KDP print in Australia yet, but when I do, I’d like to make more than zero dollars.