Trouble with Time Management and Motivation: Please Help! (Story Included)

[Kellay]

Hello,
I moved out to Los Angeles after graduating from college (a life-long dream of mine), but I decided to move back because I was running out of money, had not landed a job in my 3 months out there, and I had a couple personal projects that I wanted to pursue at home before I would have to work 9-5 (or a lot of times, 8am - 6pm) in L.A. to pay the rent ($1,000 a month).

I finished the first project in 7 months, and after that I worked at a local high school in order to save enough money to move back to L.A. and try again. Well, the school year is now over, so I'm left to work on my 2nd project before moving out there again (I didn't get around to working on my 2nd project WHILE I was working b/c I couldn't find the motivation).

My 2nd project is writing a novel, but I have hundreds and hundreds (maybe even thousands) of notes on it spread throughout my house. They're on the corners of random papers, hidden in random folders, even on napkins sometimes... THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! So, instead of gathering all the notes together and then writing my novel, and THEN moving back to L.A.; I figure that I will gather all my notes together, move to L.A., AND THEN work on my novel over there. If I don't do it that way, I'll be here forever!

But here's the problem: motivating myself to go through all my boxes of papers and papers (writing everywhere), rooms and rooms, binders and binders, notebooks and notebooks . . . is extremely difficult for me. But I have to do it, because from the bottom of my heart I am telling you that I refuse to write this novel without all my notes on it. But going at my normal pace, it could take me another 7 months (and I have student loans due... I already placed a deferment on them twice)! That's way too long. I'm not currently working, and I'm not in school . . . but I find myself spending my days just talking, surfing the internet, going on facebook, going on yahoo answers, checking my emails constantly, posting on forums, texting, and daydreaming. I can easily waste hours on end. No problem. So my question is this: HOW can I find the motivation to go through all my papers to extract my notes? Keep in mind that these papers could easily fill up a moving truck because I've kept everything. And I have OCD, so I find myself looking at a single paper for minutes and minutes when there's clearly nothing to use of me on them. I just get scared because I've written valuable notes on odd places (toilet paper role anyone?). What schedule can I set up to make myself do this project in a timely manner? What should I do about all my time-wasters? Please Help! I need a plan, and time is of the essence!

[taylor]

Originally Posted by Kellay

but I find myself spending my days just talking, surfing the internet, going on facebook, going on yahoo answers, checking my emails constantly, posting on forums, texting, and daydreaming. I can easily waste hours on end. No problem.

Are you ready for your answer?

You're not going to like this.

Get rid of all sources of entertainment/media/distraction until you finish your project. Don't just cut back. I'm telling you, it's a drug and you are an addict and cannot be trusted. Don't just hop online for a sec to check something. You will spend 2 hours there and you know it.

It's going to suck, but I do this from time to time and it kicks you into gear on tough projects. You will be bored out of your mind and will not have any objection doing it because it's more fun than sitting there doing nothing. Don't worry, you WILL get used to it. You'll also get a nice bonus of self-esteem when you get a lot of stuff done you need to do.

[Shade]

the simplest thing I can think of right now is write down your desired results for your project....then ask your self "what's the next step?", answer and action!

Finish that one next step and then ask again 'what's the next step?"

[Kellay]

Thanks Taylor. Anyone else??

[lespauldude]

Originally Posted by Kellay

Thanks Taylor. Anyone else??

For some reason, I feel like you can get through this. If you can put enough effort to write all those notes, you can clean them up a little and organize them. This should take less than 1/100th the amount of time.

Here are some suggestions:

Get a friend to help you go through all the stuff. It helps to have another person around and giving them orders may help you focus. Give them lunch and dinner afterwards.

Break this huge ordeal down into small chunks. Think about only doing one small area of notes. Something not more than a few hours worth of time. Force yourself to only stay in this area. Throw the pieces of notes into different sections/boxes/spots on the floor. Mentally, this will be much easier to handle.

Leave the laptop and other distracting things with a friend and tell them to hold on to it for a few days. Do whatever it takes to avoid these distractions.

Clear an entire room. Find all the notes in your house or whatever and move them without regards to organization into half of this room. The other half should be completely free for you to move about and work on organizing.

Good luck!

[lespauldude]

Originally Posted by taylor

Are you ready for your answer?

You're not going to like this.

Get rid of all sources of entertainment/media/distraction until you finish your project. Don't just cut back. I'm telling you, it's a drug and you are an addict and cannot be trusted. Don't just hop online for a sec to check something. You will spend 2 hours there and you know it.

It's going to suck, but I do this from time to time and it kicks you into gear on tough projects. You will be bored out of your mind and will not have any objection doing it because it's more fun than sitting there doing nothing. Don't worry, you WILL get used to it. You'll also get a nice bonus of self-esteem when you get a lot of stuff done you need to do.

Can you give an example where you yourself did something like this? Just curious if this actually works for someone, and they "got used to it"

[holyorder]

I am quite difficult the time management schedule that I have set for myself. I guess resorting to self-discipline helps.

[CaronKincaid]

If your problem is looking at a peice of paper for too long or too many thimes this. Set a very short deadline (5 mins - set a timer) and scan 20 peieces of paper in that time. Gradually build up from there - the initial scan should do no more than determing whether the paper is worthy of a closer look. Then try the measles test - every time you pick up the same peice of paper, put a red dot on it. When i9t looks like a bad case of mneasles it might prompt you to throw it away! If you really have OCD, seek help, before it gets completely out of hand.

[Kellay]

Okay, thanks. Anyone else?

[newmark]

So - you're writing a novel and make notes on pieces of paper, which are all over the house. No wonder you are having motivation problems. Go through all your notes and put them onto your computer. Having piles of paper is NOT the way to go.

Second - refuse to waste any more time writing notes on paper; apart from spontaneous ideas which come when you have no computer nearby. And then put those notes onto the computer as soon as possible.

[Clint Cora]

I can share some of my experience with you since I've written five books now. Each one got easier to write as I picked up more productive habits on how to tackle such projects.

To get organized, you probably have to take your notes (maybe sections at a time) and go to a completely different location outside of home. I would try a private study room at your local library.

Then your purpose once in the study room would be to slowly but systematically, go through and start re-organizing all of your notes. No other activities at the library - no magazine reading, no internet, nothing else.

You will find that you would be able to re-organize your notes pretty efficiently and relatively quickly once you try to relocate yourself just to to this task.

Once everything is organized, it's a matter of putting your writing together in a logical way. Again, you may have to do this offsite as well so there is no internet, TV or other distractions available.

This is how I wrote my books.