Organization is your key to success!

For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” Benjamin Franklin

Remember back in grade school, high school, and college when most of you were painstakingly organizing your speech or term papers? Come on, you know you do, and I’ll admit to you – I never took the time to organize my writing. During high school and my early years of college, I didn’t like writing. I was convinced if you weren’t on the same page with the teachers or professors when you wrote your speech or your paper, you didn’t receive a decent grade. Period. End of story. Deep down I really believed the teachers wanted you to think like they did, and I couldn’t think like them so I stopped trying. I gave up organizing any writing project. Yes, I paid the price, and today my older self cringes every single time I think about all the time I wasted, and all the satisfactory grades it cost me. Oh, the lessons we learn as we “mature!”

Organization leads to confidence!

There’s definitely something to say about how organization leads to positive feelings. There’s an awareness of having more confidence and control in one’s life. Being organized saves people time, energy, and money.

How many of you write a list before going to the grocery store? I bet some of you write your grocery list because you know which items are in which aisle, i.e., aisle 1, 2, and so on then you don’t waste time and energy going back and forth from produce to dairy and back to produce… How about organizing your coupons? Organizing coupons takes quite a bit of time, but it sure feels great at the checkout when you save $10, $25, $30 or more dollars. You put your savings towards a vacation or a date night.

How about organizing your closet or your clothing drawers? It’s so easy to throw clothes in the chest after folding or hang your jeans or blouses in the closet next to whatever’s there because you’re tired, but when you go to look for a blouse or a dress and the blouse isn’t where it should be you’re frustrated and looking all over the place. You could have saved some time and energy but organizing wasn’t a priority.

The same goes when you organize your writing. When you’re writing a book, remember your book is a business and as with any business, time is money. Running a business requires energy because you experience ups and downs and writer’s block and it’s a long process. With an organized writing plan, when you decide to sit down and write you can pull out the plan and choose what to write each day.

Reasons to organize your writing

Saving time and money are two of the top reasons to organize your writing. Remember, your book is a business and time is money. I can’t stress this enough.

With your writing plan in place, the chapters and sub-chapters are organized and outlined. Why is this important? Because when you sit down to write you have a choice on what to write about and not stress because you there isn’t a plan. One day you might want to write about Chapter 8 and another day write about Sub-chapter 2a. With your organized plan in place, you don’t have to stress about the order of your writing. Let the muse take you where it does and more than likely the odds of writer’s block and stress on what to write about lessens.

Organize your time so you have the energy you need for work and life

Whether you’re writing a book or running a business, and you’re writing a book, which is a business, so it’s important to organize your time to have the energy you need to keep going. What do I mean by that? Keep your body and mind as healthy as possible. Take care of you. Put yourself first (did I say that?). You bet. If you don’t eat a balanced diet, workout, hydrate, and take time to meditate, you’ll hit burnout and chances are great you won’t be around to write your book or take care of your business. I am a firm believer of this and walk the talk.

Organize your time to prepare food, your time to exercise, your time to meditate…

If you already live a healthy lifestyle, kudos to you. If you struggle, it’s never too late. I’m not a physician, so please seek your physician’s advice before you start any diet or workout program. Here are my tips for staying organized so you have the energy to live your best life, to finish your book, to stay on top of your business, and to do whatever you choose:

• Hydrate with water up to half your body weight in ounces of water each day (if you do not have any restrictions); add cucumber, lemon, orange slices for variety
• Walk, run, bike, swim at least 30 minutes a day (in other words, move)
• Stand up from your desk every 30 minutes at least and walk around for a few minutes, go out and stand in the sun, do something to refresh yourself and start all over again
• Meditate once a day. Believe me, I never, ever used to meditate, but in the last three months I gave it a try. After rotator cuff surgery I had 24 hours a day to sit around so I thought I’d try meditating a couple minutes and see what happened. I started at 1 minute a day, my mind wandering continuously at first, and now I meditate up to 10 minutes a day. Honestly, I can say my stress level and my anxiety is less and I feel a peacefulness to my day. Give it a try, you might like it. I use a book called, “Jesus is Calling” by Sarah Young. Another book is “Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics” by Dan Harris. There are also several meditation experiences by Oprah and Deepak Chopra; just Google their names. (These are suggested readings I’ve come across; I don’t receive any kind of kickback.)
• Find an accountability buddy or group to stay on track. I have an accountability group I keep in touch with every day and find it helpful. They’re supportive when I’m having a successful day, a sad day, I’ve met a goal… I also have two accountability partners for business; I talk with them once a week on Monday and check back in on Thursdays for an update. If we haven’t made our goals we let each other know why and discuss it. How does this energize me? It makes me accountable to complete tasks I know need to be finished and when they’re completed I move on to something else but there’s a feeling of satisfaction and I can mark it off my list. I feel empowered!

Putting it all together

Organize to save yourself time, energy, and money. When you’re organized in life and writing your book, you have more time and energy to write which gives you more time and energy for you and your family. When you’re organized in writing your book you’re saving time and money because you’ll finish writing sooner (not that it’s a race) but because you have a plan. Your plan can always change, but your plan is there and when you finish writing it goes to the editor and the process of publishing starts so whether you decide to self-publish or traditionally publish once your book is professionally published you can sell and make money!

How do you organize your writing? Do you make a writing plan? Peter and I would love to hear your process. Drop us a comment below.

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