My boyfriend, Michael, was feeling bad this week. He knew I was angry at him, so he started digging his way out of the doghouse. He made dinner reservations at a restaurant I have wanted to try for years, brought me flowers, even actually said the words “I’m sorry” – more than once.
We had a fight. It was to be expected if I am honest. We just returned from two weeks vacation and stepped right into Michael’s move to a new apartment. I was on deck for most of the move. I had offered to help with packing, with movers, and I should have set limits. After all, my own work had piled up while I was away too. I didn’t have time for this huge interruption.
So I helped hi with the move, packing boxes, breaking nails, sweating and frustrated. I hollered at him repeatedly about all the writing that didn’t get done, about how much more work I would have to do in the upcoming weeks and how stressed I was because I spent the week helping him move. I could have said no, but I didn’t.
I was pissed. I complained, loudly and a lot. All my girlfriends understood my fury and frustration. They were wonderfully sympathetic. My sister even promised to stay angry long after I free Michael from his punishment. Is it a woman thing, solidarity in the face of a good fight? Or is it that women are more likely to get caught in the ‘I should have said no” problem?
Michael didn’t completely understand my anger. I offered to help, he reminded me, and he had to go to an office where people expected him at certain times, while I set my own schedule. Besides, I launched my latest book, Besotted, right on schedule – on moving day. He brought me flowers. So why was I harping on about feeling unappreciated?
Was Michael less understanding because he is a man? Why didn’t he feel guilty for putting all this pressure on me, for asking me to do too much? There is a medical study in the Spanish Journal of Medicine that concluded “…despite changing attitudes towards interpersonal relationships, women feel significantly more guilt than men. This did not simply reflect higher levels of this emotion in women but a lack of it in men.”
Did Michael lack empathy or was I feeling guilty for agreeing to help with the move? If women feel more guilt, we are more likely to say yes when we want to say no, aren’t we?
Michael and I have moved past this now. He’s in the new place – it’s lovely – and he’s doing his own unpacking. He’s been very apologetic and honestly didn’t understand how much I gave up for him, because I never told him. He’s still in the doghouse with my sister – as promised. That’s why I love her.
This misunderstanding didn’t occur because I failed to communicate, or because Michael is male – although I believe that being a man did influence his expectations. In my opinion, two other factors were more significant. First, my boyfriend is a psychologist who observes that I often complain I have too much to do, but I always get everything done. Second, I said yes when he asked for my help. Apparently, if you are a man and you have too much to do, you don’t agree to do more.
This issue of stepping away from my writing when friends and family call has been on my mind a lot lately. Do people not take me seriously as a writer? Do I fail to demand they respect the time my work requires? My introspection and honest feedback to me from colleagues and friends have taught me valuable lessons about allowing myself to agree to non-writing events, it’s associated guilt and the overwhelm that follows.
I have learned outstanding lessons to help me break the chain of behavior that gets me into these situations and keeps me there. Will I get overwhelmed again? Sure, but now I have the tools to dig myself out and move forward.
Here are five lessons from a romance author juggling her writing and her life, just like you. Here are five books full of tips you can use when you feel overwhelm and for those of you too buried to read the books, here are five blogs, apps, and tools to help you start digging out right away. Will they cure your overwhelm and associated guilt today? Probably not. But, they might provide a bit of relief, and help you avoid a fight with your significant other.
5 PIECES OF ADVICE TO FIGHT OVERWHELM
1/ Make changes in baby steps.
I had a dietician once who insisted I make changes to my eating in baby steps. I would lose weight slowly but stick to the diet better. So I fired her. Really. I didn’t want baby steps; I wanted fast results. When I used to make time to go to the gym – yeah, overwhelm stopped that one fast – my trainer added only one more rep or a few more pounds to the weights week to week.
These were experts in their fields, and they knew something we who are stressed need to internalize. We change habits slowly, and we do it kicking and screaming. So to succeed we must change in baby steps.
Need more writing time? Promise yourself ten more minutes each day. It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up to 3,640 more minutes a year if you write every day. That’s 61 hours. If you write 1000 words an hour, that is an entire novel. In just 10 minutes a day.
That’s a significant result from a little change.
2/ Have a plan and stick to it.
First, have a broader strategy. I want to write three books a year, or I want to add LinkedIn to my social media outreach, or I plan to blog once a week. This is your strategy. Then lay out a plan for how you will achieve those goals. These are your elephants, and as my girlfriend who is a fantastic professional Project Manager always tells me”you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time.”
So identify your bites, quarterly bites, monthly bites, daily bites, then pick the essential bites and focus on those. No more than three each day. Seriously. Until you complete those three, everything else waits. For example, my three for today are to write this blog, work on rewrites for my next novel, Moonlight & Moet, and to pay my bills. Two big things, and one smaller thing that cannot wait. I try to do that daily – two writing related assignments and something time sensitive that hopefully takes a bit less time. Usually, it is social media, publicity or promotion work around a book. Or something personal. You get the idea.
Then write it all down as your commitment to yourself. I will offer several great options for this later.
3/ You are your gatekeeper.
This is a fact my boyfriend Michael knows but that I keep forgetting. He is a psychologist after all. We all make our own choices and must live with the consequences of those choices. Anyone in therapy learns this quickly – or if they don’t, they need a new therapist.
I choose how I spend my day. It was my decision to help Michael move instead of telling him no. I put his priorities ahead of my own. My anger is not at him so much as it is at myself for saying yes. Okay, if I am completely honest, I might harbor some lingering anger at him for asking
Women have more trouble saying no than men do. This is problematic for romance writers, the majority of whom are women. Many of us are struggling to have our writing taken seriously. Perhaps it isn’t paying the bills – yet. Maybe we work at home, so we seem readily available. There are so many reasons others might not respect our writing time the same way they might understand if we went to an office 9 to 5. But writing is work – it’s hard work. And, as indie authors, time on social media is work, so is checking email, or ‘surfing the web’ or any number of things we do for research or inspiration.
Guess what? The people around you don’t need to understand any of that. It would be nice if they did, but as long as you know how you need to spend your time, and as long as you respect it, you will avoid overwhelm.
Practice. Say it along with me: “I am not available.” “Not right now.” “Sorry, but no.”
4/ Deal with the Guilt
Women really can’t help feeling guilty. Add religious guilt, maternal guilt, or familial guilt into the mix and the odds are stacked against us. I have a brilliant coach, Jen Snyder of Women Winning Online, who is helping me tackle my overwhelm and my guilt with a relatively easy solution.
With Jen’s help, I identified all the tasks that make up my work each week: writing, blogging, web redesign, training and education, email and social media. Then Jen and I assigned each task half a day or more each week when it would be my focus on that. So Thursday afternoons, for example, are dedicated to planning and creating Pins, Posts, and Tweets for the coming week.
Next week I am invited to a book club discussion on Thursday afternoon. I want to go. The book is exciting: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney. It’s a National Indie Bestseller described by People Magazine as “witty, poignant and sparkling.” I have a choice. Book discussion or social media. Or both by giving up something else.
First, I remember it is my choice, and I must live with the consequences. In this case, I choose to work longer on other days to get the social media planning done so that I can attend the event – guilt free. A small step, not permanent, something I can comfortably accommodate. No remorse, just a lively book discussion.
Sometimes the book is less interesting to me, and I say no. Or I am approaching a self-imposed deadline, or my family needs me, and I tell the book group no. I try not to say no to my family. My mother has Alzheimer’s. Although she has around the clock care, my sister makes sure one of us visits daily. No amount of therapy will get me past the guilt of telling her no, so that gets priority. Which leads me to tip number five to avoid overwhelm.
5/ Set Priorities and Focus on the Now
In his books, A New Earth and The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle focuses on overcoming obstacles by changing how we think. “Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry, all forms of fear, are caused by too much future and not enough present. Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there.” He’s right.
If you think of everything that needs to be done this week, this month, to finish your book, to launch your series, you lose precious writing time and kill your creative juices. Just focus on what you need to do now. Most likely that means writing. Write. Write the next word, the following sentence, the next chapter. Save email for the time you set aside for it. Ditto for social media, which we all know can be a time suck. Wait to do it until you have made it a priority.
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I have shiny object syndrome and am easily sucked into the next new education webinar, the next tool, the new app. They can drag me away from writing, but only for four hours on Tuesday, when they are my area of focus, my priority.
Can I ignore my plans for the week? Pretend that learning Content Studio is my highest priority on Monday (my writing focus day)? Sure. But I built this schedule that made baby- step changes, I chose to adhere to this schedule, and I promised to let go of the guilt of making this time for myself. I pay for coaching advice, why would I ignore it? That was how I arrived at a way to say no to other things and commit to my time.
Figure out what works for you and then focus. Tomorrow, you can deal with the rest.
5 BOOKS TO HELP YOU CATCH YOUR BREATH
1/ The Books of SJ Scott
SJ Scott has numerous excellent books on managing your time, avoiding procrastination and creating good habits, but one of my personal favorites is Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes that take Five Minutes or Less. Creating better habits, learning to stick with them, manage your time and your life, SJ Scott has a book for it chock full of ideas that you can execute today. Seriously, before you finish the book, you can improve your life.
2/ Kick Your Overwhelm to the Curb by the SPA Girls
I like this book because it targets indie publishers, although the advice is relevant to all creative types. Also, TheSPA Girls (self-publishing girls) write with humor and share their personal experiences.You might also want to listen to their podcast xxxx.
3/ Overwhelmed Writer Rescue by Colleen Story Colleen has excellent advice for writers on time management, on productivity with a specific eye toward retaining or regaining your creativity.
Ryan McCrae who calls himself the AD/HD Nerd is chock full of great ideas for people with AD/HD to help them manage the overwhelm of their lives. He does it with small changes that are easy to implement and. manageTurns out that his ideas are great for people without AD/HD too. Download this PDF and while you are at it, download his other PDF Ordering the Chaos.
5/ A New Earth and The Power of One by Eckhart Tolle
Thes are not career changing books so much as they are life-changing. Mr. Tolle has tackled the topic of mindset, how it moves you forward and how it holds you back. He can make a believer out of you.
5 TOOLS, APPS and BLOGS TO HELP YOU DIG OUT
1/ My Adaptable Career
Emily McGee’s website remains one of my primary go-to spots for productivity and time management. Her blogger’s tools, especially her Workflows for Bloggers , cannot be beaten. They are inexpensive, simple and straightforward to follow. My productivity improved the same day I downloaded t hem. They also integrate beautifully with Trello, a great online planning resource. Emily’s Done for You Blog Schedule is also outstanding at fighting overwhelm.
2/ Shaunta Grimes’ Magic Bullets
Each month Shaunta makes a set of print ables available on Etsy to help writers achieve their goals. These monthly Magic Bullets are aimed specifically at writers and include a wonderful way to capture new ideas and tap into your creativity, with her writing prompts, in addition to dockets or daily planners. If you prefer to manage your goals monthly and print your own planner, this is a great option.
3/ Day Planner
For those of you who want a longer view than monthly, but still want a paper planning method, I recommend Day Planners. They are myresource for strategy, monthly task, and daily task management. The covers are beautiful, and for those who use a paper planner, I have never found anything better. They are selling their school year calendars now for those who prefer to plan their year that way versus around the tradition January-December. Their blog is full of useful information and fun challenges, too.
4/Book Designer Blog –
TheBookDesigner in one of my favorite sources for information on all things books and book marketing and Belinda Griffin’s post “Are You a Swan? How to Overcome Book Marketing Overwhelm is a perfect example of why.In this brief post, the author harks back to my small steps advice by reminding those of us looking for the instant solution, that book marketing is a long game.
5/ Evernote
A constant source of overwhelm for me is paper. I collect too much junk mail, print too many blog posts, taketoo many notes. To avoid being buried in notepads, PostIts, and scraps of paper, I scan everything into Evernote, tag it and find it quickly when I need it. I save web pages, blog posts, bookmarks. I am not sure how I ever lived without it, but since I became a serious user, I have eliminated a file cabinet from my life as well as freeing up a ton of storage on my computer. It’s a godsend.
GEM of the WEEK
This week’s Gem comes from Reedsy’s interview with David Gaughran, author of Amazon Decoded. Sign up for David’s email list to get a free copy of this bible for selling books on Amazon and his emails full of further pearls of wisdom. This blog post, “Winning Amazon’s Secret Popularity Contest,” tackles several topics including choosing categories for your book and understanding how you can further influence those categories and how to get those recommendations from Amazon that can help propel sales. I found the post fascinating and informative, as is Amazon Decoded.
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