The calendar page turns, and suddenly we face a bright, shiny new year full of promise and dreams and hopes. It’s a great time to do a little housekeeping and get more organized so that you can have a productive writing year.
1. Clean up your electronic files. It’s all too easy to save documents, e-mails, and other odds and ends because you might want to read them later. Go through your document folders and inboxes with a cool detachment and delete anything that’s just taking up space. If you haven’t used the file or read the e-mail in the past year, chances are you don’t need it.
2. Back up your computer files – especially those all-important works in progress! This is something all writers should do on a regular basis, but if you haven’t been keeping up with your backups, now’s the time.
3. Clean up your writing space. File papers you need to keep, and shred or recycle the rest. Make sure everything has a place, and put it there. Get rid of items that don’t belong. A neat writing space invites creativity.
4. Get out the calendar and mark the dates for writing workshops and conferences. (To get you started, PPW Write Brain sessions are held on the third Tuesday evening of each month. The 20th annual Pikes Peak Writers Conference will be held April 20 – 22, 2012.)
5. Set some reasonable writing goals, and create a plan to achieve them. Then write, write, write!
Do you have any more tips to share? Post them to our comments.
Have a terrific new year!
Robin Widmar
Managing Editor, Writing from the Peak
All great suggestions, Robin. Thanks. Karen Lin
ReplyDeleteRobin - I am totally in sync with this post! Yesterday I did all five recommends. I feel decluttered and focused. How awesome. =)
ReplyDelete