Project Management Pt. 2: Analyzing Time

This is an ongoing series about managing writing-related projects. In this edition I want to get deeper into analyzing time. The original post is here.

Here’s what I wrote from the previous post on this subject regarding analyzing time:

Analyze your time: Most writers these days are making a go of being a professional on the side. However, if you are unaware of how much time you have during the week you may be expecting too much or too little of yourself. Take a few minutes to calculate how much time you have in a regular week to use for writing. It is important not to be honest with yourself about your available time so you can apply the following tips. Over-estimating how much time you have may mean being frustrated that you are not completing writing projects and tasks as expected so be reasonable.

So, to expand on this idea, there are two tasks you need to accomplish:

1. Analyze your available time: You may need to take an average week and survey what time you have free to work on anything writing related. In doing so, you may find you have more or less time than you thought. Either way you have a solid idea of your availability and what you can do to schedule that time as well as manage that availability from week to week and day to day. If you have a family you can communicate when you will be busy with writing in order to work undisturbed. Regardless, you have a block of time and it’s like a container which you can fill your with your flexible schedule.

2. 

   Next, track how long it takes to work through a task. If you are editing, how long with it take to do the type of editing you are on for each chapter? How long does it take you to update social media? How long does it take to write a blog? Be as specific as possible with each type of activity while understanding sometimes a chapter or blog takes longer to work on than others might – it’s just an average but be as accurate as you can. Once you have these identified you have an idea of how much of how much time it will take to complete a project or activity so you can approach your schedule with a sense of accuracy and focus.

The importance of all this is that once you know your actual availability you know how to schedule. That’s like the foundation of managing your projects. Next I will hit on approaching your schedule with a sense of priority.

Have you ever checked how much time have to write? Do you know how much time it takes to do specific writing activities? Please leave a question, idea or strategy in the comment section because I’d love to hear from you. I’d also love to connect with you over social media so check my contact page for that information. See the News page for announcements and remember to sign-up to receive news and posts by email. I’ve added a new sign-up tab on my FaceBook page to simplify the process. New followers can download The Black Bag via free coupon today!

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PHS

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