Productivity

I’m deep into edits for my third middle grade novel (release sate May 1, 2025) and working on finalizing the first draft of a new adult paranormal series. When writing my previous two books, I learned that the secret to success

Productivity advice is just advice. And sometimes the real world has its way with me, chaos is my wingman and it’s okay to take a deep breath and say “No one is going to die if this isn’t done this week.”

Rachel and Kevin both fell victim to Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS), sacrificing their main goals for distracting new opportunities. SOS, caused by our attraction to novelty, can undermine focus and progress. Establishing clear priorities and strong boundaries are crucial strategies to combat SOS, improving life satisfaction and productivity.

In the 1990’s, a professor at Florida State University released a groundbreaking paper in performance psychology. In it, he denied that the differences separating high performers and normal adults was due simply to talent or innate genius.

Lately, I’ve been staring at a blank page and the page has been staring back defiantly. I blinked first, sighed, and thought, ‘here we go again’. I write new articles every week. After sticking to that publishing schedule for months, I have days when I’m convinced that I’m out of decent ideas.

I have come across a few books that have made a profound and long-lasting impact on the way that I’m living my life. The ideas in these books are meant to become a consistent practice – no immediate quick fixes here.

Every writer I know, including myself, has anxiety and self-doubt about their creative efforts. When I went into it further, I found that it’s the curse of the creative classes.

Over a thirty-eight-year period he wrote forty-seven novels, eighteen works of non-fiction and numerous short stories and articles. He had his first book, Macdermots of Ballycloran published in 1847 and his last book was released in 1885, three years after his death. All while he lived an otherwise full and busy life.

Earlier this month, I almost gave up on my small publishing business. It had been going for over five years and we still weren’t seeing sustainable results.

I’ve found that writing does require space to think and create. And creating it can sometimes mean thinking laterally.