Time Management?

Sometimes I feel like I'm struggling to not fall any farther behind. Like yesterday. I spent hours catching up on email, blog comments (on three blogs, not just here), updating my website and an assortment of other things and I feel as if I haven't made an appreciable dent in anything. Notice, too, that the word "writing" does not appear on this list. There's a reason. I didn't have time to do any.

I keep thinking there must be some way to handle my time better. I know I tend to be a dawdler and that I can procrastinate with the best of them, but even so, there has to be some way to do everything that must be done.

On one of my writers' loops, they're talking about burnout. It's an interesting discussion, but so far I've only seen posts by full time writers. They talk about doing their heavy writing by lunch (or 2pm whatever works for them) and then taking care of all the other details of being published and having a life. At 2pm, I'm still at work. :-(

I bought a book on time management for the creative person a few years ago. Talk about a waste of money! This guy's suggestions boiled down to this: Delegate it to your secretary/clerk. Excuse me? I am the clerk--make that Support Associate--delegation isn't an option for most things. Besides, how many creative people run an office with a full staff to delegate to? Unfortunately, the arts aren't exactly high paying for the vast majority of artists.

So I've been running at full throttle--or darn close to it--since I sold Power of Two in 2003. I'm not complaining--exactly. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to write and sell my work. Hugely grateful. I just thought that the non-stop pace would ease up a little by now.

But I've decided, though, that I need to take a little guilt-free me time, even if it's only half an hour a day. Something that doesn't involve trying to answer email or check out something online. Maybe meditation. :-) I used to be part of a meditation group.

Anyway, enough of my complaining. I'm just really tired today, but of course, it's time to logoff and get ready for the day job. Probably, I'll feel less out of control after I've had about 10 hours of sleep. ;-) In the meantime, any suggestions on how to cram more in my day?

Edited to add: I'm sorry about the downer post. Yesterday wasn't a fab day. The low point was my parents getting in a car accident. I had to drive over there and I was still shaking hours later. They're fine, but I was too tense to sleep. :-/ With the lack of sleep and everything else yesterday, I wasn't feeling all that chipper this morning. I'm better now. ;-)

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