How to Prioritize Multiple Writing Drafts
If you’ve got multiple drafts going at once, which one deserves your top focus? This video reveals how I prioritize from among different options.
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Over the years, I’ve tried to be logical about how I schedule my writing out. I’m to the point where I can squeeze something into just about every window of time I’ve got. But I found myself struggling to pay attention sometimes. My heart was with something else I wanted to draft.
So, nine times out of ten, if I went ahead and allowed myself to crank out the draft I kept thinking about, I felt TONS better. It’s like having an itch and then finally getting to scratch it.
A big clue you’ve found the draft you should prioritize is that you start to feel a true sense of obligation toward it. It starts to feel like it’s something you HAVE to finish, not something you have a choice about. But it’s a good kind of pressure, because it doesn’t come from anybody else.
[Transcript summary]
If you’re a writer like me, then I’m guessing that you have multiple irons in the fire, meaning that you’ve got more than one project going on at the same time. And in a lot of ways, that makes a ton of sense, because not only can you bring more income in if you need to, but you can also kind of pivot if you’re bored or if you’re stuck. So, that helps a lot. I know it does for me, anyway.
But I want to talk for a second, just about this idea of, how do you know which project to focus on and prioritize? And the main thing that I’m going to tell you there — now of course, you also, you always have to look at what your income is. If there’s a project with an immediate deadline that can bring you in some decent money, you might want to prioritize that. You gotta pay your bills. You gotta eat.
But if that’s taken care of and you’re stable there, the thing that I will always recommend to you is, look at the project that your mind keeps constantly coming back to. It’s the one that you think about when you’re washing the dishes. It’s the one that you think about when you’re taking the dog on a walk, when you’re in the shower. Like, all of these things. It’s on your mind constantly. You just can’t let it go. And it’s not because there’s a problem with the manuscript, that your mind is working on how to fix it. It’s just like, that’s where your attention is. It feels important. There’s a sense of urgency around it. That, to me, is the biggest clue that that’s the one you gotta knock out.
Once you’re done with that, I think you’ll feel that there’s this sense of ease that happens after that. You’re like, “Ah!” And you can move on to the next thing. But that’s my biggest tip. I’m Wanda Thibodeaux. I am the sole proprietor of takingdictation.com. Take care everybody. Bye.