Time Management

What is a reasonable amount of marketing, research & other administrative work VS actual writing?

The answer to this question is going to vary significantly depending who you ask; everyone’s sweet-spot is different. One day per week? Chunked within each day? Two days per week? The first hour of every week day? The ways you approach these tasks are dependent on your audience, your motivation, your work itself, your temperament…and what works best for you might be an atrocious undertaking for another. All I can tell you is what I do and let you stir it in your pot of contemplation and practice.

Poetry Submissions: I break these down into months when the poetry journals are accepting submissions and do 1-3 submissions per day for that month until I get to the end of my list. Some months I submit to 13 journals, others to 61. I use a cover letter which is mostly a template with three paragraphs: one with a specific paragraph designed for the journal I am submitting to, a paragraph about my writing philosophy/interests, and a 3rd person bio. I attach a word document or PDF of 3-5 poems usually. These submissions take me anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes per day. So, depending on the month, I spend anywhere from 2 hours to 10 hours a month to working on submissions. In my opinion, completely do-able. Theoretically, I could spend two days a month completely focused on this task, but I know I would burn out so quickly and dread those days that approach, so spreading it out works better for me; I actually enjoy doing it when I approach it in small chunks.

When I get a poem accepted, I have a check-list I utilize which can take me anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours to complete:

• thank publisher

• contact any journals that I have simultaneously submitted to—withdraw the poem from consideration (depending on how many journals I have to contact, this can take up the most time)

• move my poem from “to publish” into “has been published” on my computer so it’s out of circulation

• update my publications resume and list how many times the poem was seen before it got published (the numbers help me not get discouraged—I don’t take a poem out of rotation until it has been seen at least 100 times without having gotten any positive feedback)

• post the publication information/link on my website (sometimes that’s the same day, sometimes it’s two months out depending on when the publication is released to the public) on Instagram and on my SubStack newsletter notes.

Writing for SubStack: Ideas strike me at curious times and I tend to stockpile them; when I have a post that needs to be written, I choose an idea and begin to write. I let it ferment for a day or two. I come back to it. I probably spend anywhere from 2-5 hours writing a short essay to post. My goal, when beginning this newsletter, was to post once every other week. Looking back though, I’ve posted one per week for two months out of the four months I’ve been on here. (Overachiever? Maybe. Remember, I’m the same person I was when I carried a thesaurus and dictionary with me everywhere through middle school.) The uploading and sending the post out into the world takes about 30 minutes—I have to decide what artwork or pictures to include, read through for typos, etc. So, each month I spend about 12 hours writing and posting on SubStack.

Posting on social media: When I have a poem published or art I want to share, I utilize SubStack Notes and/or Instagram. Each post takes about 10 minutes to put together and as soon as I have something to share, I make sure to post. Most months I post 4 or 5 times, so a little under an hour each month is the time I spend here.

Research for Marketing: This varies greatly depending on whether I’m putting together a chapbook, sending one out for possible publication, anticipating bringing a chapbook out into the world, or sharing an already published chapbook with audiences. Like writing itself, I think this type of learning is on-going and difficult to quantify. Certainly, researching other writer’s websites or SubStacks, listening to interviews, reading books—all of that takes time and focus, much more so than being able to break down time spent sending out submissions.

This is the area where, for me, I experience the phenomenon of losing hours of my life, emerging into the real world with a headache and grumbling stomach. It’s difficult for me to find the “off” switch to this type of research. I haven’t yet found the sweet spot in quantifying this or in figuring out how to limit myself. Perhaps self-control of setting a goal or setting an alarm (or both) might serve me well in the future. Perhaps diligently scheduling in my writing time, as opposed to limiting my research time, would work for me as well.

In conclusion, I ask you to share what your practices are—what works for you? Do you have a similar or different approach to these types of administrative practices? Do you use technology to help you manage these tasks? Leave a comment and let’s boost each other’s time management skills with others’ practices/ideas. What are your struggle spots? In what areas do you shine?Thanks in advance for sharing!

(All pictures posted are watercolor, ink and rubber stamps I’ve carved—the last two have been turned into zines & my offer to make a zine for any creative that needs a boost/gift is still open.)