I am a very simple target-oriented kind of person. I like to set up objectives for the day, week, month. I work with a very straight forward agenda each day and my activity is carefully calculated for covering a lot of activities, hobbies, social obligations and network needs. As writing is my favourite pastime, I tried as much as possible in my professional life to find working opportunities in this domain. And, after a lot of work and training, I succeeded. I loved to do it so much that since I am 18, I hardly had one single month without writing and publishing something.
All being said, I can consider myself a happy and successful person. I almost have everything I want - at least for now - and I always did almost everything I wanted to. You will rarely find in my recent life moment of deep depression because I hated my office work and my grey cubicle in the multinational company. I am simple enough to say a clear 'no' when I felt breathless because working in a domain or with people that cannot help me to grow. I am selfish but I am convinced that when I am happy with what I do I can share and help a lot of people so better move forward although the financial benefits can be a little bit more or less affected.
From time to time though, I feel the need to find out more motivation and a clearer direction for my daily activities. In nature, as in life, too much or too less are never good environments for a good work pace. For instance, as I always work intensively on Sundays, the usual 'start of the week' for more than half of the world is very often a very exhausting part of the week for me. As I travel on Sundays - with early and late work batches -, I am rarely on the road and I try - theoretically at least - to do as much as I can from my agenda. But I do not expect a high level of productivity, as the tortoise's pace is what I cope with, at least for the first half of the day.
What I usually do in such unpleasant situations? The first impulse for my productivity is to start doing the easiest tasks from the to-do-list: answering simple mails, checking texts, editing photos, setting up the writing schedule for the day. I am also looking for topics of interest: I do have a look at the latest news about food and interior kitchen design for my foodie blog, I browse creative boards for Pinterest, I have a look on my notebooks to see if I do have organized notes for a very easy post. Once I start writing, I would love to write more and more and thus, my hunger for doing more things is revealed. Good move both for my audience and for my writing skills.
Sometimes, I simply try to find out the best inspiration from people around me that may help me to have a fresh beginning with some of my projects. For instance, today, I was a little bit tired to think about some of my writing projects - maybe of them waiting to be took into consideration for a couple of years already. Not that I did not write properly in the last years, but due to my spontaneous nature, I often do some intensive writing and editing in the first 2-3 months of life of the project but once I do find some new inspiration, I prefer to put everything on hold for a while. In the end, I finish everything I have in mind, but somehow late. Unless I do not need to answer some very tight deadlines of a publisher - which does not happen in the last 3 years since I rather prefer to self-publish.
The answer for more organisation was to start talking with a very organized and talented friend of mine, who is publishing almost yearly at least one book. We talked for a while, updating each other about the projects and what we want to do, or already did. A very simple conversation between old friends with a common passion. At the end of the conversation, I felt more empowered to continue what I started and eventually set up deadlines for the new ones. Being together with people with similar interests is very important. In case that you did not find yet your community, you still have a chance to get the proper inspiration while finding online communities and blogs that can offer you symbolic or even direct support for your endeavours.
Good luck everyone and have a wonderful productive week!
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