Create More Author Time through Simpler Everyday Habits

Massaging sore legs and buttocks can help

your body resist the urge to keep plopping on

your bed for excessive napping. Once you lie

down to nap even for just up to half an hour,

you may easily oversleep and not wake up to

your alarm clock. Before lying down, sit up in

bed and try to keep your sleep time between

two and ten minutes. If you feel too drowsy

before it’s time to take a shower or bath, sit

down and sleep for a few minutes or so. It’s

too dangerous to get into the tub if you’re so

drowsy that you feel you’re about to fall over.

Try to avoid lying down for a nap after 4:00

PM local time. If you go to bed for a nap after

this time, you’re likely to oversleep and sleep

at least an hour and a half – this in turn can

make you drowsier and more tired.

If you have trouble fighting the tendency to

keep falling back into bed for more nap time,

get up and have at least 20 sips of cold water

then walk around your home for a few

minutes. If this doesn’t do the trick, lie back

down for ten minutes – that should get you

up for good.

Stand up some during your computer sessions,

especially at night when you’re more prone to

doze off while sitting at your computer station.

I make sure to stand up for about five to seven

minutes frequently, especially if I had an

unproductive night the previous night. Setting

a timer next to your computer every ten minutes

or so can also help you in the event you fall

asleep. Snacking on something like nuts can help

keep you awake while you’re on the computer.

If you like to snack while cooking meals, limit

much of that to taking a few bites in between

stirs. If you must wait a few minutes to stir

what’s in your pan/pot/skillet and you already

have everything you planned to fix for the meal

heating up, you have nothing to lose time-wise

by munching on something such as nuts or

shredded cheese.

Instead of double working yourself by slicing up

vegetables on your counter or cutting board then

transferring them into your pot or skillet, slice

your way through your veggies over your

cookware after having sharpened your knife to

prevent cutting your hand; the sharper your knife,

the more urgent it is to sharpen it each time you

use it. Don’t worry about making your veggies and

spices hit the entire perimeter of your dish –

whatever you add will automatically work its way

through your entire dish as you stir it; in other

words, just throw it all in the middle basically.

Putting a little bit of salt and other spices in the

center of your concoction before stirring is

sufficient.

If you like to eat something such as salsa you may

freeze before preparing your meal, double check to

make sure it’s not in the freezer a few hours before

you start cooking. This may make all the difference

for enabling you to avoid getting a full night’s sleep

prematurely and thus get all your writing and other

work done then walk out the door the next day at

your preferred time. Let me clarify by stating that I

recently had a cooking experience in which if I had

my salsa ready to eat for a few minutes before it was

time to begin meal prep, I probably would have been

too absorbed in what I was doing for my body to

conquer me into forcing me to go to bed sooner than

I planned.

Once you’re very familiar with your recipe for a

particular dish, you only need to look at it toward the

end of your preparation stage to make sure you put in

all necessary ingredients. Stopping to look at your

recipe frequently can cost you about five minutes of

time.

If an item you’re slicing over your dish is messy such

as a red beet, wipe off your knife and the hand you’re

using to hold the item as you go so you have more

ease pushing off slices that hang onto your knife and

so that the item you’re still cutting up doesn’t fall into

your dish.  If you can’t efficiently slice the beet over

your pot and you’re afraid you may cut yourself on any

given day, start chopping up the beet on a cutting

board.

Unsubscribe from emails which don’t usually provide

helpful content and those which feature large popup

boxes which block your view of content you want to

read and don’t give you the option of closing them out

or moving them out of the way.

If you choose to lightly cook blueberries and carrot

slices for your dog, separate these from what you’re

cooking for yourself so you don’t spend many minutes

trying to fish out these items from your cookware.

Take meats and any fresh vegetables you choose to

freeze such as leafy greens, radishes and zucchini that’s

for tonight’s dinner plus any food you have frozen for

your dog out of the freezer at least a few hours before

you plan to cook so you don’t waste at least 10 minutes

defrosting this stuff in the microwave before

preparing your meal or serving your dog supper. Double

check to make sure you have taken out everything you

need.

Try to keep chopping up wet food in your pet’s dish to

within three minutes. I used to spend seven or eight

minutes breaking up each chunk into very small pieces.

Also, don’t waste time trying to get each morsel out of

your pet food and tuna cans.

Whenever you’re in the middle of writing a book, try to

spend at least 10 minutes adding to your book at the

beginning of your first computer session daily. If you

spend too much time looking at email, surfing, doing

paid surveys and other things during your first one or

two sessions, you will likely go to bed without having

done any writing, especially if you must go to work

upon waking up.

Refuse to lie down when you start feeling drowsy

before it’s time to go to bed, especially if you must go

to work in the morning, in which case going to bed

prematurely may rob you of too much writing time.

The more sleep you have just had over the last several

hours or the last few days and the more emphatically

you say no to overrule your body trying to make you go

to bed now, the more likely you are to be victorious.

If you have a less than fully house-trained dog

consistently hovering or pacing around you, let or take

it outside now and wait for it to potty, which shouldn’t

take more than a few minutes. This will save you time

from having to constantly watch your dog to make

sure he doesn’t potty in the house or having to let her

urinate in the house then change her dog pee pads and

clean the floor where she relieved herself with Pine-Sol.

After I feed my dog dinner on the nights before I’m to

go to work in the morning, I prefer to brush my teeth

then shave then change out of my work uniform then

get on the toilet before putting on pants I wear around

the house. This works, especially if I don’t have to

spend a lot of time shaving my face and other body

parts, which is every two nights.

Get all your shaving and washing up done before

it’s time to watch your local weather report at night. If

I brush my teeth, do all my shaving then wash up my

private area or take a shower before it’s time to watch

the weather forecast at 10:20PM, I will easily eat

supper then get on my computer before I get so

drowsy that I’m forced to go to bed for a few hours

then maybe only get about five to ten minutes to use

my computer before it’s time to get ready to go to work.

Stand up while you’re thinking of what to write when

working on your books, letters and email submissions.

You may be surprised how easily it is to fall asleep and

sleep up to an hour while gathering your thoughts at

your computer.

If you think you simply can’t afford to lie down to sleep

on any given afternoon or early evening, put items such

as a jacket, backpack and shoe box on your pillow and

in the middle of your bed then keep them there. If you

remove them, you’re giving in and asking for it in

regard to lying down and over-napping.

If you plan to bake something such as a pot pie whose

baking time is about an hour, immediately put this in

the oven for your supper upon arriving home from

work then do all you need to do while baking your

item then letting it cool for up to 25 minutes. You’ll

surely avoid napping to prevent a catastrophe in the

event your dish was to burn and you were too sleepy

to wake up to your smoke detector going off.

When you’re pressed for time and need to remove

your work clothes after coming home, keep your dog

out of your bedroom so he/she doesn’t slow you

down and get hairs on your wardrobe while you

undress.

Follow the 20-20 rule. Looking at objects located 20

feet away from your computer every 20 minutes can

help reduce drowsiness by easing the strain on your

eyes that comes from the light your computer emits.

If you’ve been coughing or sneezing a lot or your

nose has run a lot for more than a day, strongly

consider buying Mucinex from a nearby Dollar

General store. The more time you spend covering

your mouth or nose and blowing your nose, the

more time you lose to work on your books.

Heeding the instruction you received from this

post should strongly help you create more

author time through simpler everyday habits.

Though I have a long way to go in consistently

doing everything I just covered, I have made

decent inroads in giving myself more time to

work on my books. To view my page which

covers a lot more general tips for authors,

click here.