Take Time to Celebrate so you can Write and Publish Your Book
As we head into what is commonly named ‘the silly season', we often take the opportunity to gather and celebrate with friends, family, work colleagues and whoever else we normally don’t seem to be able to catch up with over the course of the year. Use these interactions to inspire your book writing.
It is important to celebrate and enjoy who you are, with those around you. It is also important to know when the celebration needs to be paused so that you can keep your commitments to yourself and your customers. As people in business know, there are plenty of early mornings and late nights, keeping to deadlines, to ensure that the work is done.
While some people would say this is the ‘dark side’ of running a business, this also means that you have an opportunity, as a business owner, to consider how you operate on a day-to-day basis. This provides you opportunities to celebrate what you do, even if it isn’t as Lionel Richie sang, ‘all night long’. However, in between those deadlines, you can give yourself a minute or two to celebrate.
Laura Vanderkam in her book I Know How She Does It – how successful women make the most of their time, explores utilising a spreadsheet and creating a mosaic of how you spend your time each day. She suggests filling in the sheet for one week to enable reflection upon the hours worked and time spent with friends, family and time for ourselves. Regularly, people are surprised by two key findings in the analysis. One being that we don’t work the number of hours we think we do, and secondly, there are many opportunities for us to take the time to celebrate in between all the other craziness that we have on in our lives.
Whether you agree or disagree with the work of Vanderkam, is not as important as any lessons you discover using her process. Take a closer look at how you spend your time. What do you do well? What could you do differently? Are there times in your schedule that could be better utilised? Is there more ‘free’ time than you realised?
With a new view of your calendar, could you manage your time differently? Are you able to see spaces in your week that you have not taken advantage of before? Are there moments in your week that you can reflect on that you should celebrate?
Celebrating moments in business, and in life, can be a way to start a framework for a book. While you will need to stop celebrating for a short period, while you concentrate on your writing, you will certainly be able to celebrate once you publish your book. You may not be able to make the gift list this year, aim for the next holiday season.
Another option, if you want to continue to celebrate, could be to organise a writing party with your friends. Stay together for two, three or more days and see what comes out of your mind and onto paper.
Great things happen when you have a support group around you, who are also focused on the end result – perhaps call your group ‘Booked out this weekend’. There are many ways you could theme your weekend, to ensure you keep at your writing. This can be a way for you to get the best of both worlds. What do you think?
How can you use the holiday season as a time for focused writing and publishing? Do you prefer to do it alone? Would you prefer to be amongst your peers? Understand your comfort zone, leverage it and use it to your advantage.
Will you shut down your phone and take some quiet time to put your thoughts on paper? Will you bang your drum, loud and proud and shout out your thoughts for your book?
No matter what you prefer, choose your method and get cracking.
