I love lists.
I talk a lot about lists. I make them for everything. My brain is generally whirling chaos during every waking hour, so much so that I have trouble focusing (even without mania).
If I have a lot of chores to do, I make a list. If I have to pack, I make a list. My lists have subheadings; the former example by room, the latter example by bag. If I have to make a phone call about something–like to the vet–I make a list. (Curiously, the only thing I don’t make lists for are groceries, which is why I am always forgetting something when I get to the store.)
It gives me order to have a list, to get all my thoughts about something down to something manageable. I also like the feeling of crossing things off and the accompanying sense of accomplishment. It can help during busy times to add “Don’t Panic” every five items on particularly long lists when I’m stressed.


So I have a monthly work to-do list on a yellow legal pad, and a weekly calendar where I would typically fill in plans for each day. Except on that weekly plan, I usually had everything get scattered by Wednesday. Sometimes its because working from home means chaos frequently erupts that I have to deal with, but other times because it can be difficult to estimate the time it’ll take to complete tasks.
I can put on the list for Tuesday “Edit 60 pages”, “Draft Cover A”, “Finalize Cover B”, “Write 2000 words”, “Format Book X”, for example, but if I have a roughly eight-hour workday ahead of me, sometimes I’ll end up hours on stock sites working different drafts and trying to find the right photos, or the drafts I’m working on just aren’t co-operating, or editing gets interrupted so many times I have to go back and start again–then it’s ten or eleven at night, I’ve been at it twelve hours, and only one or two things crossed off. Which throws off the rest of the week.
I’ve battled this for, literally, years, and it’s why I end up working more hours in a day than I’d like (and than is healthy–which in turn means i get sick more often, and then can’t work, and it’s a never-ending cycle).

I’ve been spinning my wheels lately, overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff I have to do. Chief among them, writing–no coincidence that I only finished short projects this year–with so many irons in the fire I’m feeling really scattered. I feel guilty for working when I have writing to do, and then feel guilty for writing when I have freelance things to be working on, so basically I feel like crap all the time and like I’m letting down someone somewhere for something.
So I went back to my lists. And my other favourite tool: timers.
I wrote down all the immediate projects for writing–the WIPs, both in revision and in drafting form–and honestly it wasn’t that much. Surprisingly. It felt like more in my head, but all laid out with my targets and stages of development, it felt…almost doable.
I turned then to my work day and decided to shift the perspective from All The Things To Do–some of them large-scale, so it was hard to feel any sense of accomplishment–to breaking up my day into chunks of time and what I’d like to get done based on projects for the rest of the month.
- webmistress duties: 2 hours
- editing: 2 hours
- graphic design (covers, promotional materials): 2 hours
- writing: 2 hours (or 2K words, whichever is first)
Then I added in other daily habit-type things for the week.
- knitting gifts (1 hour)
- cleaning (30 minutes)
I have the Forest app for timing my work sessions–which also has the “feeling of accomplishment” one gets in the form of little growing digital trees!– and I’m using 4theWords for writing. I’ve also ordered a notepad specifically for this purpose.
So far it’s helping me stay on target, particularly for the larger, time-consuming projects where I can be working for ten hours straight sometimes without feeling like I’ve accomplished anything. I list each item for the week with the time, then have seven columns on the right for seven days of the week and color in each square (either fully or half, depending on if I hit my target), and then week to week it can change depending on my to-do list.
And change it will. After the tree comes down (I am abruptly on my own for Christmas, and with all of my other holidays plans moved for January, I had to scramble to make some kind of Christmas for myself–so surprise, tree taking up all the room!) and I have my living room back, I can re-add daily yoga and Peaking, and up the cleaning time to an hour in an attempt to get more in my home purged (I’m reading about Swedish death cleaning, and it is definitely my jam).
There’s an added benefit of having time limits on everything and sticking to it; if there’s a project that hasn’t been working, or something I’m behind on, it gets me working on it because there’s a clear end/break in sight. Humans can face and get through anything if they know it’s temporary.
So that’s my big plan right now for the holidays: finding more efficient ways of working going into 2020 so I hopefully don’t lose more time to illness like I did this fall. I’ve added a chunk to The Killing Beach while Blood Ties cools a bit before I return to revisions. Yampellec’s Idol is nudging me but I’m waiting until telling that story becomes a burning need before I go back to it.
A reminder that I have two Christmas shorts if that’s your thing:
- Newly released How the Werewolf Stole Christmas is about River Wolfe struggling with human customs.
- 2017’s Livi Talbot short story is a nice read for series fans, as Livi builds her own traditions with her found family, invites someone new to join them, and receives the best gift EVER.

I have a lot of friends who have complicated relationships with the holiday due to toxic family situations they grew up in, and it’s been a very difficult time of year for me for over a decade now–Livi’s story in particular was written as a comfort to myself, so I hope if it’s a rough season for you, you get some enjoyment from the stories.
Part of me is very glad this awful year is almost over, but honestly I’ve had so many terrible years in a row now it doesn’t even feel like relief–I’m sure 2020 will be awful too. But hey, at least I have Shawnie, and his little heart is okay! Trying to focus on that much at least–he’s the light of my life. (Everything on my work list is interrupted several times a day with “Cuddle Shawn” when he struts over and climbs on me–and I wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Holla!