Organization Fail

I love my job, but one of the more difficult aspects of self-publishing for me has been organization and time management. People who know me will be shocked. On the organizational scale, I fall somewhere between hyper-organized and seriously anal retentive. And as far as motivation goes, I’m the anti-procrastinator: extremely self-motivated with good time-management skills.

So it came as a shock to me too when I began forgetting basic things, like paying Darcy’s board at the end of the month or going for my allergy shots on time. These slips never happened before. And that’s not to mention the fact that my email is backed up, my websites haven’t been updated in ages, I’m behind schedule on Moral Hazard, and I can’t seem to find the time to produce the audiobooks of Southern Fraud.

My old to-do list system isn’t cutting it, and in a world where one email can derail my plan for an entire day, I can’t schedule out my time by the hour and expect that itinerary to work Monday through Friday. Heck, I have a hard time taking “vacations” or even just not thinking about work during my off hours because in self-publishing (and many other vocations these days), there are no official working hours. I’m working all the time. Publishing decisions have to be made on weekends or while on vacation from my phone or laptop on Starbucks Wi-fi. What about grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning the toilet, laundry….? Forget about it. I haven’t ridden Darcy regularly in months, and I feel guilty when I’m watching TV or taking a walk because I have so much to do.

And that’s not right. I should have free time, but my schedule is totally unbalanced.

My head–and my house–may explode if I don’t get things under control.

So the remainder of this week is going to be about organization and changing up my system to something that will work with my current work life. I have got to find a workable way of organizing my projects so that I have a balance between work life and the rest of life.

That also means establishing boundaries for my business and personal life. I have to ignore personal phone calls or messages while I’m working and call back later. I have to delegate certain aspects of publishing to companies that specialize in that field, and then I have to direct the appropriate people in those directions. I cannot do everything myself, and if I don’t stop trying to do so, I may lose my mind.

Case in Point: I planned to spend my morning organizing, but instead, I have been researching a brand new opportunity called Kindle MatchBook in which I can now offer discounted Kindle editions of my books to people who have purchased paperbacks through Amazon in the past or desire to do so in the future. I’m super excited about this because I believe you shouldn’t have to buy full-price copies of books every time the technology changes. If you bought a paperback from Amazon and want the Kindle edition, you shouldn’t have to pay full price.

Now you don’t have to! (Or you won’t have to as soon as Amazon’s pages update!)

You can get the Kindle edition of all single-title Whiteley Press, LLC, fiction books for only $.99 with the purchase of the paperback. You can also get the Kindle editions of The Personages of Pride and Prejudice Collection and Riding Fear Free for only $1.99 with the purchase of the paperback. This applies to paperbacks purchased now or in the past!

Was setting up MatchBook discounts time well spent? Heck yeah! But I have to have an organizational system that lets me drop everything for important opportunities without feeling as if I’ve destroyed my progress on all the other projects on the list.