By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Although there are so many things that we can try to help us manage parts of our writing careers, I’ve found that some of the best are the smaller, quieter things. It’s easy for me to get distracted by trying Facebook ads or working over my metadata…and these are both really good things to do. But sometimes I need to return to the basics, especially when I’m very busy and don’t follow some of my own best practices.
Here are a few:
Backing up: I don’t know how many times I’ve heard nightmares about losing content. Too many! It’s like a horror story for writers. We hear all the time about backing up our work in progress, and that’s certainly important. But it’s also important to have previous projects backed up, covers backed up, contracts backed up. I just went through and backed up a ton of stuff and shuddered when I realized how much time had passed since my last backup. I usually do it daily.
I use a variety of different methods. We really don’t have to overthink it. I’ve used USB drives and servers and external hard drives in the past. At some point, it occurred to me that if my house were destroyed by fire or a tornado or something, those types of backups wouldn’t be enough. That’s when I started emailing files to myself so that I would have data on a cloud. Now I use various clouds to backup to, including Google and Microsoft.
Tagging and titling documents. Not only should documents, covers, and business papers be backed up, but it helps if they’re listed in a way that we can easily find them. I’ve stupidly spent the last few weeks pulling up a document by searching for it because I couldn’t find it in my documents folder and I’m uploading it on Wednesdays to Wattpad. I finally took the extra minute or two to tag the thing and then save a copy to a location on my computer that makes sense. I was just wasting that time every Wednesday (it was 5 a.m. every Wednesday and maybe I wasn’t at my sharpest, but still).
Now I’ve been on a tagging spree. Sometimes I’ll save documents…all kinds of documents…and not have the slightest idea later what I was thinking when I saved it. I went through and put tags on a slew of documents and pictures this week so that I might save myself a bit of time later on by being able to quickly locate important files.
Another time saving thing that I do is to outsource my memory as much as humanly possible. And this is one thing I haven’t neglected to do. I’d be sunk if I did, because my memory is abominable and always has been. I use Google calendar so that I have it with me on both my laptop and phone. I add everything to the calendar…events I need to attend, events that other family members need to attend, chores, the grocery list, and any action items from emails.
When I receive anything in an email that requires an action from me, I put it on my calendar along with a copy/pasted bit from the email in the calendar notes area with the details and the name/phone number of the sender. Having all the information in one spot helps me complete the tasks.
Timers and clocks and evaluating what’s not working. I mention this frequently, I know, but it’s the way I keep track of my time and keep on task. I set a timer (usually on Google…you just put ‘set a timer for ___minutes’ into the search box) and when the timer goes off, I know I need to stop being on social media, or whatever the current task was.
And, sometimes, we just need to assess when things aren’t working. If something we’re doing is consistently not working (with our writing, our promoting, our accounting, etc.), we need to stop and ask ourselves why and brainstorm new approaches.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about and working on lately. How about you?
And, if you’re interested in hearing more about Wattpad and best practices there, Orna Ross’s interview with me is on the ALLi site.
Back to Basics: Backing Up, Organizing, Managing Our Time: Click To TweetImage: MorgueFile: Dianne Hope
I’d never thought about putting tags on my documents. I usually save my daily post by the date they run. So if I need to find a particular post a book is mentioned in, I have to search my records to see what date it was scheduled. I can see the tags would be so helpful in this matter. Thanks.
Mason–That was similar to what I was doing…but then time flies so fast and I could sometimes not even remember the *year* something was created! Tags are simple and it’s easy to do a lot of them from the documents pane.
I’ve never tagged documents either. Good idea.
I still don’t trust the cloud, but I have several external backups and only one lives at our house. Plus a lot of stuff goes on the laptop and my iPad so it travels with me.
Alex–You sound like my husband, who is in IT in security. :) I wouldn’t put any sensitive information on the cloud, for sure, or any info that isn’t backed up in at least one other place.
I’m an Amazon S3 junkie. Over 30 years working with computers, I trust their security infinitely more than anything I could conjure up.
If I really need to see it again someday, it goes on S3. Always. CloudBerry and Dragon Disk have some very nice cloud storage backup tools.
I also have an external USB drive where most of my work lives, with occasional use of Dropbox for temporary storage and transfers. Plus, a lot of my writing lives in Evernote, set to be available offline.
Joel–I use Amazon too, although mainly to have readers download free books *off* the cloud instead of my putting something up there
I like Evernote, too. Mostly, though, I tend to use it to keep track of recipes, helpful writing articles, etc.
I use One Drive to back everything up ever since I lost my first novel. Thankfully, I had mailed it to a friend. Of course now, years later, I realize that was my practice novel and would never see the light of day. Still, I learned a valuable lesson about saving docs other places. I love your idea about using a timer. It’s so easy to get lost on SM. I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
Sue–I like One Drive, too. So glad you were able to recover that first novel! Even if it doesn’t see the light of day, it’s so important to be able to *keep* it and see how far we’ve come.
Hope the timer helps! I love using it.
I can attest, Elizabeth, to how vital it is to back it all up. I lost a complete novel once by not doing that. I’ve also found that using files, folders and tags helps me keep track of everything on my computer, and it’s easier to find something when I need it. I’ve also found that it’s worth it to take advantage of every opportunity to auto-feed my blog posts to the various places where I have a social media presence. Saves me lots of time and bother.
Margot–You were one of the writers I was thinking of who’d lost something. It *hurt* me to hear of that!
Great tip on auto-feeding! I do that on Facebook and Goodreads and Amazon Author Central.
Everyone has a special talent and I’m fortunate mine is organization. I keep my files and Word files very organized. Of course, once in a while I name a file something that I don’t remember, and then I go batty trying to remember.
Diane–You *are* one of the most organized writers I know!
I’m with you on the search terms. Sometimes I just can’t figure out what I was thinking when I came up with a document title. And, of course, computer searches are so specific that if we aren’t looking for even something so basic as the plural form of a term, it won’t pull up results.
I used to email my drafts to myself in order to save them to the cloud to. :) These days, I mostly just use Dropbox, which not only backs it up to the cloud, but to every computer I have linked to it (about 5). Of course, saving a corrupted or virus ridden file to Dropbox willcontaminate all the versions, which is why I periodically backup everything to yet another directory AND email the chapters to myself. Needless the say, I worry about losing backups.
thanks for the advice.
Ken–Sounds like you’re covered! And, backing up is a wise thing to worry about. :)
Hmm, tagging documents. I’ll have to check into that since I have the same issue you describe here – not remembering what I saved something as. Google Calendar – I’m still so old-fashioned I’m afraid to put my dates on a device. I still use a paper calendar I haul with me wherever I go. If I forget it, I have to use a post it note to remember to put it in when I get home. Maybe it’s time I moved into this century.
Karen–I can totally understand what you’re saying about an online/cloud-based calendar. Like you’re saying, though, it *is* really nice to have your calendar on you at all times. Sometimes, though, I still have to look at a printed calendar to get an idea about event conflicts, etc.
Great post! I back up manuscripts on flash drives and try to do an external hard drive back up every few weeks. Sometimes, I’ll even have the presence of mind to put stuff on Dropbox, though I know the free version will fill up eventually, so I don’t put everything on there. But you’ve pointed out some things I hadn’t thought to load onto Dropbox!
Now that I’m starting a new project, I realized how scattered some of the files were on my laptop. I must have spent half an hour creating/renaming folders and filing things in more common sense places!
Kathy–It’s like spring cleaning! In the fall. :)
I have started using DropBox & love it! It’s easy to organize files into folders. Free for up to a very large amount & then you get charged.
Becki–I have a Dropbox, too…but it’s full, ha!
[…] Backing Up, Organizing, Managing Time – Elizabeth Spann Craig […]
Ugh, backing up is SUCH a necessity. What I’ve started doing is for new stories I’m working on, I just write them up on GoogleDrive – which actually should also be backed up at least once a month. But I need to get better about that.
I also need to get better about outsourcing my ideas onto paper too! Sometimes an idea will pop up in my head that gets knocked around a while and then – poof I forget it.
Now if there was only a way to back up handwritten stories that haven’t been typed yet…
Nicole–Oh, that’s classic, isn’t it? I’ll be about to fall asleep or I’ll be in my car and I’m *sure* I’m going to remember the idea for later (because it’s such an awesome idea!) and then…it’s gone.
Maybe take pictures of the handwritten stories? Tedious, but it would definitely be a backup!
Overall, being ready is important. But enjoying while writing is more likely to be important.