Juggling Your Life by Marie Wells Coutu

Marie Wells Coutu

My husband likes to juggle.

Several years ago, he taught himself to juggle and got pretty good with four tennis balls. No, he didn’t try the more dangerous objects like knives or burning torches, thank goodness.

But he quit practicing for a while. Recently he decided to take it up again for the mental benefits, but he had to start back with two balls at once and he’s working his way back up to three or four.

I’m a juggler, too. Only I juggle writing, marketing, family time, paying bills, Bible study, exercise, dealing with legal issues such as wills and real estate, and spending time with friends (not listed in order of importance).

As we begin the new year, we all tend to struggle with juggling our various roles. How can we keep all the balls or plates in the air, including our writing?

Many writers like to use yearly planners that help you prioritize various aspects of your daily life. Use whatever works for you.

On a short-term basis, there’s a method I used in my job when I felt overwhelmed with too many tasks and deadlines, and it works for my retired life, too. (My apologies for not giving credit, but I honestly don’t remember where I learned it.)

Make a numbered list of all the tasks you have facing you, in any order. Beginning with the second item, put numbers at the end of each task as shown below, depending on how many items on the list.

Now you evaluate each task against the others in turn. So if “Feed the dog” is more important than “Pay bills,” you would circle the 2 in the second row. Move on to item #3 and compare it to each of the remaining 5 items, circling the number that should have a higher priority. Deadlines, possible penalties (for instance, having the electricity shut off if you don’t pay bills), and relationships all should be factored in for each item.

When you’re finished, calculate the total number of times each item is circled. See my example below, where I’ve used highlighting instead of circling the numbers.

In my example, the total counts wind up this way:

1. 4
2. 6
3. 3
4. 5
5. 2
6. 0
7. 1

Now, here’s my priority list, showing the items with the highest number first:

1. Feed the dog (if I had one, I’m sure he would complain until I fed him!).
2. Bible study (I need this!).
3. Pay the bills. (this might be different at different times of the month!).
4. Outline my next novel (finally I get to this one!).x`
5. Go for ice cream with my husband (on a different day, this might rank higher).
6. Market my latest novel.
7. Watch a movie (Might rank higher in some circumstances, such as if it’s for research).

Sometimes you may have a tie. If “Pay the bills” tied with “Feed the dog,” for instance, I would compare how the two items ranked against each other.

Ed, the Juggler

I hope you get the idea. Be as specific as you can. (Obviously “Market my novel” is too vague for this to be useful. “Write a blog post” or “schedule Facebook posts” would be more helpful.)

Once you set up the list with the numbers, you can easily revise it as often as you wish, eliminating the completed tasks and adding new ones. It only takes a few minutes to make the changes, and it gives you your plan of action for the day (or the next few days). If an item is enough to make the list, it will eventually rise to the top—or you’ll decide it’s not important and remove it.

Juggling can be a fun hobby, but when it comes to juggling your obligations, having a system to help relieves the feeling of being overwhelmed. I hope this system will help you juggle your priorities this year and achieve your writing goals.

About the Author

The Secret Heart
by Marie Wells Coutu

Marie Wells Coutu retired in 2013 from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. She now spends her time writing fiction—when she’s not busy having fun with her husband or with their four grandchildren. She has written three novels for Write Integrity Press, including the award-winning For Such a Moment and Thirsting for More. Her most recent book, The Secret Heart, released in February. She is working on a historical novel set in western Kentucky, near where she grew up.

Marie is a regular contributor to Seriously Write. For more posts by Marie, click here.

Stay in Your 3-Foot World by Marie Wells Coutu

Marie Wells Coutu

Distractions are a writer’s nightmare.

When staring at a blank screen, my mind will focus on a zillion thoughts other than my story. My kids or grandkids, the sad state of the culture, the weeds in the yard, what to fix for dinner, how to promote my next book, and on and on. Each issue prevents me from moving forward with my current writing project.

Surprisingly, former Navy Seal Mark Owen provides an answer in his book, No Hero. While he refers to the challenges of conducting covert missions in dangerous situations, I believe his philosophy can apply to authors, as well.

Stay in your three-foot world.

Owen learned this while scaling a hundred-foot rockface. He became paralyzed when he started to look around, worried about running out of handholds, and thought about how far he still had to climb.

As a writer, if you’re like me, you not only get distracted by the trials of everyday life, but you also begin to obsess over when you’ll find an agent, how you’ll ever get to “The End” for this story, and what your next book will be about. None of those concerns help you with writing this novel.

What does it mean to stay in your “three-foot world”?

Focus on what is right in front of you, right now. Owen says you need to assess, prioritize, act, and forget.

1. Assess your situation. Where are you in your writing career or in your current work-in-progress? If you have yet to finish your first novel, don’t get sidetracked by trying to get an agent. (Confession: I did this, and in the long run, it did not help my career.) If you are already published, don’t let comparison with more famous authors discourage you from being the best writer you can be.
   
   
2. Prioritize. What is most important for you to focus on today, this hour, this minute? If you have an established writing time, use that time to write, not to check Facebook, plan dinner, or fret over the coming election. Find ways to limit interruptions from the family (not easy, I know!). And prioritize your writing tasks. If you need to finish the first draft, put that first, before “perfecting” the first chapter. If you are in the middle of the second, third, or thirteenth draft, identify which elements need work (part of Assessing) and list them by priority.
   
   
3. Act on one item at a time. Some people may be able to multi-task—work on your characters while planting flowers—but few can concentrate on book promotion, helping with kids’ homework, and fixing the sagging middle all at the same time. Once you’ve prioritized, you know which item to focus on first. Then…
   
   
4. Forget all the other concerns. Some things don’t immediately affect you--that other writer won a contest and you didn’t, but his or her success does not prevent you from improving as a writer; none of the presidential candidates seem worthy of your vote, but you don’t have to make a decision today; schedule an appointment about that funny noise in the car, but forget about it until then. Other issues will affect you, but you have little opportunity to make an impact on them right now—the state of the publishing industry, finding the right agent, building your platform. These are important, and as a professional writer, you should learn about them. But, if they are lower on your priority list, then forget about them while you work on one item at a time.

Your three-foot box will shift and move as you progress in your writing career, just as Owen’s “box” moved up the rock wall as he climbed. But focusing on what’s in the box right now, and eliminating or reducing other distractions, will help you climb faster, instead of becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed.

How has prioritizing your writing tasks helped you improve your focus?

About the author

About the Author

Marie Wells Coutu began telling stories soon after she learned to talk. At age seven, she convinced neighborhood kids to perform a play she had written. She wrote her first book, “I Came from Venus,” in eighth grade, but studied journalism in college. After a career writing for newspapers, magazines, governments, and nonprofits, she returned to her first love—writing fiction—at the age of fifty-five. Her debut novel, For Such a Moment, won the Books of Hope Contest. Thirsting for More, the second book in the Mended Vessels series, released in April 2015. Books in the series are contemporary re-imaginings of the stories of biblical women, including Esther and the woman at the well. Marie retired after 15 years with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and she and her husband now divide their time between Florida and Iowa.

Thirsting for More
by Marie Wells Coutu

Thirsting for More

Northern transplant Victoria Russo moves to the charming southern city of Charleston, South Carolina, from cold Connecticut, hoping to renovate her career, her life, and an old house. Instead, she faces animosity, betrayal, and calamity. Will she repeat the pitfalls of her past mistakes, or find the freedom and restoration she seeks?