Productivity & Time Management Archives - Page 2 of 6

10 Ways Facebook Can Keep You Sane and Productive

Posted on August 10, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I heard from a couple of writers I respect that they are quitting Facebook. Some of them keep their business pages, or just one group related to their blog or latest product. Few are going cold turkey.

I get where they are coming from. Social media can be a huge time suck. Likes, comments, and upvotes are addictive. For some, it means affirmation and validation. For many, it is a popularity contest. But among those who enjoy the popularity, are writers and other business owners like you and me.

Facebook, while a great platform for connecting like-minded people, staying in contact with friends and building your brand, can be hell: People being constantly negative, friend requests from creepy strangers, newbie bloggers who want to use you as a free consultant and their own Google, and content that gets banned for no good reason along with content that should be banned but isn’t…

Yet the positives far overweigh the negatives. And I can’t give up on Facebook. Maybe it is an age thing: You see, I was there almost from the beginning. I signed up around 2007, right after my Erasmus year. It was mainly a way to keep in touch with friends and neighbors. It was also to kill time during an internship where they didn’t give me much responsibility.

So 10 years later, Facebook remains my favorite social networking site. Granted, it has its cons. I hate most design updates. The ads are a bit much. But worst of all, it is so damn easy to get lost in your news feed when you have over 500+ friends.

But don’t worry. Facebook, with a little insight and self-control from you, can be a very powerful business tool, as well as serving as free therapy and entertainment.

So let me provide a proper bullet-point list on how Facebook keeps me sane and productive, and you can decide for yourselves whether it is worth your time. Because if we are honest, it makes procrastination very easy.

1. Traffic and social proof. Most of my blog traffic and shares come from Facebook. I have a lot of writer friends, and friends who want to be writers/or bloggers here.

2. Social media management skills. I might not be the ultimate Facebook guru, but I’m pretty damn good at it. I do social media marketing for clients, so it helps that hanging around Facebook comes as a second nature to me. I love the site. Damn you, Zuckerberg! You created a monster.

3. Groups for social interaction, business growth and learning. Yes, you can google a lot of things, so I’m not suggesting asking friends and colleagues “What’s WordPress?” or What’s blogging?” in this day and age. But there is a lot Google can’t tell you, especially in the specific way you need to learn them.

Google is a search engine, and sometimes you need to ask direct questions to your more experienced peers. Some of the amazing groups I belong to:

Groups on making money from your non-fiction:

30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success (private group for Gina Horkey’s namesake course.)
Earn More Writing (group for Holly Porter Johnson’s namesake course)
Beyond Your Blog (Group for Susan Maccarelli’s namesake blog)

Anything related to Screenwriting

Bang2write
Screenwriters who can actually write

Anything ficiton-writing

Fiction Writers

I run some awesome groups myself:

Addicted to Writing – official group for this blog
Writers Helping Writers – a group for all things fiction and non-fiction with very few rules. (The existing rules are: Be respectful and nice to each other; helping others comes before self-promotion.)

I get a lot of requests, so I recommend add something about writing to your profile. It also helps if you belong to writing-related groups. This is to avoid people who sign up for everything but not participate, or people who are not serious about writing. Everyone in this group is either working as a professional writer, or trying to. Writers who write as a hobby won’t find it as fun or practical.

Hyperactive Dreamers. This is a super niche group. While most of the members are writers, it is a group for people who love more than more profession, run or want to run more than one business and has multiple fashions. We are extremely helpful, so you are welcome to check it out.

4. Keep in touch with clients. Sometimes you stop with certain clients, but you are on good terms. You can later collaborate on other projects. Or you can just have a wider network. Some of your clients love Facebook. So do you. And who knows? Maybe they want to throw some Facebook-related work your way. Or they see you and remember that they have friends who need writing work.

5. Finding like-minded people. Oh, this is crucial. Many of us full-time writers tend to be at least a little quirky. Frankly, I think it is non-writer people are a little weird, and I need writer buddies to back me up on the sentiment. We have big dreams, and we don’t let overt realism or pessimism deter us. Fellow writers understand why we can’t just write as a hobby.

6. Sharing ideas and exchanging feedback. With some ideas, I’m confident I need to keep pursuing. Some ideas, especially if I’m not experienced in the niche or with the genre, I need feedback on. And once I start working on with an idea, I need more feedback. Obviously, I return the favor.

The good thing about Facebook is that it offers variety. So let’s say you can take criticism, but you are not a fan of tough love. (That’d be me). It’s amazing that I can find friends who will be honest with me without crushing my spirit.

7. Laughter and entertainment. Who doesn’t love a funny video, song, joke, gif, meme…etc? Let me share one right here. The world can be a dark place filled with problems, including and not limited to your own life. So yes, I’m unapologetic about my right to see cute kittens on a regular basis.

8. It improves your writing. When you share posts, you learn quite a bit about how to write succinct but interesting

9. Venting. I don’t recommend venting all the time. It is not pretty, and it might turn off a lot of people, clients and friends included. But we need a place to share our frustration, and writers get frustrated a lot.

I’d argue we lead more challenging lives than other professions, except for other creatives, because we get rejected almost on a daily basis. I’ve been known to receive two rejection emails within 5 minutes. What the….?

I also live in a city with tons of traffic, inconsiderate people, crazy weather and constant construction noise. And then there are health problems and family members…So yeah, we all need to vent sometimes. And it’s great to be welcomed by friends who jump in to say “Me too!” It just is better for everyone if you can combine the anger with some humor.

10. Reducing isolation. I talk to friends, and it feels like I have co-workers. The difference is, I like all of these co-workers. Writing can be very lonely, and it is detrimental to our well-being to be on our own all the time, especially if we have an extroverted side. Social media created the illusion that we’re not working alone, and Facebook just is more comfortable when it comes to messaging and commenting if you’re on your computer a lot.

7 Tips to Limit Time Your Time on Facebook

Turn off the Internet.
Get away from the computer.
Use free apps to block your site. I use SelfControl for Mac. I wrote it about in detail in my productivity book. (If you want to receive The More Productive Writer, email me and I’ll add you to the newsletter. Or you can subscribe to the newsletter by using the TinyLetter form in the right sidebar.)
Schedule more time for exercise and friends.
Leave groups that you haven’t felt the need to participate in a long time, or groups that have failed to provide you benefits.
Unfriend people who you don’t remember even meeting. They aren’t notified when you do.
Unfollow friends whose feed you aren’t enjoying.

How about you? Are you a Facebook person? Let me know your reasons why (and why not) in comments!

And if you liked the post, please share it on social media.

16 Non-Writing Tasks to Do When You Have Writer’s Block (or Don’t Feel Like Writing)

Posted on July 28, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I love the idea that we – writers – are sitting on a porch somewhere with a lovely view, a delicious coffee-based beverage nearby and typing away to our heart’s desire.

Now, we can often be found typing away with a coffee in hand, but we are not always writing a story or an article. (And the view doesn’t always rock, but that’s beside the point.)

Pinar Tarhan, writer — For instance, this is me posing for a picture because we need that too. 🙂

And while we love writing, sometimes we are stuck. Sometimes we’d do anything but, no matter how much we love writing.

But just because you can’t write doesn’t mean your whole work has to go to hell:

16 Non-Writing Tasks to Do When You Have Writer’s Block (or Don’t Feel Like Writing

Pitch. Unfortunately, editors and clients don’t always come to you with assignments and story ideas. You have to create your jobs. So you pitch. You usually have a pitch template than can be tweaked, so this is more editing than actual writing.
Follow-up on previous pitches. You have pitched stories a while back, but you haven’t heard back. So you customize that follow-up template if you need to, and fire away.
Keep track. You make notes on where you pitched and what you followed up. You don’t want to send the same idea to an editor that already turned it down.
Clean your inbox and answer important emails. It’s not advised to check your email every 2 minutes, but you should probably check it at least twice every day – especially if you are expecting responses and you have clients from different time zones. You don’t want to miss an assignment because the message got buried among 100 unimportant other messages.
Read the articles in the publications you are pitching– aka also known as market research.
Read unrelated stuff for fun and inspiration.
Deal with blog administration. There is always a plugin to update, a post to edit.
Apply to jobs and/or pitch to clients.
Post on social media. You have a presence; you need to maintain it.
Talk to other writers. It’s one of my favorite methods for staying sane.
Update social media profiles. Maybe you did something interesting or acquired an impressive byline.
Update your website copy. You might want to review your services and how you present them.
Update your portfolio. Those new bylines won’t add themselves.
Hang around aimlessly – online and offline- looking for inspiration and story ideas. Some of the most obvious ideas arrive when you feel like giving up. And ideas can come from anywhere, including from your favorite comedians.
Clean. I don’t mean spring cleaning, but just a general, mindless tidying up that won’t take too much time. Also, how clean is your computer screen? I swear mine is playing in the dirt when I’m not looking.
Organize. Organize files, on the computer and in your office. Do you need all the paper? Did you notice a publication you loved but forgot about? Saw a book you need to refresh up on? Leave the cleaning and organization to the end, though. You don’t want to use them as procrastination tactics.

What do you work on when you are stuck? Please let me know in the comments.

My Productivity E-Book is Ready, Why I Like Kevin Can Wait, and Other News from The Writing Trenches

Posted on May 30, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I’m back! OK, technically I wasn’t gone. I was just waiting for my WOW! Article to go live, so that I could post a review on successful freelance writer Suchi Rudra’s e-book review as my next post.

But my article hasn’t gone live yet, and it has been too long without a post. So here it is.

– My Productivity E-book Is Finally Ready!

I’ve collected some of my favorite posts on productivity from this blog. I edited, updated, and added to them according to need, and put together a decent resource on how to become more productive. The price, should you choose to “buy” it from my blog, is your e-mail address. If you are already a subscriber, just let me know if you want the book, and I’ll email to you.

It features chapters on writing during times of mediocre health, how to make procrastination work for you, favorite books and blogs on productivity, managing your emails and more.

I’m figuring out my way through my newsletter service, and once it is ready, my book will be on the way. I’m so excited because it is my first.

Hope you enjoy it.

– I Hurt My Back: Lesson Learned About Being too Sedentary

Sunday was off to a good start. I had plenty of sleep, did a lot of formatting, did market research, evaluated my options for my novel, hung out at a favorite coffee shop, took a short walk, patted cute kittens, and overall, had a pretty good day.

I was planning for another good day with even more nature, work, and exercise. I started to pack my bag – that was the kind of good writer soldier I was being, and then, bam! I managed to strain my back without doing anything extreme. I was reaching for something from my desk and felt something weird in my lower back.

I’m guessing it is not serious because it doesn’t hurt when I sit or lie down, but it feels pretty horrible when I try to stand or walk.

Luckily, I have the right meds, I’m not alone at home, and among a knowledgeable mom, friends, and YouTube strain-relieving exercise videos, I should be fine. (That said, I’m no baby when it comes to going to the doctor. If it doesn’t go away soon, I’ll make an appointment.)

And this brings us to the sitcom starring Kevin James:

Kevin Can Wait

It’s been a while since my favorite, laugh-out-loud, hilarious sitcoms ended.

In case you are wondering, they are:

– Friends

– Coupling (UK, first three seasons),

– Spin City (first four seasons – until Michael J. Fox’s departure),

– 3rd Rock from the Sun (first season)

I really like Mom, and it makes me laugh a lot, but it is also a tragic show in many ways and it doesn’t make me shake with laughter like the ones above did.

Apart from Mom, I’ve seen some entertaining episodes from shows that made me smile, chuckle, or occasionally laugh hard. But none had the memorable characters, funny and original one-liners, awesome physical comedy and great storylines my favorites did.

To be honest, the first seasons of Supernatural, almost all of Damon Salvatore’s lines from The Vampire Diaries and the first seasons of Teen Wolf provide funnier and lovelier stuff than most of the sitcoms.

But sometimes, all you need is a good time, and characters that you can more or less relate to. And even though they are your severely exaggerated traits, you can’t help but enjoy yourself. I could never get into King of Queens much, but I quite like Kevin Can Wait.

It’s about an out-of-shape retired cop forced to endure his ridiculous British future son-in-law and the rest of his family’s shenanigans. Of course he and his other retired cop buddies provide more shenanigans than his entire family combined.

Not all episodes are equally funny, but the good ones are solid entertainment.

And it might be strange to relate to a married middle-aged dude with a large family, but he is clumsy, blunt, addicted to unhealthy food and an overall nice guy with no particular talents… Yep, I got my answer there. 😀

So I might as well keep a smile on myself while I wait for my back to get better.

What have you been up to?

The First Part of January 2017: Unproductiveness, Writing, Goals, Binge-watching and (Bad) Luck

Posted on January 11, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Representative. This laptop looks a lot sexier than I do at the moment.

I ended 2016 on an ambitious note, determined to be healthier and more productive than ever. The first 10 days, however, had other ideas. OK, the first few were okay. But the remaining 5…Ouch. Shudder.

I caught a stomach bug. I didn’t think it was a bug until I learned the hospitals were filled with people with fever throwing up. I almost had a fever on my first night with some shivering, but “luckily,” it just turned into a “manageable” nausea.

By manageable, I mean I didn’t need to go to the hospital and could maintain things inside. However, my awesome diet consists of tea, toasted bread with no oil or butter, non-salty white cheese, plain yoghurt, mashed potatoes, chicken breast and……Water. That’s it. I forgot what coffee smells like, and I’m in pain.

I also lost a tooth, and now I can no longer delay a dentist’s visit. (I’d been putting one off for far too long.) I also have a cold sore. Might be because I’m pissed my Internet connection is so slow that this post took me three days to get online. I’m not kidding. I’ve been all snowed up inside. Oh, the joy.

Naturally, my productivity jumped out of a plane without a parachute; I wasn’t even able to sit straight for the first couple of days.

The upside: my wrists feel better since I couldn’t use them much, which supports my resting advice on my writing disability article on Be a Freelance Blogger.

With this kind of eating you would think I’d lose a little weight, but since I can’t move much, I haven’t.

I’m currently beta-reading a friend’s novel, and completed a proofreading job on a screenplay. I kept up with blog posts and my email, and followed-up on previous pitches.

However, I’m good at finding great binge-watching cures for myself during times of ill health; this is how I had discovered Supernatural (aff.link). (A show I whole-heartedly recommend until season 6. I totally advise you to stay away from 7, and 8 is also good. Then I couldn’t get into it again.)

This time my savior was Zoo, a sci-fi/adventure/drama that is way better than its rating (of 7) and even the engaging trailer. The pilot starts beautifully. And the rest is fast, addictive, emotional, thought-provoking, action-packed, and all suspense all the way. It stars James Wolk, Billy Burke, Kristen Connolly, Nora Arnezeder and Nonso Anozie.

I won’t go into much detail, but just to get you also hooked, here’s the premise of Zoo in a nutshell:

When animals all around the world start attacking people out of nowhere, a group of five people (two animal experts, a veterinary pathologist, a journalist and a French intelligence officer) come together to find a cure so that they can save both the animals and the mankind. Along the way, they realize they have more enemies than just the increasingly violent and unpredictable animals, and they can only rely each other for survival, and well, saving humanity.

Oh, and of course there is a very curious writer character. (The journalist/blogger.)

zoo-tv-series-cast — The Magnificent 5 that will save the world. From left: The Intelligence Officer (Nora Arnezeder), The Zoologist (James Wolk), Veterinary Pathologist (Billy Burke), The Journalist (Kristen Connolly) and The Safari Guide (Nonso Anozie). Image via Collider.com.

Also watched: (The common themes are suspense and Billy Burke; I have loved him since Revolution.)

Movie

Untraceable starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks and Billy Burke: FBI’s best cyber crime agents try to stop a serial killer who makes sure his victims die faster as more people log on and watch his victims get murdered online. It’s a decent thriller/mystery whose flaws only come from the stupid actions of several characters. In their defense, it’s not more than your typical slasher.

Rewatched:

Fracture starring Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, Rosamund Pike and Billy Burke: Fracture is a damn solid thriller/mystery where a brilliant, rich businessman (Anthony Hopkins) murders his wife, and arranges it so that he shoots her with the weapon of her lover, the hostage negotiator (Billy Burke) who arrives first on the scene. It’s up to the ambitious young ADA (Ryan Gosling) to find the truth, and it seems like the businessman is more insanely smart than insane.

I’m luckily working at a desk again. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to have coffee for a couple more days. Wish me luck, full health, and patience.

On the bright side, I now know my sleeping problems have nothing to do with coffee.

What have you been up to?