Mel is Mel Boring, moderator of this interview with Julie Hood and Web Editor of the ICL Web Site.

Interviews are held every other Thursday evening for two hours, beginning at 9 CANADA/
Atlantic Time, 8 Eastern Time, 7 Central Time, 6 Mountain Time, and 5 Pacific Time.  

Mel: We could be no more fortunate in our ICL Guest Chat Room than to have the special guest we have this evening. Julie Hood knows not only about writing and the time and energy it takes, but also how to organize your time so as to do the MOST writing is the SHORTEST time available to you. Julie has organized a Web Site to carry on the work of helping writers organize. In talking with Julie preparing for this chat, I could see that SOME of her suggestions I am already trying. But there are SO MANY others she shows, as seemingly effortlessly as typing. Julie will be taking us to her Web Site tonight to use it as a "chalkboard" for explaining her so-effective methods of organization. Julie, THANK YOU for taking us on tonight, and the great task of getting us children's writers organized! WELCOME to you!

Julie: Thanks so much for inviting me, and thanks for taking the time out of your busy summers to come chat. It's going to be fun!

Mel: Julie, tell us very first of all, how did you become involved with WRITING and WRITERS?

Julie: When I left my corporate job to stay at home with my son, I was looking for something to do besides Sesame Street all day. And I realized that to be successful at writing you really have to be organized. I was organizing my home at the time (those of you with kids know how crazy a new baby makes the household!) and really wanted a site that could help me get organized with writing.

Mel: Tell us about that "new baby" and the rest of your family, please.

Julie: Two kids, two fish and, thankfully, a very helpful hubby! And I'm very lucky to be able to work from home with them.

Mel: Yes, and you MUST be very organized! How did you become involved with WRITERs’ time saving, Julie?

Julie: When I started freelancing, I noticed how the pay rates were just awful. I had come from a CPA firm where we billed by the hour (and had to track every single hour to a client or administration), and when I started doing some of the math on how long it takes to write and submit an article, I was shocked. If you want to succeed at writing you have to be incredibly efficient and able to get your work done quickly. A few wasted hours here or there and you've blown the pay rate. It wasn't like at my CPA job where we were paid by the hour. So I started applying some of the same skills we used to stay organized at work (and some of the same ones I used in college). One of the big ones is doing a Time Map. You know how in college when you are setting up your schedule, you have to make sure the classes don't overlap and you have time to get from one building to another? I used a Time Map that was a grid with the hours down the side and the days of the week across the top. Then I filled in the different blocks for classes, work, homework, workout time, etc. And it worked beautifully. So I took this same approach for writing. Only this time there's more to fill in...kid time, chores, etc., and made sure everything is going to fit.

Mel: We are GLAD you started freelancing, and GLAD you realized the long hours/low pay we writers are up against! May I backtrack and ask, were you successful in your freelance writing?

Julie: Yes, I accomplished what I wanted and realized that I'm not big on doing interviews and doing rewrites for editors. I like writing my own stuff! Before we get too much further (and to help everyone with their 15 minute assignment!), can you let me know what will make this evening successful for each of you? Include it in your questions, and we'll try to cover as much as we can tonight.

Mel: The question box is open, chatsters, so fill it up! Julie, let's move more into time management itself. What do you think is the biggest challenge for writers who are trying to get organized?

Julie: Typically I see three challenges popping up. First, is that a lot of people just don't know how to get organized. They were never taught—even though organizing is a skill you can learn just like learning to type or learning to ride a bike (or write a children's book)!

Mel: What's the second challenge, Julie?

Julie: The second is actually finding the time to get organized, which is one of my Organized Writer rules: Invest Your Time. With so much going on, our lives are so busy—who has the time to clean their desk or organize their filing system?

Mel: And the third challenge?

Julie: The third challenge is the one I struggle with the most, the routine maintenance required to STAY organized. I love to set up the system, but the maintenance, the purging, the filing, the throwing away, filling out the forms is what actually makes it work.

Mel: So would you say there is only one way to "get organized"?

Julie: No, absolutely not. A lot of experts like to provide "the" answer. But luckily there are lots of different ways to solve a problem. For example, if your mail tends to pile up, one organizing expert may tell you to dump the junk mail in the trash before you come in the door. Another may have a color coded system for you to sort your mail, and another may say sort it every night before you go to bed. My favorite way to apply all the advice, though, is to pick the suggestions that fit with your personality. What sounds like you? What will actually do it? What fits with the way your mind and your "organizing personality" works?

Mel: Tell us about your Organized Writer rules—and take us to your Web Site, will you, please?

Julie: Here is the address: http://www.organizedwriter.com/master.htm.

Mel: I'll tell our chatsters how to get there, OK?

Julie: Yes.

Julie: OK, hopefully everyone has had a chance to try it. We'll use this in a little bit when we talk about filing systems.

Mel: GOOD!

Julie: The Organized Writer rules—see if any of these ring true with you. The first one is to Work with Yourself and Not Against Yourself. It ties back into a little of what we were mentioning before. One of my favorite examples of this is how I would never keep my room clean as a child. My mom is one of those left-brained perfectly organized people, and she just couldn't understand why I wouldn't keep my room clean. The reason was that the storage was hard to get to. I had to unload all this stuff from the closet, to get to my stuff, and I'd say, "I'll just set this down for now and put it away LATER." Any of you recognize that trait? Well, of course, I didn't put it away later because it didn't get any easier. I finally learned that for me to be organized, it has to be just as easy to put the stuff away as it is to set it down. So I need one-motion storage. Open the drawer and drop it in. One of the best things you can do is recognize how you like (and DON'T like) to be organized. What will you actually do?

Mel: I'll bet your mom is PROUD of the organized person you've become today. Julie! What do you mean by "Work Forward," which I see you mention up there in your Web Site?

Julie: A lot of times, we are organizing old stuff, last week's mail, last month's receipts, and that's great, but what might be more helpful is to organize for what's coming at you today and tomorrow. Once you get the incoming stuff under control, then you can go back and attack all the old papers you have lying around. The second one is Focus and Pay Attention which just means that you have to have a goal in mind and then you focus each day on moving it forward. There's a great book by David Allen called Getting Things Done, and his whole philosophy is based on "What's the very NEXT ACTION that I need to take to move this project forward. You don't have to have the entire project plan in place to make progress. Just move forward on the next thing you need to do.

Mel: What about piles. I seem to have LOTS of them ALL the time. Are you against piling?

Julie: Nope. I'm an avid piler! The secret is to make sure the piles are organized piles and not "Leaning Towers of Paper" that take over your desk and don't leave you any room to work. Shall we talk about filing systems a bit?

Mel: Yes!

Julie: OK. Let me share a couple different solutions and you can pick the one that best fits you. The first solution is the "Master List" system. At the web site above, you'll see a scroll bar on the right hand side Scroll down a bit until you see the triangle picture.

Mel: Yes!

Mel: Those sorters sound like JUST what I need to organize myself! Could you give us a quick review-overview of your 30-day get-organized plan, for those who may have just joined us?

Julie: Sure. The 30-day plan consists of six sections. We start by 1) Getting organized where we look at your organizing personality to see if you are left-brain or right-brain, whether you prefer the computer or paper, that kind of thing. Then we set up a writer's planner which is the place to keep track of everything you're doing as a writer. (If you are interested in previewing the planner, you can go to the Writer-Reminders tab at my website and sign up for my newsletter. You get instructions on how to subscribe and 20 of the 30 planner forms in the e-book). In section 2) we talk about time (how to track it and where you really want to spend your time). In Section 3) we organize your workspace. Section 4) is all about your most time-saving tool, your computer and working online. Section 5) takes a writer from Idea to Query and all the steps in between. Section 6) is Manuscript to Payment and accounting, taxes, etc. The last two sections talk about skill-building, household organizing, and reworking your time now that you are so organized!

Mel: Julie, why did you set your system up that way?

Julie: I wanted readers to be able to do the first section, and then jump to whatever was their most pressing need. We do a little quiz to find out what is driving you the craziest!

Julie: Yes, the whole time thing is probably the hardest to master.

Mel: Here's a personal question about a concern of my own: If we subscribe to your newsletter, through the Yahoo Group it's set up under, Julie, will our e-mail address be distributed out through Yahoo to others, or is it kept private?

Mel: Julie, earlier, and in your e-book, you mention something called a "writespace" What is that?

Julie: Oh, I love this concept. A writespace (instead of a workspace) is that place in your home where you do your writing. It feeds your creativity and keeps you organized. It may be your office—or it might not! I do almost all my writing from the recliner in my family room. Your writespace should be a place where you love to sit and create. And if you have a cluttered office, it's probably not adding to your creativity. I just started studying feng shui, and it is so neat, because I've never liked having my desk against the wall. For some reason, it really bugged me.

Mel: What, briefly, is this interesting discipline, feng shui, Julie?

Julie: Feng shui is the study of how every item in our environment has energy (which makes sense if you think of how everything is made of atoms) and how to place items to foster the best energy flow. I was a complete skeptic until my consultant Linda mentioned that I could sleep better, and what she suggested worked.

Julie: Yes. I like that definition.

Julie: Great idea for starting the kids early on the time map concept!

Julie: My most difficult obstacle has definitely been making the entire kid/family/work thing work for me. As a child and as I began my adult career, I was incredibly determined and focused on what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. But when you throw a baby (or two) into the mix, it suddenly got a lot more complicated for me (especially when you have one that doesn't sleep!). Suddenly it wasn't just what I wanted to do, it was working my project in around what they needed. I was never thrilled about doing daycare so I've been lucky that our kids’ grandparents help babysit when we need it.

Julie: If it's simple (like a misspelled word that just takes a second to change) then go ahead. If it's something more complex, like realizing that the flow doesn't work in these three paragraphs, make a quick note and come back to it.

Julie: Absolutely. You sound like you have already figured it out! The more you can set up a routine that works on autopilot for you, the easier it will be to accomplish. So for example, maybe you set aside an hour every day that you just focus on marketing, or maybe you block out an entire day, or if the time thing doesn't work for you, make a list of 20 ways you can market your book, and then tell yourself you will only work until you’ve finished one of them, and then you are done until tomorrow. Another question to ask yourself is why don't I like marketing? Is it because it's more left-brained, and I like to be creative? Or is it because I don't know where to start? If you can tackle the why behind the drudgery, it may make it a bit easier to do anyway.

Julie: Thank you, caq! I've never liked that question either! Maybe I didn't feel like writing today—and personally, that's OK. I was listening to a speaker the other day who said that "Money loves speed," and his point was that when you are really charged up and excited about something, that you should focus on it and run with it. The only problem I can see with that is making sure you finish! I know it would be easy for me to start and then hop from project to project without finishing them. But he did have a good point about taking that excitement and energy and running with it.

Julie: Great question! You have to look at what your distractions are. When my children were little I did a lot of Ctrl+S (Save!), and just tried to jump back in when I could so it wasn't as easy to have scheduled time unless I had a sitter. Let's say, the phone rings a lot and distracts you. Turn it off so voice mail picks up (I don't know about you but it's too hard to just let it ring!). Or if you've got a "mail ding" and it keeps going off, I'd definitely turn that off. Try to create (even if it's just a half an hour) some time when you know you won't be distracted. For me, that meant getting up before everyone else did! Or staying up when they were asleep. In the summer I also found teenagers in the neighborhood who were available to entertain the children. I was still here, but they kept them busy. I hope that helps!

Julie: Do you have a lot of neighbors, friends and family who think you are available just because you are home? This one takes a little finesse. If they call, I try to start the conversation with "I have 5 minutes to chat. Should we continue or should we set up another time?" Another thought is to put up a visual cue that says you're busy, like a paper stoplight with red and green lights that say when you are available. Another thing we have is "Mommy's Night Off." My family knows that when it's Mommy's Night Off, Dad is going to take care of everything. And we have "Dad's Night Off," too! Neither one of us does dishes or snacks or bedtime—it's just our time to work.

Mel: EXCELLENT suggestions, Julie!

Mel: Thanks, stephenie!

Julie: Excellent question, caq. "Trained" is an interesting way to put it. I could see myself resisting "training," but I do think that creating habits and routines is the absolute best way to make sure you do something that you hate to do automatically. If it's routine (and I've heard it takes anywhere from 21 days to a month to "train" yourself to a new habit), yes, I think, setting up an autopilot routine that just happens because it's a certain time of the day or it's a certain day of the week will take away some of the "I have to do this." I won't kid you, though, this can be hard at the beginning. Make sure you have lots of rewards along the way to make it worthwhile (my personal favorite is chocolate!).

Mel: I’ll say awomen/amen to chocolate for a reward!

Julie: Yes, you're right if you're working with a publisher. The book I was talking about was self-published so the author had control. Another thing that can be really difficult is doing a novel with Print On Demand. You really have to keep the number of pages down so that you can make money on the sale without going out of your price point. It's worth doing some research on your break-even point for POD vs. a small run with a printer.

Julie: Pick the place that's either (1) bothering you the most or (2) will make the biggest difference in your life if you organize it. A lot of time that can be your desk/workspace but it might also be your time. When you have more time, then you can invest it in getting organized.

Julie: All my life! J Actually I took about 18 months when I first left my CPA position to organize my entire home. But you know, it's an ongoing thing. Trying to stay organized is 75% of the battle for me.

Mel: One final good question of a slightly different nature:

Julie: How-to writing that solves a problem for someone, and it has to be short and sweet, and to-the-point!

Mel: Never have our two hours of chat rushed away faster, Julie! Maybe if I applied some of the marvelous principles of time management you've shared with us children's writers tonight, I could make the two hours allow us to get to more questions and more answers. THANK YOU for coming this evening. And since time management will always be a challenge for us writers, could we get you to come back to our ICL Chat Room some future Thursday evening to share more of your time-management magic with us, Julie? I know from hearing our chatsters' questions that both they and I would really appreciate that, friend!

Julie: Thanks so much for having me, and I'd love to come back again. It was great to chat with you, and I hope we were able to get most of the questions answered. If not, Mel, please feel free to e-mail them to me and I'll send you a follow up. Thanks everyone for stopping by, and Happy Writing (and organizing)!

Mel: That is SUPER, Julie, thank you, because there are LOTS of questions left over—STRONG interest in your topic! I will send the questions to you, and I can add them and your answers at the end of the transcript.

Julie: Take care, everyone! Best from Julie!

Julie: Yes! And I try not to be too hard on myself—sometimes I don't write as much, or sometimes the chores don't get done so that I can have a little more time on my projects. I really like the word "harmony" which means that the project (or family member!) that needs to get the most time does—it's a lot easier than trying to "balance" everything. That reminds me of trying to keep from falling off a balance beam!

Julie: Not necessarily. Let me give you an example. Suppose you have organized your schedule so that every Thursday morning you spend several hours marketing your book. Throughout the week you may get e-mails or ideas that relate to book marketing. Instead of that nagging feeling that you need to do take care of these right now, you can make a list and leave them to be tackled on your book marketing day (if they aren't urgent). This process removes a lot of the stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed because you have assigned a time to tackle items (and you can ignore them until then)!

Julie: How often do you access them? For sample issues, try stackable plastic crates. If you need them to be more accessible, you might like a bookcase with them lying down the long way. As far as guidelines, I would use a binder with them sorted perhaps by category (so if you have an idea for a parenting article, you can flip to the parenting section and see all your guidelines). You can also do alphabetical order if you usually look for guidelines by name.

Julie: Exactly! You got it.

Julie: Keep it as simple as you can and as organized as you need. So if you don't need all those divisions, don't feel like you have to use them. Here are some other Main Categories I like to use:

Julie: You're close. You know how hanging folders have slots across the top? Put the subcategories aligned along the left hand side. Then the Ideas and Topics would be in the second slot of the hanging folders. I don't like to use file folders inside because they make it hard to scan through the titles of the tabs.

Julie: It really depends on your specific situation (and how organized you are already). The program is divided into 30 days but I've had people who said they did everything in one weekend. Others just tackle a bit each day, and since it's a 30-day plan, they hit the same area once each month.

Julie: Wonderful system! I love it.

Julie: It depends on when you might need this again. What will you be looking for when you want these papers again? For all filing, really, you need to think about "What question will I ask myself when I want this again?" I saw a statistic that said we never look at 80 percent of the paper we file. So that's a waste of effort. Make sure you are only keeping stuff you really need and will be able to find when you want it.

Julie: Great idea! And I really like the clicker pens. With one hand you can grab the pen, click it and start writing. No lids to deal with!

Julie: A main topic could be Parenting. Subcategories include Safety, Infant, Toddler, Discipline and Writer's Guidelines. Ideas and Topics under Infant include Feeding, Formula, Bathing, and Bonding.

Julie: It depends on what's in the little piles. Is this current projects? Is it stuff that doesn't have a home, or did you just not have time to file them yet? If it's time-sensitive stuff, you might like a daily tickler system with files for each day of the month (1-31) and for each month. You file it in the appropriate day and make sure you check it each day. Then move that day to the next month. So today is the 23rd, and I'd have folders 23-30 in the front. Then July and 1-22 behind the July folder.

Julie: We talked a little earlier about how the routine and schedule helps you be on auto-pilot. It removes some of the stress and the overwhelming feeling that we have every day. If you tend to fight a schedule, my main suggestion is to try it for a week or two. See if it removes some of that overwhelmed feeling. If it does, give yourself at least a month to create a habit.

Mel: Thank you, Julie Hood! You have gone waaaay beyond any call of duty, taking time out of your busy schedule, and you have just enRICHed an already-RICH Guest Chat very generously—Thank You!