Planning and scheduling are often said together, like black and white or salt and pepper. They are often said in that order, a trait referred to by linguists as Siamese twins or irreversible binomials. One of the reasons that planning and scheduling are usually said in that order is that it is the typical sequence in which they are done. First you plan, then you schedule. Often you will find that as you execute the plan to the schedule you may have to adjust either the plan, the schedule, or both. In fact it is uncommon to not do so at least once during the execution of a plan.
I have made a fairly good plan for my new approach to writing. I neglected to come up with a schedule. It is important to establish a regular time when readers of my blog can expect a new post to be available. Consequently, I feel I should establish a schedule for them. I will post a blog post on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. I may write them a day or two before hand but I will schedule them to be posted on those three evenings.
I will vary the topics somewhat. I still plan to write about programming, writing, memories, music, and occasionally other topics that seem appropriate. I’ll try not to publish on the same topic twice in any week or indeed twice in a row. You’ll forgive me this once posting details of my writing plan and schedule two posts in a row.
As I mentioned last Friday, I will occasionally post links to interesting articles or web sites, link blog style. That will happen on the nights between my regularly scheduled blog posts. This post will be on Monday evening instead of Sunday as I just worked out this schedule and I intend to blog again on Wednesday and Friday.
It seems that if one has a schedule, it is easier to execute a plan. I realized after spending the Labor Day weekend doing other things besides executing the plan that I wrote about Friday exactly what it was that was missing. This I take for evidence that you can, after all, teach an old dog new tricks. You just have to prod the old dog to think about what it is he is doing.
Since I shared with you my plan to use the time that I freed up by backing off on my blogging schedule, I find it apropos to share that I need to establish a work schedule for my fiction writing activities as well. I won’t bore you with the details of that except to say that I intend to start using a calendar to block out times that I intend to write and hold myself to those appointments.
Thanks for you patient understanding and I’ll try to make the next several blog posts special. I may even try my hand at micro-fiction.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.