There are days and, yes, even weeks when I feel like a mouse running through a maze looking for that little piece of cheese. A lot of my life revolves around the reward system. My kids get their allowance if they do their chores. I allow myself junk food on Friday nights if I've been good all week.
Lately, since the kids went back to school, I've been finding it hard to glue my butt to the chair and write. Mostly because I'm doing those sucky second draft edits I blogged about the other day. I find I'm getting more and more creative in how to reward myself for my editing progress.
I set the kitchen timer for 15 minutes and sit down to edit. When the timer goes off after 15 minutes I reward myself with an equal 15 minutes of:
* Oprah. I watch 15 minutes of the show at a time. I never get a chance to watch it at its usual time slot 'cause that's when I'm beating my kids, er, I mean helping them with homework. I record the show and view it in intervals.
* Soaking in a hot bubble bath in the middle of the day. This is totally self-indulgent in my world of 3 minute quickie showers. Because I can't manage to get myself out of the tub in 15 minutes, I usually do a 30 minute editing trade off for this one.
* Chatting. I phone a friend of my choice just to chat. Even as I type this blog my phone rang 3 times. I didn't answer. Usually I really don't like talking on the phone but if it's the right person (a friend) and the right topic (juicy gossip) 15 minutes is a treat.
* Mani-Pedi. I paint my nails. This gets tricky 'cause it's hard to paint your nails and get them dry in 15 minutes so I can type. Once I only painted one finger on each hand at a time and then tried not to type with those fingers. It's almost impossible to type any sentence without using your pointer because invevitably you will need n, j, u, y, t r, f, or v ... trust me on this. I've begun just doing a pedicure instead.
* Playing Poppit on pogo.com. I don't know why I enjoy the inane mind-numbing idiosy of popping cyber balloons but I do. Don't knock it until you've tried it people.
Do you reward yourself with treats for getting the job done? Any suggestions for additional 15 minute rewards I can use?
3 comments:
You know, I think if I had a regular writing schedule I would definitely do small rewarding. In my case, I'm never in the same place so I just do big rewards - on completion of a rough draft, proposal, sale, etc. I really should do more.
You could always try out some of the things at Bored.com or you could play some of your favorite 80s video games
Jana your situation is totally different but, yes, I think you should reward yourself more!
b.e., I loved the links!
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