Day 20 of the 30-Day Challenge: Creative Movement:
Task: To read all the way through my self-published book, Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult, and to start in on an associated task related to my book.
Reason for Task: As I stated on day 19, I need to update my book. I’ve put off making some noted changes for way too long. These changes aren’t earth-shattering updates (and may never be caught by the casual reader), but they’re important enough. Because in the back of my mind, I know they should be addressed. And my mind won’t rest until I take action on this matter and correct the mistakes I’ve made.
Duration of Task: 2 days. Today was day 2 of completing the reading of my book from cover to cover. However, I managed to tack on an additional task, associated with Playground . . . and I’ll be working on it a little bit each day for the rest of this week.
Outcome of Task: I successfully met the challenge of reading my book head-on and conquered it. Whoo hoo! It was definitely interesting reading through Playground . . . at this later date. The anxiety that I felt about reading my book for the first time after its publication back in 2019 was simply not felt this time around.
I’d already reconciled in my mind that my first written work will always be my first written work — not the best content that I’ll ever self-publish, but mine to own all the way. And, I’m proud of it. Playground . . . was my initial foray into authorship and I’ll forever be grateful for the experience and all the knowledge I gained by birthing this book baby. Plus, I wrote it with a lot of heart. To me, that makes up for the lack of a polished finish in its appearance.
But, I’m going to work on polishing it up (a little bit, anyway) and then re-releasing it out into the world again. And what I mean by that is . . . I’ll take the minor updates that I’ve noted need completing and will get them updated in my manuscript and then upload the manuscript into KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).
Now, the ideal course of action would be to get this task finished up this week and make it a day 20 and 21 assignment, but no can do. I have a task just waiting to be managed right about NOW and it’s taking precedence over the book updates. As a matter of fact, I think I should have actually started it before reading my book. Maybe. No, never mind. I think I’m tackling the tasks in the correct order.
Here’s why. You know how I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I have a task that I added onto day 20 (the start of the task, anyway). Well, it has everything to do with my book. And, I really felt the need to read through it in order to proceed with the additional assignment that I started today.
Without giving too much away right now, let’s just say that this additional assignment has everything to do with me having an exciting opportunity to be hosted on a talented blogger friend of mine’s blog site. And if all goes as planned, I’ll be sharing an excerpt of my book and a little about Degrees of Maternity on my friend’s site. Exciting stuff!
But that’s all I’m going to share for now. No details will be divulged until I get closer to the date of my presentation of the book. But rest assured. When that time comes, I’ll let you in on the BIG REVEAL.
Practical Application of Day 20 for Your Life: It’s so cool when you can batch tasks together. Today was an example of how two different projects needed to be tackled; but they have enough association with one another to give them a feeling of being a two-in-one type of assignment.
When you have occasions where you can group like tasks together and complete them, it makes for more efficient completion of output. While you’re mentally and physically riding on the same task momentum, you’re able to get more bang for your buck, when working on associated items.
In my particular case, I knew that I had this special project to work on that happens to involve my book, but I also knew that I needed to make some updates to my book. So, it just made sense to work on both items in one fell swoop (like they’re almost one big project when combining them). Get my drift?
So, take opportunities to look for areas in your to-do lists, where you can combine like tasks and work smarter, not harder.
degreesofmaternity.com 