School takes up a huge chunk of my time throughout the week, as it should. That means I haven’t had a chance to dump a lot of time into various forms of content, such as blog posts and YouTube videos. Since it’s Spring Break next week, I’m going to try to use that time to get a few things ahead.

Of course, that really depends on how much I procrastinate. That’s been a common theme for quite some time, and I’ve been doing relatively well as of late combating this time suck.

Not having classes next week is going to free up about 18 hours of scheduled time for other projects. In my world, that is around 9 pieces of content, as it takes about two hours for me to write a good blog post or publish a new video.

Yet, that really depends on the topic. Some posts and videos take a bit longer to create as I want to be thorough with the information.

So, any bets on whether I can utilize the break well enough to get a few things rolling on the various blogs and channels I own?

Focusing On the Asana Schedule (and not sidequests)

I spend about 30 to 40 minutes scheduling each week in advance in Asana. I try to organize the projects according to priority and what I would like to have done first. Unfortunately, I often derail my efforts by doing something else that is not on the schedule for the day.

For example, I’ll need to work on a blog post for ColoradoPlays, but then chew up two or three hours trying to figure out why the site isn’t showing as many advertisements as it should. Yes, that happened this week.

That’s one of the drawbacks to working for yourself. It’s easier to get sidetracked when no one is standing over your shoulder telling you what to do. And not everyone has the easiest time keeping focused, especially when one has a house full of people and animals at any given time.

Anyway, the plan is to remind myself that the list of things scheduled for the day is there for a reason. Anything extra can be set into a holding pattern until there is an opportunity to work on it later in the week or during the weekend.

Yep, Creating a New Video Case Study

I would love for all three of my YouTube channels to be monetized. The trick is to actually upload a video and make content people want to watch. I just haven’t had the opportunity to get things rolling until now.

Remember, I have four part-time jobs and am a part-time student. That’s a lot of parts to keep up with in a 24-hour period.

With Spring Break happening, it’ll give me a chance to hammer out some details about proceeding with ColoradoPlays and Crossing Colorado to get them monetized at some point this year.

Because I don’t have a lot of time available, I plan on starting with at least one video per week in addition to the live streams we already have. And to motivate me a bit more with this process, I’m creating a case study on Tube Arcanum to demonstrate what a single, weekly, consistent upload can do for a channel on YouTube.

Now, all I have to do is maintain my schedule and not get sucked into procrastinating with random crap.

Still Experimenting with Courses

Recently, I decided to start looking into setting up some online courses. I’ve been asked for years to create a few, and I feel this is the year to start implementing them.

What kinds of things will I teach? The first few are probably going to center around WordPress and blogging. But I would love to explore creative writing at some point.

I’m also debating creating courses based on various writing apps. However, I kind of already do that on the WriterSanctuary YouTube channel.

Currently, I’m working on a free WordPress 101 course as I play around with different LMS (learning management system) apps and plugins. It’s an introductory course to help new users understand how to use the WordPress platform and what it can do.

I’m probably going to prioritize the courses a bit higher. That’s mostly because I have a couple of people who want to learn WordPress right now. So, it’ll most likely be something I start setting up over the weekend.

Will I Finish Fury Before the Semester Ends?

I haven’t had a chance to work on Fury much this month. But I would love to finish the first draft before the end of the semester. That’s because I am planning a writing challenge to write a book in 30 days afterward. The plan is to show the entire process live from start to finish.

The challenge isn’t just to write a book, mind you. I am buying a pre-made book cover and then creating a 75,000-word story from nothing but the image. And all of this will be done without AI.

The reason I’m waiting until after the semester is over is that this will eat up about two and a half hours every day, 7 days a week. Since I am on campus Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus doing an online course, I just don’t have the time to dump into the project.

Well, at least not without stressing out about school.

So, essentially, I’ll have 30 straight days of writing sprints going live on the YouTube channel. I’ll start reminding viewers as we get closer to the end of the semester. That way, others can join if they’d like.

I’m looking forward to the challenge, but don’t want to do it if I haven’t finished the first draft of Fury. I hate having partial manuscripts all over the place. I want to make sure the second volume of the Witcham Chronicles is done beforehand.

The semester ends the week of May 16th, so I might start the writing challenge on May 25th. That’ll give me a week to breathe after stressing about finals.

What Will Keep Everything On Schedule After the Break?

The real trick to doing all of this is to make sure I can sustain the plans after Spring Break and into the foreseeable future. Is it possible for me to maintain six blog posts, 5 videos, being a self-published author, and maintain a 4.0 GPA all while keeping clients happy throughout the week?

I don’t know, to be honest. I can accomplish a great deal as long as I focus on the schedule and keep myself from procrastinating, doomscrolling, or getting sidetracked by tasks that don’t really need to be done at the moment.

For me, time management is a challenge in and of itself.

Still, I’ve been able to accomplish more in less time back in the day. Yes, I’m much older now, and it takes a lot more effort to get out of bed in the morning. But I still think I can do some great things as long as I put my mind to it. That’s something else that’s getting more and more difficult to manage as I get older.

Nonetheless, I’m always up for a challenge. If I’m lucky, I can get some of these things to start pulling in a bit of extra cash so I can hire help. But in the meantime, I’m flying solo.

Still Having a Good Year

Although I haven’t been able to work a lot on the content, I’m still having a pretty good year in terms of time management. While a decent portion of my time is taken up by college work, I’m still getting quite a bit done in the background. So, I really can’t say that I haven’t been productive.

Sure, I could have written a blog post instead of working on ad placements on the blog. But that was still time I spent to help the blog make more money. It wasn’t the content I wanted, but the time was still well spent working on the blog.

I think that is perhaps the most important thing I need to drill into my head. The term “production” doesn’t necessarily have to mean word count or publishing numbers. Sometimes it’s better to spend that time improving the efficiency, income, or performance of a blog or YouTube channel.

Time spent working on firewall settings is still productive to keep the websites safe.

In the grand scheme of things, I think I’m still having a great year despite being a bit behind in word count goals. I’m maintaining a 4.0 GPA, learning more about creative writing and anthropology, volunteering more, and having a pretty good year, thus far.