A Dash of Words with Loleta Abi Romance Author

The Writer’s Wheel 2/9/2020: Spring Cleaning

Loleta Abi

It’s almost that time of year when a fanatical cleaning spell seems to take over us as we dust off all the cobwebs winter brought. I’m not talking solely about all the rooms in your house. Mainly, I’m referring to your home office and what consists of it.

Your Desk.

I know. Most obvious. But a clean and efficient desk could help us to write better. When things are in place, it motivates us not to obsess over them being all over. So, buy some little desk organizers (the Dollar Tree is perfect for this.) and have at it! Get some pencil, pen holders. Containers for your multitude of notes. Heck pick up some more notepads (Yeah, we all use lots of them.), maybe some notebooks too.

Corkboard/Dry-Erase.

Notes scattered and out of order? Need to take some old notes down and neatly catalog new ones for the next project? That’s what corkboard are for. Keeping us organized at a glance. The dry-erase board is good for adding notes as well. I opted for a smaller one as my desk is only so big. However, I may need another as it is getting scraggly and not erasing any longer. I use this board for the all-important setting notes. You know like what the names of streets are. Where the shops are located. Where your character might live.

Calendars.

Yes, I said “calendars.” As in more than one. You’ll thank me. I keep one for appointments. There’s also a smaller one for when bills are due, including any subscriptions you may use for writing. Office 365, for instance. Askimet. Bluehost. OneStop for Writers. Then, I have a separate one for deadlines on projects with tentative dates to shoot for as well as the new deadline for when I have to have a blog post in for Two Drops of Ink.

My Goal Sheet.

This is where I put all my goals for each day, rotating them. For Sundays and Saturdays, I take time off from editing and writing to listen to podcasts, finish up for blog posts for Loleta Abi and Traci Kenworth. I schedule reading time. On Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I work on recipes, pins, short stories poems and editing. More reading with some character builder time. I also try and fit in some agent research. For Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work on scheduling links, guest posts and posts on my own blogs, I also work on my Two Drops of Ink post. More reading on the Kindle. Also, more edits.

Recipe Notes.

I keep track of what I’ve done, what I’m working on with recipes. As I finish them, I file them. I’ve also got new recipes to try printed and ready to go. I catalog them in my Master List. I go through the list periodically and remove those recipes we didn’t care for and get set to try new ones. I need to figure out what to put the whole collection in though. They’re taking up room in my kitchen and since it’s a smaller kitchen, there’s not much room for excess.

Drawers and file baskets.

A lovely addition to any office. Here, you can put important papers for safe keeping. Keep various articles together to glance at later. Hold trinkets. Your Kindle. Your purse and ink cartridges that you plan to recycle. I also have various tins that hold my “Ideas.” These are a lifesaver when I want to remember something, I’ve written down previously. Of course, I also keep notebooks full of ideas that I may work out more details on the story as time goes along till, I get a fuller picture.

Storage devices, flashdrives, etc.

These could use some looking into as well. Do you need more space? Is your device working properly? Now, is the time to check those things out. Also, some people re-organize their files on their devices, but I’ve found, I end up losing my stories doing that.

What about you? Have you organized your office lately? Any tips?