I’ve been up for four hours. I’ve gotten a lot done this morning. Wrote an article, working on another one that I started yesterday. I’ve got another one half-finished from yesterday, and I just had a thought.
It has to do with a kitchen timer I’ve got around my neck.
It’s there because I tend to forget things I’ve got going on in the kitchen.
See, I really don’t like standing there waiting for things to finish. Like I
was boiling up some potatoes. They were sprouting, and I figured I’d best do
something with them. I also don’t like throwing food out. So, the plan is for
me to make some potato salad for dinner tonight. I had the timer on for 20
minutes. When the dinger dinged, three potatoes were finished, but a larger one
was still on the hard side, so I left it in the water with the burner off to
sit for a while.
While I was waiting, I decided to sit down and watch a
little bit more of the television show I’d been watching (The Closer on Netflix).
I love that show to bits, and I knew if I didn’t get up in time, I’d find
myself still there at 3:30 this afternoon. So, I set the timer for 20 minutes.
That’s where I got the idea to conduct an experiment today.
I’m going to keep the kitchen timer around my neck, and I’m
going to keep setting it for 20 minutes at a time. Now, in the grand scheme of
things, I will typically spend an hour or so on an article. However, as the day
moves forward, I will spend longer and longer with each successive article. Why
that is, I’m not sure. Another experiment, for another day, I suppose.
At the end of the day, like yesterday, I will have a couple
of unfinished pieces on my computer desktop. Seems a little unorganized. I
mean, yes, I can understand having a book not finished. A book could be 120,000
words, and nobody is going to finish one in a single day. However, you could
work on getting a chapter done in a day’s time. Depending on how long you want
your chapters to be, on average. None of them will end up being exactly the
same, but I tend to like mine to be between 4,000 and 5,000 words. Give or
take. If they get to be more than that? I break them in two and have another
chapter.
Maybe that’s what people who make podcasts do. They get hold
of something they just can’t shake enough. Picture a dog with a bone.
Productivity is my name. Most days.
Plus, I don’t have all the time in the world anymore. When
you turn 70, too, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I’d say this piece is about halfway done. I’m going to
switch off to one of my other partially finished pieces to complete it (I hope)
and will come back to this one about an hour or so from now to let you know how
the next twenty minutes goes….
Okay, I’m not sure what time it was when I cut away from
this piece, but I’m back again. Maybe this 20-minute thing isn’t something that
I want to go on all day. Remember, back when we were in school? I can’t
remember how long classes went, but I’m thinking they were probably 45 minutes
each. Then, you’d have ten minutes to get to your next class. Maybe four
classes in the morning, lunch, and then three or four classes in the afternoon.
Since I went to school in the 1970s, I’m sure things have changed with short
days and more days off, which, I think, would have been nice. Still, the day
was packed for me in those days.
…. A few days later. Like any new habit, wearing a kitchen
timer around my neck is going to take some getting used to. And, like any new
habit, it will probably get tweaked a bit to make it perfect. For one thing,
wearing it all day and resetting it time after time got to be tiresome. Perhaps
I could wear it after my morning writing shift is done. As I head into the
afternoon every day, I tend to slow down, and the things I write tend to take
longer. Is that me running out of juice or just getting tired? I don’t know. As
of right now, the time sits at 1:30 pm. This is the third article I’ve been
working on today, so yes, it's a good day’s writing, even though most of this
piece was written a couple of days ago.
And an update. So far this month, as of 6/22/26, I’ve
written 56,745 words. I’m probably going to break 70,000 words by the time the
month is over. Maybe more.
So, thanks for reading. Keep pushing yourself as far as your
dreams go. If it sounds too big to handle, break whatever it is that you’re
trying to do into more manageable bite-sized pieces, and you’ll be fine. And,
if you are a writer? Write every day.
🌺 Pauline
Evanosky
🌺My Links:
Talking
To Spirit — my website since 2001
Pauline Evanosky on Medium
Talking
To Spirit on Substack
Pauline
Evanosky — my author’s website
My
Table of Contents for Medium — Updated Monthly
My Table of Contents for Substack — Also Updated Monthly
Facebook for shorter pieces
Resources for psychic development from my website,
TalkingtoSpirit.com
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