Oct 4, 20234 min read

September 2023 Progress Report

Time for another progress adventure from Rich Scott Keller.

Well, here we are in a new month. How did your September go?

Oh, that's good.

Wow, that happened?

How did the hamster actually get in there?

My September was fine. Well, maybe a little frustrating. Okay, I was grumpy and lonely.

Working from home is a godsend and Satan's little twist of the knife. While you can work in your Sesame Street underwear and chug a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, you don't talk to many people. Heck, you're lucky if you see the sun. Hence, the reason you're complexion is pastier than, um, paste.

Plus, there are distractions like showering, dressing, and shoveling your clothes into the washing machine. Then there's a lovely television and a comfortable couch. Once Satan lures you to this area, you focus on long naps and Flea Market Flip binges.

That’s September in a nutshell, minus the Sesame Street underwear. I prefer Transformers.

Yet, I made progress in the shortened month due to necessity. Basically, my productivity sucked. For someone who wants to achieve financial independence, I take an above-average amount of naps. Obviously, something needed to change.

September Adjustments

Television be gone: There's no television in the house Monday-Thursday. Literally, I unplug the blasted device and move it to the spare bedroom. Turns out, whoever coined the phrase idiot box in the 1950s to define television was right. What a time vacuum.

Streaming be gone: Paramount+ and Amazon Video remain my streaming services. The former will probably disappear in October once I've seen my share of Star Trek shows. I'll go back to DVDs if I need to binge-watch something. It'll increase my available time while saving me money.

Pomodoro: Developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, the Pomodoro Technique minimizes procrastination, increases focus, and helps you complete tasks. Of course, you have to utilize the method to make it happen. Although I used it previously, I gave up on the Pomodoro technique because, for lack of a better excuse, I was friggin lazy.

I need Pomodoro more than ever, especially after discovering my most recent activity. Butt-in-chair progress in all writing projects averages three hours daily.

Three. Hours.

Although chores, school activities, and other outside tasks swallow time, three hours of piss poor. Yes, it would be impressive if it was 180 minutes of solid creative writing. However, it's three hours of contract work and creative writing during my waking hours.

Ouch.

Needless to say, I removed the TV, cut back on naps, and ate healthier. Further, I now utilize the task-to-do option on my Pomodoro application. It's visible proof of something I must accomplish.

So far, I've followed through on most tasks. The most important is writing at least one hour a day. It wasn’t tops on my list, even though I have several incomplete short stories and manuscripts gathering virtual dust in my digital folders.

Reading and listening: No TV means more time to listen to podcasts and read. For the latter, I've delved back into fiction and poetry. I picked up Jim Butcher's Skin Game, part of his "Dresden Files" series, and got hooked. Now, I'm catching up on the wizard P.I.'s adventures.

Additionally, I read two poetry collections by Nikki Giovanni, A Good Cry and Bicycles. What an amazing poet who has created poignant works for decades. I look forward to reading more of her pieces.

On the listening front, here's what influenced me in September:

The Great Creators with Guy Raz: Lainey Wilson and Carly Rae Jepson

The Creative Penn with Joanna Penn:

The Writing Forge: Tips on Organization and Motivation

How She Really Does It Podcast: Marketing Without Social Media with Alexandra Franzen

October Goals

On top of the adjustments mentioned, I also revised my to-do list for October. Instead of a big mound of tasks, I broke them into three groups.

Pay includes monthly payments for rent, bills, and streaming services. These are maintenance items I check to keep me aware that I must work to pay bills.

Main Tasks are productivity items normally on my to-do list. For October, they are:

Purchase webcam
Purchase domain name/website maintenance
Research business grants
Once marketing task a day
15 LOIs/Follow-Ups
Ten Pitches/Contests
Four blog posts
Start Saturday blog posts
Six The Mediocre Quest of Rathspun installments
Fifty print-on-demand designs

Secondary tasks are those on my to-do list for months but are never completed. The goal is to accomplish one a month after finishing the main tasks. These are: