Ep. 176: Katie Forrest on Time Management for Writers During a Crisis

Katie Forrest is the author of Time Management for Writers, a tried and tested system that introduces the Three Zones of Focus and the ADAPT Framework for Productivity. She is the author of 16 fiction books split across two pen names, and is a fan of cacti, curry and cuddles. She lives in England with her husband, daughter and puppy.

You can connect with Katie at katieforrest.com or join her Facebook group, Time Management for Writers with Katie Forrest.

How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you’ll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. 

Transcript

Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:16] Well, hello writers! Welcome to episode #176 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. I could not be more pleased that you are here today. How are you? There’s no good answer for that. Now, one thing that I have actually enjoyed seeing is that people have given up saying, fine, good. There’s a little bit more honesty in the world, just like there are fewer showers. There is more honesty. Let’s face it. A lot of us are taking fewer showers. I know I am. You might be too, and a lot of us are saying to the question, how are you? A lot of us are saying, I don’t know. I actually can’t tell. Let me get back to you in a month or so.

[00:00:58] I’m so pleased that you’re here because today I am talking to Katie Forrest. I had already talked to Katie a while back on the show. She was a marvelous interviewee, marvelous guest, and she had this book come out a few months ago called Time Management for Writers, which I loved, and I’ve been meaning to get her on the show for forever and between Coronavirus and deadlines and her life and my life, we just kept missing each other, crossing. We would have plans and then one of us would get sick or the other one would get sick. So it was, but it was fortuitous because that means I had her talking about time management or writers during a global time of crisis. So if you have been struggling to get your writing done, struggling thinking about this, this episode is for you. So I hope you enjoy that. I know that you will. 

[00:01:53] What’s going on around here? This will be a very short intro because I am deep in revision. I did have to ask for an extra week, which I hate doing, but hey, your book is not late. If you have an extension and you meet the extension, you got to ask for it ahead of time. So I asked for a week, I got a week. That means it is due in 12 days from now, which is totally doable. What I really wanted to do was finish this revision and then have time for about four or five very small passes like a day long pass, looking at specific things in the book that I need to fix. And if any of you are interested in hearing what those passes look like, I can do a mini episode on that sometime, so let me know. So I’m deeply focused on that. I’m incredibly happy to be so deep in revision, you know, six to eight to ten hour days of revision leave me exhausted and overjoyed. And here’s why; Cheryl Strayed has a new podcast, can’t remember the name of it, but on her first episode, she talks to her friend and mentor George Saunders and he talks about writing as kind of this ultimate form of meditation, you’re super focused on what is in front of you. You’re taking the time to look at it very carefully, it’s very detailed and you’re paying attention. Your focus is not being broken, and if it is, you gently lead yourself back to the page. And when I am in revision, that is how I am. When I am in a first draft, I am very surface. I’m, I am distracted by everything in every, anything and everything. But when I’m in revision, I love it so much that I go very deep and therefore I come out of like a two hour or three hour writing session before I go back in for another one.

[00:03:40] I come out almost feeling like I have been meditating for that long, so it’s fantastic, can’t say enough about it. It’s great. The only other thing I do want to tell you about is that, I’m recording this on April 10th, 2020 and 90 Days to Done and 90-Day Revision have just opened last night. I let everybody who was on my, pre alert list know, and I let all my current students know that this is open. I have not yet sent this out to my email list. You guys come first. So if you are interested in writing your book in the next 90 days, we start on May 1st and we go through July 31st people get their books done whether it is your first or your 20th book. Write it in 90 days with me, you can go check out all the details on that at rachaelherron.com/90daystodone, 90 is a number, 90 Days to Done, and the 90-Day Revision course, which is kind of a masterclass of a masterclass. That’s when you take your book, whatever, in whatever horrible shape it’s in. Hopefully it’s horrible. Hopefully it was a crappy first draft and we get you to a revised makes sense draft by the end of those 90 days, you can look at that information at rachaelherron.com/revision. Those always sell out super-fast. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have to be honest with you. It’s either going to sell out even faster than normal because of Covid-19 or no one will want to write in the next 90 days, so it won’t tell. I cannot tell you what will happen, I’m in the dark here, but if you are interested in it, go to rachaelherron.com/90daystodone or rachaelherron.com/revision. Yes, those are the links or you can always go to rachaelherron.com/write  I think I have both of the links from there, so that’s available. 

[00:05:36] I also wanted to thank really quickly, new patron, Ellen McCoy Beaty, it is a delight and I hope that you enjoy the essays that you’re going to get now at patreon.com/rachael. And, enough advertising, what you really are here for is to talk about time management for writer in the writers in the time of crisis, and I’ve had too much coffee and I’m talking too fast. Anyway, so enjoy the interview with Katie, I know you will. Let me know what you think of the show at howdoyouwrite.net or anywhere else I can be found on the internet. Take care of yourselves. Be kind to yourselves. Give yourselves forgiveness and love and care, this is a difficult time. We need kindness more than ever. So happy writing to you my friends. 

Rachael Herron: [00:06:27] Well, I could not be more pleased to welcome back to the show, Katie Forrest. Hi Katie! 

Katie Forrest: [00:06:25] Hi, thanks for having me.

Rachael Herron: [00:06:27] I’m just thrilled to have you. You could not be here at a more, at a better time and let me give you a little bit of a bio, which will speak to what we’re going to talk about today. Katie Forrest is the author of Time Management for Writers, a tried and tested system that introduces the Three Zones of Focus and the ADAPT Framework for Productivity. She is the author of 16 fiction books split across two pen names, and is a fan of cacti, curry and cuddles. She lives in England with her husband, daughter, and puppy. 

Welcome back to the show. So the last time we talked, we were really doing the normal, “how do you write?” format I asked you all the same questions that I ask everybody else and we are throwing that out the window today, because you wrote this wonderful book that I really loved reading, and I read it when you first sent it to me, which was about four or five, four months ago, something like that. 

Katie Forrest: [00:07:22] Yeah, yeah. Perfectly.

Rachael Herron: [00:07:23] So we’ve been trying to get together ever since, but I’m actually, this is what I was saying just off air a second ago. I’m so thrilled that you’re here now that we finally found the time to do this now, because I think never in the time of modern contemporary writers, have we had a time when it is more difficult for writing to get done. I’m currently teaching two 90 day classes and, I just keep saying to them like, distraction is always a real thing. It’s always a struggle. And life and grief and happenings are always a real struggle for writers. But add to that a global pandemic, like there’s so many of us just going, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to handle this. So I kind of wanted you to tell us first a little bit about the book and how you came to it because you and I are kind of time management junkies and then we’ll kind of dive into some of the tips that you might have for us right now. 

Katie Forrest: [00:08:19] Yeah, sure. Thank you. Yeah, so it’s exactly that, total time management junkie. I say in the book, I’ve never met a time management book, where I haven’t fallen in love with, I am just obsessed and I was quite prolific in my first year, especially ever writing fiction. So lots of people were asking me how I did it, and, and what I was finding was there are so many excellent time management books out there, but a lot of creatives tend to imagine that most books are for professionals and executives, so that they’re maybe not kind of jelling with the voice of some of those books that I love. And I thought maybe I could add another voice to the conversation and hopefully help some people with it.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:02] And let’s point out the other thing is that when you read those time management book for, you know, businesses or corporations or stuff like that. You are part of that. You’re also a practicing lawyer, right?

Katie Forrest: [00:09:15] Yes, yes. I have a law firm as well.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:18] Not even a lawyer, you have a law firm? Yeah.

Katie Forrest: [00:09:20] Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:09:21] And, and one child. So, and a puppy.

Katie Forrest: [00:09:25] Yes!

Rachael Herron: [00:09:26] So, this is, this is, this is my thing. I lead groups of and talk to a lot of I, I don’t think I have any dads right now. I have all mothers in these groups who are coming to me saying like, I have one writer who’s about to finish her book in the 90-day program and she has – no joke, three jobs, three teaching jobs, plus kids. Plus, she’s writing this book in 90 days and she’s really done it. But, but she keeps saying, how, how do I keep this up? How do people balancing those kinds of lives? Because I don’t have that, this is my first time, full time job and I don’t have kids, so I always feel particularly unqualified to speak to this? 

Katie Forrest: [00:10:07] Well, there’s the saying that if you want something done, ask a busy person. And I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but I think there’s also an element of danger in that because we are kind of worshiping busy-ness in our culture. And I think that’s something that we need to kind of take a stand against and say, actually, that isn’t necessarily something to aim for. So, yeah, it’s great if you’re somebody who likes to be busy and is energized by that and you can kind of handle lots of plates spinning. But you do also have to realize you can’t do everything. I really believe, like I say yes to a lot of things, but I say no to a lot more. There’s plenty of stuff I’m not doing. I’m not cleaning my own house. I’m not washing my own car. You know, various stacks of things that I’m not even trying to do. And I think that is the key. Rarely, like choose the things that are important to you, and you can have two or three or four or however many your number is, but you can’t do everything.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:06] So talk us about the zones of focus. I’m –

Katie Forrest: [00:11:10] Sure.

Rachael Herron: [00:11:11] I would love to hear about that again, because I actually liked that, it’s been a bit since I read it, because my brain is a sieve and I get to re-reapply all these things. 

Katie Forrest: [00:11:20] So the zones of focus, I say there are only three things that you should be doing, and they are things that fall within one of the zones of focus. So your mastery zone, your passions zone, or the essential drudgery zone, and, and they’re kind of fairly self-explanatory. The mastery zone is what are you the best out? So what can only you do? The passion zone is this is what lights me up. This is what I get so excited about, so I don’t want to hand this over to anybody else because this is the stuff that I get out of bed today and the essential drudgery is the boring, routine stuff that we’ve all got to do. But the key with essential drudgery is, it’s essential drudgery. So I talk a lot about if there are people who are keeping really, really perfect, impeccable homes, that’s not essential. So, you know, the essential drudgery is making sure you’ve got clean clothes, but do they really need to be ironed? So yeah, the book kind of brings down each category and takes you through a list of questions to find out what falls into each of your zones. 

Rachael Herron: [00:12:29] Could you, if you don’t mind going into the personal a little bit, which I really loved about your book, because you do go very personal in it, which I love. I love a mix of a how to plus a little bit of memoir. That’s just my favorite kind of book. Will you tell us a little bit about your mastery and passion zones and what falls in there? 

Katie Forrest: [00:12:47] Yes. Yeah, and thank you for that. One of my favorite reviews on the book to date is, and I don’t remember who, who wrote this, but somebody said there’s a lot of Katie in this book.

Rachael Herron: [00:12:58] Yes! That’s why I loved it. I get very bored with the very masculine CEO voice of the business and the corporation. I want to know the personal, so thank you for that. That’s a great review. 

Katie Forrest: [00:13:14] So, my master zone, I think what falls into my mastery zone is, is the words, because the words are my voice and if you’re choosing to go straight, then that’s absolutely fine. I’m not against that, but I think for most writers, the actual writing of new words is going to fall into either their mastery or their passions’ zone, or maybe both. So it’s definitely probably more in my mastery zone for my passion zone, because I find sitting down at a computer and writing most new words, a bit of a slog a lot of the time. 

Rachael Herron: [00:13:48] Yeah, me too.

Katie Forrest: [00:13:49] Yeah, my passion zone, is probably engaging with readers and that’s one thing I would never outsource. I know you can get all of these people who will manage your Facebook groups and things, but I absolutely love being in there and connecting with people. I reply to reader emails, and again, you could get an assistant to do all that but I love that. So yeah, the kind of two of my big things.

Rachael Herron: [00:14:15] It’s so funny when I get emails, I just go on today that said, you know, you probably don’t read this email, but I wanted to write to you. I’m like, are you kidding? I would not let anyone else touch my email. And email is one of my, it’s part of my drudgery, most of it, the essential drudgery and I can’t outsource that, I have an amazing assistant, my friend Ed, and, he can do basically everything for me. But the email to me, the fact that fans connect with us or that readers connect with us is so incredible that we get to respond back. That makes email worth it for me.

Katie Forrest: [00:14:50] Absolutely. And it deepens relationships so much. I remember recently, I had an email from a company and I don’t remember who, and I wouldn’t name them anyway. But the CEO of this company emailed out, but they asked for a personal response. So they said, why are you using this product or service? Hit reply. So, so I can read this. So I did reply, and then I got a response from a different member of staff. 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:16] No. I don’t care.

Katie Forrest: [00:15:17] And I replied to him and said, I was opening up to you as a named person, and you’ve actually broken some trust here now because of that. So yeah, I don’t have any issue with assistance of things being involved, but I do think you’ve got to be quite open about huge bonding 

Rachael Herron: [00:15:33] And you have to manage those expectations. If that CEO had said, please reply, one of my trusted staff will respond to you and get me everything that you say that is, you know, then you would have been 100% fine. But it’s managing those expectations. 

Katie Forrest: [00:15:47] Absolutely.

Rachael Herron: [00:15:48] So let’s go to the drudgery. Let’s talk about that in terms of writing, for me, 75% of my email is drudgery and 25% is really thrilling and wonderful, but I only, I can sort through that and see that. Are there any other tasks that you as a writer are able to outsource or not manage, because they are part of drudgery or are you very much a hands on person with your business? 

Katie Forrest: [00:16:19] Yeah, I don’t outsource that much, really with my writing business. I think you can pretty much outsource everything. I’ve, I’ve tried to outsource ad management because that is drudgery to me. But I’ve never really got the results, that have made it worthwhile. So I have stopped doing that, I do have an assistant and she helps me manage my reader group and she interacts in there, she manages my review team. So she’s brilliant at doing those kinds of things but she doesn’t replace me in the group. I’m still going in there and doing that. So yeah, I’m probably not outsourcing as much as I could.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:02] So let’s go to the difficult, difficult part. I have these mostly women saying, how do I get it done right now when I’m you know, everything has been brought in. Like I also don’t clean my house. I have a cleaner that does it and my cleaner can’t come right now. So, you know, these, these added things are kind of piled upon us. Plus, we have the weight of the world. Stress-wise you know, looking at social media or news. What would you say to the, to that person in particularly thinking of who has three jobs, kids and is writing her book for the first time? And she says, where do I find- how, she actually has said like, how do I balance sleep versus writing?

Katie Forrest: [00:17:45] So always choose sleep.

Rachael Herron: [00:17:48] I agree. No one says that so clearly, but yes. 

Katie Forrest: [00:17:53] Yeah. But I think also we are in a time of crisis at the moment and I define a crisis as being something that is usually unexpected and short term or temporary. So there is every towns that the lockdown situation will stop becoming a crisis because it won’t be short term, it will move on to medium term. But I think most people are still very much in the short term, responding a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. And I’ve seen the means going around about how this is the time to learn a second language, and no, absolutely not. This is the time to honker down, make sure you feel safe and stop putting yourself under so much pressure. So that would be the first thing. 

Rachael Herron: [00:18:35] So important to be said. Yes. 

Katie Forrest: [00:18:40] And then the second thing would be, again, you can’t do it all. So you haven’t gained extra hours in the day. I mean, I think some people have because we’re not working and they’re at home, but I’ve not gained extra hours in my day and I don’t think many people have, so there is no magic here. If you’re still going to choose writing, you’re going to have to say no to something else. And that might be really reducing expectations. So it might be plenty of screen time for children, it might be your house is going to be dirty, whatever it looks like, but you’ve got to kind of define what other priorities of this short term-medium term crisis situation and what do you have to give up to be able to meet that.

Rachael Herron: [00:19:24] Yeah. My house is actually dirty right now because I am on deadline as well. So I am doing that whole prioritization of what can stay and what can go. And right now, cleaning is not part of it. And I love my wife. She’s not the best cleaner in the whole world. She has every other strong, incredible point. 

Okay. So what about goal setting at this point? What about when people are looking to find the space in their days and say they can find, maybe they can find that 30 minutes that they need to do a little bit of writing. What do you think about planning days?

Katie Forrest: [00:20:05] I think it’s really good to see this as a window of time and try to decide what you want to get out of it. I’m thinking in my head versus probably going to be a six-month situation, which is based on nothing at all, but it helps my head. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:21] I kinda love that. 

Katie Forrest: [00:20:22] -Information I’m revealing

Rachael Herron: [00:20:25] Yeah, no, that’s great. 

Katie Forrest: [00:20:26] It helps my head if I can think, what is the time period here, because I’m a planner. So I need to know what is going to be the end date. So I’m thinking six months, what do I want to do if this carries on for six months and then hopefully I’m not going to get to the end of this period and have frittered it away because I was always expecting it to resolve next week. So maybe thinking this is a frame of block or a six-month block, and then deciding what to do with that time might be helpful. 

Rachael Herron: [00:20:56] And right now we’re specifically speaking about your writing goals, what, what you have as your writing goals in the next three to six months, which is really a great thing to think about. And I like what you’re saying about instead of thinking that now is the time to do everything I’ve always wanted to do, perhaps now is the time to not try to write your next book in four weeks. Because you’re at home. And perhaps you’re one of the people who has a little bit more time. They’re all also people we have to mention that have lost jobs. So yes, they have, they have a lot more time and they have exponentially more stress. That’s not the best time to put any kind of pressure on yourself to be the creative genius you’ve always wanted to be. 

Katie Forrest: [00:21:37] No, absolutely. There is so much anxiety, I’m you know, relatively blessed personally, I’ve got the stress of having to pay for my team’s wages with a business that is not running yet, it’s normal. Healthy everybody I know is healthy. But everybody has got their certain levels of anxiety going on right now. So to imagine that you’re going to have those and yet be more productive than you were before, it’s not going to happen. Just don’t even expect it. You’re setting yourself up for failure and if somehow you turn out to be a person who just blooms in this situation, well that’s a bonus but don’t try to expect it.

Rachael Herron: [00:22:16] I really liked what you said about lowering your expectations. That is something that I talk a lot about in 90 Days to Done, is like the- every first draft, you should lower your expectations to the floor and dig a hole and lower them further. You know, it should be the worst infrastructure you’ve ever written or you’ve ever written of anything. But I think along with lowering expectations in this time, it might be a good time to also increase our, how do I say it? Self-compassion, just self-forgiveness. 

Katie Forrest: [00:22:47] Yeah. Absolutely I love that. 

Rachael Herron: [00:22:50] So how do you track your days? I think we might’ve talked about this on the- but you know, there’s something in the- are you a bullet journal-er? or are you a…

Katie Forrest: [00:23:00] So I, I’m the girl who’s tried every single planner and 

Rachael Herron: [00:23:03] Me too! The only one I haven’t tried is the passion planner because it’s so expensive. I keep saying, no, no, no. I’m not going to do that one.

Katie Forrest: [00:23:10] I’ve tried the passion planner. I think it was, was it a Kickstarter or something

Rachael Herron: [00:23:13] It was, yes.

Katie Forrest: [00:23:14] –it came out? Yeah. I think I supported, like the very first version of it and it didn’t quite meet my needs. But I’ve, I’ve got stacks of different planners. At the moment, I’m in Hobonichi, which is-

Rachael Herron: [00:23:28] I love Hobonichi

Katie Forrest: [00:23:29] So I’ve got a Hobonichi, and I’m absolutely hoping that it’s got really thin paper, so it’s page a day for the whole year and it’s not super bulky, so yeah. You have to order them from Japan or I do here in England. Anyway, I, I don’t know if you’ve got, you know, US stockists I feel like quite a geek, so I have to order my diary from Japan so, 

Rachael Herron: [00:24:52] You are!

Katie Forrest: [00:23:53] Even if I was like you know, a stockist in the city nearby, I wouldn’t go and get it from there because

Rachael Herron: [00:23:59] It’s very, very cool to have it come from Japan. I also use Japanese. I use the Midori Traveler’s Journal, and I have recently discovered the narrow, if anybody’s looking at the narrow one, this is just what’s the inside of mine looks like it’s. A page a week and then an empty page and you can buy them with, you know, like for the first half of the year and the second half of the year. But I found they have them as blank and you can fill in the dates. So I just buy a whole stack of them. And then I do a week, a week, a week. But if I go, you know, like, here’s where I was on a retreat and I was just journaling so you can use them kind of like a bullet journal, but it also doesn’t have very much room. So for me, one of the takeaways that I really got from your book time management for writers was not to over plan. And I know that if I can’t, if I can’t fit everything I want to do in this little space, I can’t do it anyway. 

Katie Forrest: [00:24:54] Yeah. Absolutely.

Rachael Herron: [00:24:56] So, what else would you like to add to this conversation that might help in today’s time or something that I might not have hit about the book.

Katie Forrest: [00:25:08] I think you’ve hit the important points really well. I think. Well, I would really like people to kind of come away from this conversation where there’s just kindness to themselves because this is just an a completely unprecedented time. So if you feel like you’re making it up every single day, you are and so is everyone else, and just do the best you can. Yeah, I think that’s the most important message. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:35] The kindness to yourself. I, I realized the other night that I believe that everyone is doing the best they can most of the time, like 99.5% of the time. And I realized last night that I believed that, I believe that everyone is doing the best they can, especially if they think they’re not.

Katie Forrest: [00:25:52] Yeah. The ones who are worrying about that. Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:25:55] That means you’re already pushed up to your edge and give yourself that kindness. And I know that I’m a kind of person, I think, I don’t know if you don’t mind answering this, I think people who are obsessed with time management, we might be a little bit more rigid and beat ourselves up a little bit more for not getting everything done that we want to do. Would you say that’s true? 

Katie Forrest: [00:26:12] Yes, definitely.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:14] So then we deserve more kindness? So we have to really think about it as one of our jobs to give ourselves 

Katie Forrest: [00:26:19] Yes, definitely yeah. I’m saying like kindness for all of you guys but not me.

Rachael Herron: [00:26:24] Always, 

Katie Forrest: [00:26:25] Yeah. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:26] Always. Yeah. Oh, what a wonderful note to leave on. Okay, so tell us where Time Management for Writers can be found, and where you can be found. 

Katie Forrest: [00:26:34] So it’s exclusive on Amazon. So, it’s in Kindle unlimited, so you can grab a free copy if you’ve got a Kindle unlimited membership. 

Rachael Herron: [00:26:44] Oh, I didn’t know that, that’s great! 

Katie Forrest: [00:26:46] It’s out in paperback. The workbook, are coming, I’m going to record the audio book myself if I ever get a quiet house, which isn’t looking likely at the moment. But, so yeah, Amazon is the best place. I have a free Facebook group as well, which is Time Management for Writers by Katie Forrest. And I answer questions in there you can kind of, you know, come in there and make a post about your particular situation and the members will kind of give you some advice and I’ll give you some advice and we’ll try and work it all out together. Yeah.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:18] I am very excited about the audio book that will be coming because your voice is beautiful and I will order it immediately and then I will have your ears, your, your, your voice in my ears. And I love that. 

Katie Forrest: [00:27:26] Oh, thank you.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:27] I love consuming nonfiction that way and I often like to, if I’ve loved a book, I often like to get the audio book to replay it.

Katie Forrest: [00:27:33] Me too, me too.

Rachael Herron: [00:27:35] Katie, it has been wonderful to talk to you and it couldn’t be more timely, so thank you, thank you so much.

Katie Forrest: [00:27:41] Oh, thank you, Rachael. 

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.