Short Time Solutions

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: February may be the shortest month, but it’s absolutely packed for the Jungle Reds. Last week, Hank’s new thriller, ONE WRONG WORD, came out. Tomorrow, the 14th book in Jenn’s Library Lovers series, FATAL FIRST EDITION, is released, and on Wednesday, the paperback of Deb’s latest Duncan Kincaid/ Gemma James novel, A KILLING OF INNOCENTS, will be published. But wait - there’s more! On February 27 you can get the paperback of ALL THAT IS HIDDEN, Rhys and Clare Broyles last Molly Murphy mystery, and just two weeks after that their new hardcover, IN SUNSHINE OR IN SHADOW, drops. Whew! 

And if that’s not enough, we’re topping the week off this Saturday with the second livestream at Reds and Readers. (We decided on the easy-to-remember 7-7-17, or to lay it out,  7 writers at 7pmET on the 17th of the month.)  

This is all to say I’ve been thinking about packing a lot in in a short period of time. Now, I’m an absolute disaster at multitasking - instead of juggling, I wind up with shattered glassware on the floor. But I’m very good at squeezing in a short job while waiting for something else. In the two minutes it takes to reheat my mug of tea in the microwave, I can shovel out the cat pan. I have six minutes when I’m boiling water in my electric kettle (yes, lots of my waiting is tea-related!) and in that time I can pull on my rubber gloves and wash the pots and wine glasses. 

It takes the dogs around ten minutes in the door yard to sniff around and find just the right place to relieve themselves; while I watch them from the porch, I delete old emails from my phone. And I have twenty minutes while my Friday night frozen pizza bakes (you can see, I’m being brutally honest here!) and in that time I can sweep the kitchen and the front hall, which, this time of year, is constantly littered with bits of bark and wood chaff from hauling in fuel for the wood stove.

I read - somewhere - that fitting chores/exercise/maintenance in between the bigger, more sustained efforts of the day is The Latest Thing. I do worry that it’s part of the “grindset” culture; you know, all the advice that wants you working and productive from morn til midnight. (Several of the Reds fall into this category naturally, but let’s face it, not everyone does.)

On the other hand, it’s nice to get to the end of the day with the glasses sparking, the kitty litter fresh, and the floor clean - while never feeling like I actually did housework. How about you, Reds? What do you fit in to the shortest parts of your day?

JENN McKINLAY: Oh, this is so great. There is a fine line between grindset and efficiency and I know I tend to cross the line into the grind more often than not. I’m working on it! Little things I do to make the most of the spare minutes are throw a load of wash in the washer or dryer while the dogs do their thing, have a daily chat with my mom while walking those same dogs (yes, they’re spoiled), delete duplicate/bad photos from my phone while waiting in line (pharmacy, DMV, what have you), clean the interior of the shower while I’m actually showering, and I do the dishes while waiting for my evening decaf coffee to brew. 

I do try to meditate, clear my mind, every morning for at least twenty minutes. I sit perfectly still and just try to make my mind blank/quiet. It gives me a calm start to my day and I don’t feel so overwhelmed by all of the have to’s. 

RHYS BOWEN:  I have inherited multi-tasking genes. My mother could never watch TV without knitting, having the crossword book in front of her and probably a half-read book as well. I start my day (after emails, Facebook and Wordle) in the kitchen by switching on the electric kettle. While it boils I unload the dishwasher, clean off the counters, put tea in the teapot. 

During the Covid lockdown when there was no sport to watch I gave myself a mini Olympics. Could I run to the bathroom, pee, and return while a cup of tea was heating in the microwave. Yeah. She did it. World record. Also timed myself on unloading the silverware and putting away correctly. I routinely tie my shoes when I’m sitting on the loo prior to going out.

But my best multi tasking is when I’m driving and I talk through the next scene I’m about to write. It’s so productive sitting alone in that little capsule and voicing the dialog out loud.

LUCY BURDETTE: OMG, I am such a slacker! I spend way too much downtime checking email and Facebook. The one good thing I’ve started to do is take my morning coffee from the Cuban Coffee Queen and combine it with a good walk for Lottie and me. That way she gets some exercise and so do I. John often listens to who knows what while he’s dog-walking, but I prefer to keep my brain unoccupied just in case a piece of a plot occurs to me.

 . 

 HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: this is my favorite thing! I try to make it like a personal Jenga, seeing what I can fit in and where. For instance. If I am going to ride the treadmill for an hour, I will start the pasta water on very low just so it starts heating up. Then I put in the laundry . I read on the treadmill, or dictate emails. Then when I come back downstairs, . I will chop the vegetables for the pasta, turn the water up higher and cover so it will boil, run down and put the laundry in the dryer, and take my shower. Then, by the time I get back upstairs, the pasta water is boiling. That I can put in the pasta  and organize the rest of the dinner.  Then, I can fold the newly dry laundry while Jonathan is cleaning up from dinner. 

 

So efficient! It makes me so happy to do this! I have to say. 

I have been known to brush my teeth, walking up and down the hall so I get more steps.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  We are so funny! Maybe we need to do a time-saving challenge show! I walk circles in my house when I talk on the phone. (Don’t like to talk or listen to stuff when walking the dog, that time is too good for plotting.) I heat water for tea and make toast while I”m unloading the dishwasher in the morning. I fill the birdfeeder while the dogs are doing their morning business. I delete photos and emails while waiting on things like appointments. When I quit work for the day, I throw a load of laundry in the washing machine (utility room is upstairs, as is office.) Then when I come back upstairs after dinner, I throw the load in the dryer, then fold it after my bath while listening to my audio book. I love this–is that silly? But I do have a midday routine, when I break from morning work. I clean the cat boxes, water house plants, tidy the living room, and give the hardwood floors a quick pick up with the battery Dyson. It gets me moving after sitting all morning.

HALLIE EPHRON: Like Debs, I walk circles when I’m on the phone. I’m also with Julia … multitasking often leads to spills and breakage. Worse still, a house littered with half-done tasks. I like to be efficient – does that count as multitasking? 

But if I’m writing, I’m WRITING or developing materials for a writing workshop? 100%. When I need a break, I check email or answer a call or do research. But if I try to work on two projects at once I’m doomed and neither one gets properly nailed down and tucked in.

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What do you manage to fit in in the two/five/ten minutes you have to spare?   

 

Photo by Liliana Drew: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-washing-dishes-9462196/ 

Photos by Liliane Drew and  Cottonebro Studios, from Pexels.comPhoto by Liliana Drew: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-washing-dishes-9462196/

Too Much Tech?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Okay, we're all wired. Otherwise, we wouldn't be reading this blog on our desktops, laptops, notebooks, or smartphones. And we like it, or at least I do, I freely admit. But there is ongoing--and sometimes less than coherent as well as contradictory--research and dialogue about how constant exposure to digital data is affecting our brains and our lives.

The consensus among most researchers (as I switch from article to article on the internet) is that the human brain was not built for multitasking, and that it has not yet rewired itself. While that may happen sometime in the future, we are now doing many more things at once, and doing them less well. There's an upside, of course. A certain amount of social connectedness may make us more emotionally healthy, but there are limits. (I would like to have lunch with my daughter without her constantly texting someone else and checking in on Facebook. And my husband reads me posts on his Facebook page over dinner... He is, however, talking TO me, so maybe this isn't so bad.)

But in following the comments on our Jungle Red Writer's Challenge check-in the last few weeks, I'm most interested in how the constant deluge of data affects us as writers. Our challenge was to write for two hours every day without checking email, Facebook, or using the Internet in any way other than to do absolutely necessary research. And almost everyone who's participated has found cutting off the data flow a CHALLENGE.

I've started turning off email and Facebook on my computer, not just for two hours, but for big blocks of the day. And I've been turning off the notification alerts on my phone. It vibrates when I get a phone call, but I'm no longer constantly responding to the Pavlovian data ding. (Scientists call this reaction to stimulation a "dopamine squirt", which sounds really disgusting.) Imagine, using a phone as a phone!

Has it helped my writing concentration? Without a doubt. Have I missed the constant connectedness? Not too much. But I'm finding I really enjoy it as a treat a few times a day, and I've stopped worrying quite so much that I'm missing something if I don't check in all the time.

None of us are likely to give up the internet. For me, at least, it's an amazing research tool, although it still hasn't replaced books. But I think a lot about how much time we spend every day doing things that never have our full attention, and that we forget almost instantly. There are few of us, writers and readers, who are going to leave collections of letters or diaries behind for future generations.

So what about you, fellow Reds? How much tech is too much tech? Do you find you have to set limits, and if so, what works for you?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I definitely have to set limits. There's a powerful urge to check emails first thing in the morning and first thing in the morning can quickly turn into 12pm if I'm not careful. I've taken to writing in another room just to be physically away from the siren song of the computer.

I also had a mini-epiphany when I realized I could turn off the Ping! sound my computer made every time a new email arrived. (Well...it COULD have been Johnny Depp emailing ..) The challenge has been great for me as it's made me more conscious of how wisely I spend my time online. I'm going to do it, but I've been less likely to check out Demi's marital troubles just because the link pops up 100 times a day.

RHYS BOWEN: I'm afraid the internet has become a huge time waster. I used to read my emails before I started work. Now I go on Facebook, Twitter, my own blog, Jungle Red, even check my Amazon and B & N stats before I start writing. I'm trying to cut down but it is addictive. However when I was out of email contact in Morocco for almost a week--guess what? There were no emails of great significance waiting for me. I have to tell myself that it really isn't important who has mentioned me today on Twitter.

And the internet has its dark side too--bad reviews in blogs from ordinary readers not qualified reviewers. (I blog about that on Rhys's Pieces this week) Being slammed on Amazon by those with an axe to grind. I know these things shouldn't matter but they depress me and hinder my writing creativity. So when I start my next book, I vow to keep up the challenge. No online until my number of words for the day is complete!

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, yes yes yes! The Internet is a demanding and fickle friend. I turn off my wifi when I get serious about writing.

Reminds me of those pigeons in B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning chamber. When a pigeon was rewarded EVERY time it pressed a lever, it learned to press on the lever. When the rewards stopped coming, the pecking behavior soon diminished and stopped. But when pigeons were trained with rewards delivered not with every press but at random intermittent intervals, the pigeons kept right on pressing the lever long after the rewards stopped coming. We are addicted to news, emails, etc. just like old BFS's trained pigeons.

LUCY BURDETTE: Yes it's absolutely weird how sane people (such as ourselves) are turned into rats following the Internet's Pied Piper. I watch myself when I'm beginning something hard (like writing my fresh 1000 words/day)--that Firefox logo is like a giant magnet calling "touch me, open me, something urgent is waiting!" I have an old email address that's now difficult to access, though it still gets tons of spam. Every month or six weeks, I make the effort to check it. Very rarely do I find something I wish I'd had earlier--a few lost friends, but I can reconnect with those. If someone wants to contact me about a movie deal, I bet they'd try a little harder!

JAN BROGAN: The thing about email is this: You get an email: you respond. The sender responds to your response. You think of something witty and you just have to respond one more time. And thus ten to twenty minutes is completely wasted.

Interesting, when I cut way back on my email and Internet exposure, my mood improved. I felt really a palpable brain relief. And more than most people, I am not a multi-tasker. So it makes sense that too much digital data would mess me up. Now I think of email as having a glass of wine or a beer. Once or two you feel pretty good. If you have more than that in a day, you'll get a terrible headache.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You know, it's funny-and I hope I'm not stepping on an toes. But the thing about answering emails immediately--I used to pride myself on it. Now--unless it's an emergency or something where someone obviously needs an answer--I just wait until I'm finished what I'm doing.

I just took a step to the dark side...and got an iPhone. I LOVE it. But I consciously try to stay away from it. I control IT--it doesn't control me.

The other life-change is how little I TALK on the phone. But that's probably another blog.

DEBS: So JR readers, how about you? Do you answer the bell, or let it ring? (At least occasionally...)

ON OVERLOAD

Connect, connect, connect has brought us to a place where we feel overwhelmed, overstimulated and unfulfilled. We're under constant stress because our orientation is: ‘I don't want to miss anything.' " Linda Stone, former executive for Microsoft and Apple

HANK:
Multi-tasking. It's so last week.

I think I can do three things at once. Maybe four. I can check my email and talk on the phone at the same time, certainly. And have lunch at that same time. If someone holds up a piece of paper with a question on it, I can nod yes or no without losing track of the rest of the goings-on. ANd if there's a breaking news pop-up on my computer, I can read that, too.
If I'm on the phone and have to answer an email at the same time, I'm very careful to type quietly so the person on the phone doesn't know I'm doing it.

I used to think this was a very supergirl accomplishment, cool and competent and efficient. Now it's just beginning to drive me crazy.

My producer Mary, colleague and pal, is even better/worse at it. She wears one of those earheadphone things so she has two hands to do other stuff. And so it happened one day recently, I was trying to tell her something important.

And she was "listening" to me, but she was also checking her email. I stopped talking. A fraction of a moment later, she said--What, again?" And that was the moment my life changed.

You're not listening to me, I said. Maybe in more snippy a tone than absolutely necessary. She insisted she was, but she wasn't. Okay, she was, but only half her brain, if that. And that was so annoying.

So, I've stopped checking my mail while on the phone. And I feel better about it. I still eat lunch at my desk. But if you're talking to me, I promise you'll have my full attention.

Multi-tasking. It's so last week. For me. Maybe. Do you multi?

JAN: I meditate every morning for fifteen minutes just so I WON'T multi-think, let alone multi-task. Stay in the moment and all that. Very this week. Or maybe next week.

But the truth is I'm not efficient enough to multi-task with any aplomb. My children make fun of me because I make everybody stop talking when I make a left turn. And if you were talking to me while I was also checking email or paying bills, you can be 100 percent sure that my brain will screw it up.

So simply to maintain quality control standards, I don't multi-task. And some days I have to concentrate, real, real hard just to task.

RO: There's a certain level of activity where I happily juggle four or five things - e.g., checking emails, talking to my 85 yr old aunt on the phone, watching the game, paying bills - but, as the importance rises, whether it's personal or professional, I like to limit it to two or three. When I'm writing that's all I can do.

I multithink all the time - Africa, promoting Daisies, writing book two, my weight, gardening, my friend who needs a job, oh yeah, my husband, it's all there, all the time. The quiet time comes when I garden or row.

HALLIE: Multithink. I like that. But really, that thing where you talk to someone and they start doing something (filing nails, reading the paper, answering the cell)? That's rude. And you know, great for that moment in writing a book where you're looking for the TELLING gesture to show DIS-R-E-S-P-E-C-T. And how come all the great ideas come when you can't possibly write them down (in the shower, driving)?

HANK: It's supposed to make you more efficient. Multi-anything. When it makes you LESS efficient, then there's a problem.

Although we all have our different ways of looking at the world. If I have to make 2 turkey sandwiches, I put out 4 pieces of bread. Mayo on 2. Then, lettuce on each sandwich. Tomato on each. Turkey on each. Close. Result: 2 sandwiches. When my husband does it, he makes one whole sandwich. Then the other whole sandwich.. Neither of us can fathom why the other would do it their way.

That's maybe off the point. But it does show brains are funny things.

Do you multi? Are you a one sandwich at a time? Or two?

** P.S.

Breaking news (you can read this while doing something else)

A very nice article about me and the Charlie MCNally Mysteries.

http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/11/05/life/life01.txt