1. During the month of October I am participating in a 30-day blog challenge. The challenge is to post 30 times in 30 days. It’s too early to predict how this will go and a few times I’ve second-guessed myself for agreeing to participate. The reason I joined is because I knew this challenge would force me to focus on a daily commitment to write. As a food and nutrition writer, cookbook author, and cookbook coach I spend more time focusing on my paid, deadline-driven work than on tasks that are important for my business and personal growth, but have no deadline. So if nothing else, this blog challenge will make me pay attention, every day, to something important, but not urgent.

2. When I work with aspiring cookbook authors, the one thing they almost all struggle with is developing a writing routine for a project that’s not immediately tied to an income stream. They struggle with making a commitment to write every day because life gets in the way. I’m always on the lookout for what writers do to develop a routine for writing. Some writers write best in the morning and some prefer to write in the evening. But, no matter the time of day the most productive writers all have a writing routine where they show up everyday and write. Nothing will happen if we don’t put our pen to the paper. It’s like expecting fresh home-prepared supper to appear if someone doesn’t put a knife to the cutting board – it won’t happen. Time to call for pizza, again.  Here’s a link to an article about developing a routine.

3. Speaking of routines, there are a few things I am faithful to on a weekly basis and have committed to a routine. This isn’t all that I do each day, but I commit to these tasks on specific days. After the task is done I free up  mental energy worrying about these tasks because I know I have a weekly commitment to them:

Monday – write marketing copy, hand write cards/notes
Tuesday – book keeping, client phone calls
Wednesday – client phone calls, recipe testing/editing
Thursday – shop for groceries, fill my car with gas, client phone calls
Friday -errands, prospective client follow-up

I challenge you to make a list of the tasks you need to do every week and assign one day to take care of that task.

4. Speaking of routines: if you like Twitter search the hashtag #beforebreakfast. Laura Vanderkam author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home tweets using this hashtag as do many others who are making the most of the time before breakfast. It’s interesting to see what others focus on in the morning.

5. I hope everyone has a great weekend. If you’re interested in writing a cookbook of your own, don’t forget to sign up for my weekly ezine Fork, Pen, and Spoon over in the right hand column of this blog. Just for signing up you’ll receive a complimentary copy of my Cookbook Writers Resource Guide. If you’d like seasonal cooking tips, rather than cookbook writing tips, you might like Seasonal Saturday instead.