Okay. So. Things are going well with my work-in-progress. I’m exceeding my 3,000 words a week goal–this week I’ve gone over 5,000!–and even when I’m procrastinating working on my outline, I’m doing it by writing scenes for my WIP rather than surfing the internet or doing laundry or some other thing. That’s the good news. The bad news is, I haven’t hit my targeted sleep time. At all. The closest I’ve gotten to going to bed at 11:00 p.m. was 11:20 the first two nights of August, and it’s been downhill since then, although I will say that even if I’m not going to bed as early as I’d like, I am going to bed earlier than I was before, so at least I’m moving in the right direction. I’ve been having trouble getting up at 7:00 a.m. too, which makes sense since I’m staying up too late. But I have learned that I don’t have to stay up until 1:00 in the morning to write 3,000 words a week, so I’m getting there. Now all I need to do is figure out how to stay on top of my WIP, my blog, and Twitter, and my chores, and my regular job, and get to bed on time. Piece of cake, right? 
I’ve actually invested in some productivity, time balancing, and time management tools recently, so I’ll let you know if any of them pan out. And if you have any tips or techniques that have worked for you, please feel free to mention them in the comments, or link back to any blogs posts on the topic. I’d love to hear what’s worked for you.
Hi Robin,
The one thing I’ve learned recently is that we all have a limited resource of willpower and that we have to figure out ways to beat this. But I must admit that I am still battling to apply that to my writing.
Penelope Trunk recently wrote a very good post http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/08/10/willpower-is-a-myth/ on what to do about that which I still need to implement myself.
Hi, Gerhi, thanks for stopping by. Willpower is definitely a big thing with me. I know what I want to do, or at least what I think I want to do, but there’s such a gap between knowing and actually doing. Thanks for the link. I’ll be sure to check it out
will power ? um now that’s a large concept! I have just about managed (afyer a few months) to move bedtime earlier and can prob. get to bed before 11.00 four nights out of seven – getting up early is now getting easier however the dark mornings are coming so whether i can keep it up who knows? best of luck there!
and all the best for this week
Thanks, Alberta. That’s a good point about getting the habit set now before it starts getting dark in the mornings again. If I have trouble waking up early now, I’m going to be in big trouble in the winter!