As an author, your number one goal is to succeed and get high sales off of your books and you can only have it if you set your focus to achieving that goal. Let me tell you some self-publishing tips and how you can get rid of procrastination once and for all.
Today's article has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. Because it is a secret as to the absolute number one best way to kill procrastination.
What we're going to discuss today is to get rid of procrastination once and for all. As a self-publisher when you first get started, you've written your book. Congratulations already on getting that done.
Because you've managed to kill the procrastination that you might have been tempted. In terms of just putting off the writing of the book. You get started, it's exciting. Then you suddenly have a lot of difficulties keeping yourself focused.
It is the number one challenge that writers and authors have when it gets to the point of actually getting your book onto the market. But then you face additional challenges since your primary skillset may be writing the book, how do we do the formatting and ordering of the cover?
Figuring out keywords, descriptions, reviews, marketing, sales, ads, and all of these sorts of things. It can become very overwhelming. As a result of all the tasks involved in each of these steps, we start to get buried and start to stop doing the tasks that are going to move us forward.
We're procrastinating on the steps that are most important if we're going to get our book onto the market and get it selling. That is what we're going to address in today's article. Grab a copy of my Self-Publishing Secrets Checklist.
To make sure that you are not missing any of the important steps necessary in getting your book self-published and selling on the market. Let's get into it, from my own story. Over a while several years ago, I was working on a project where I was the base manager for a large pipeline that was being built on the bottom of the sea.
The thing is as they were building this pipeline and it involved a lot of steps. In terms of putting pipes together with the ships that would be pulling this lay barge along. In addition to a supply ship that would be going back and forth.
And that created a lot of complications there. The number of the tasks just kept on increasing so the total number was just a number. It kept on adding additional tasks that needed to be done so I wrote everything down initially.
I even just stuck it into the calendar so I could see all of the items, of all the things I needed to do. But each half-hour block, I had like 4 items for a half-hour block and before I knew it, I was completely overwhelmed. Soon the list became so great that I just chose the items that I enjoyed the most.
And what could go wrong with that particular plan? Just doing the things that are either easiest or most fun or maybe new shiny objects. You've heard of a new tool or something like that and focusing on those things as opposed to the absolute most important things necessary to get the task done.
Then I realized I had to prioritize the list and skip the things that were not important. Not everything on your list is equally important. The things that matter the most, you have to figure out a way to go about putting them upfront so that they're the ones that are going to get done.
I Use A Tool Todoist
If things are not going to get done, let it be the things that are not as important. Sometimes people have talked about this in terms of looking at what is urgent versus the important and urgent can sometimes be not the most important.
We're focusing our time and energy on things where people are saying you need to get this done or get that done. But in reality, it's not moving the ball forward as opposed to taking the things that are not urgent but are important and getting those done first.
We're able to make the bricks that are necessary to get progress to move us towards our goals. That was something that I discovered on this particular project. It was when the tools I was using were falling apart because of the number of tasks coming in.
At the same time, this procrastination of putting off the most important tasks. So, get rid of procrastination once and for all, the first thing as a self-publisher you're going to want to do is to map out the path that you're taking. I have that checklist as I mentioned which will show you the basic framework for the path.
Each of these steps will of course be broken down into a lot more complex steps. However, we do not wish to get overwhelmed, we just need to know what are the necessary steps for us to get to our goal of getting the book out there and selling.
We have the milestones that we're going to want to be able to see and keep track of how far we've come. That's our first key point to getting rid of procrastination. The second thing that you're going to want to pay attention to is to make a list of the absolute top 1 to 3 tasks you're going to need to do each day to reach those milestones.
Not all of the tasks you do are going to help you get there. Some people think that spending lots of time on social media will help you get your book onto the market. It really won't do that unless it's motivating you at some level.
But you need to get down to the issue of the concrete tasks necessary to reach your goal. Whether it's "okay, today I need to order a cover". Or maybe you even need to decide on the keywords you're going to use.
Even the title itself, if you're able to get that completed, it was a successful day. I use a tool called Todoist to keep track of my tasks. For example, today, I noticed I had something like 100 tasks that I was looking at, so I spread them out over time.
That's just a few tasks a day starting with the most important. So that they are going to get done including recording my Youtube video, podcast, or blog you may be reading at this very moment. As you're going through it, you figure out what the most important is and you can even flag these things.
You can use Excel or a piece of paper, they work just fine. However, make sure you have some way of looking at all of the tasks. We do not have open loops going around in our head, things we have to remember we have everything written down.
You Need An Accountability
What is the absolute number one task that you could be doing today to get your book onto the market? We're not saying getting the book onto the market today but at the task that would move you one step closer to that. As opposed to a task like testing out new tools or watching Youtube videos all over the place.
I do understand there's a time and a place, I watch too few Youtube videos. I should be watching even more strategic videos than I even watch. But a lot of things I've heard before and I implement them myself, I teach you here as well things that I've learned or have tried.
Or things that are being done by other people that I know and respect. That's an important aspect there too. Just finding people you know and respect can move forward with them through the steps.
But the secret answer of the day and this is probably the one that when I am delaying, I followed all of the other steps. I've got everything prioritized. I know what the most important tasks are but I'm just not doing it.
And the answer is you need accountability, somebody to hold you accountable for your actions. You've said what are the most important actions and maybe this person can even help you identify those most important actions. For me, I use a business coach, somebody who's able to look at exactly the flow of the activities that are being done.
Check out this related article: Here's A Quick Way to Get Your Book Out Fast
Saying these are the top priority. These are the things you need to be spending your time on. When it comes to moving the business forward, getting these books published, getting these ad campaigns out, and creating these useful videos for other self-publishers.
There's a series of things that become very important when we're doing stuff. Knowing you're going to be meeting with your coach or whoever it is you choose to be accountable to what motivates you to do that focus, ideally you would send them an update daily. You could say "here's how far I've come".
And then during the sessions, you can go through what you've done, how far you've come, and make a plan to move forward into the future. That is something that I also find very important with the people that I coach as well. I am also offering if you're interested in any help in Coaching.
But you can also choose a family member or a friend to do it. Sometimes, it's not as good that way because they won't hold you accountable at the same level for each person. Maybe you don't want to be held accountable, you just want some guidance here or there.
But if you do want the accountability, that's a service that I also definitely provide if somebody wishes to have that accountability. To make sure that not only are you on the correct path but then we're holding each other accountable. We're keeping track of what exactly have we done today.
What are the top priority tasks or are they not the top priority tasks? I think this is something that so many self-publishers simply aren't doing. You may think you're staying busy and you're not procrastinating by watching Netflix or something else.
But then you're doing tasks that are not your high most important task. Some people would say "swallow the frog". Do you miss your most important tasks the first thing of the day? I'm violating that rule, I'm recording my Youtube video which comes out every three days in the evening.
But the reality is that this is just something that sometimes happens. We give ourselves a little bit of a break. My question for you today is do you struggle with procrastination? If you do, write "Yes" below in the comments. I hope by this time, you have now fully decided to get rid of procrastination once and for all
And if you don't struggle with procrastination, write "no" below in the comments. Because I need to know where you're coming from. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.