Staying on track

Today is the end of my second week of my Emerging Technologies class for my Education Media Design & Technology graduate certificate at Full Sail. I just graduated with my Creative Writing MFA, after an amazing first year back in school, and wanted to keep moving forward so I jumped right in.

ALL IN ONE SPOT

My current professor turned me on to personal dashboards, specifically Protopage, and it has already been helping me to stay on track. I am still very attached to my analog life, and plan to stay that way despite my love of tech, so I supplement with index cards on a daily basis. I have been keeping a separate blog for school, per my assignments, so you can read more about my experiences here.

DIGITALLY ANALOG

I will always have an analog side. There is just something about the feel of dragging a pen point across paper that makes me purr. I love drawing, and doodle or write constantly. I have a love-hate relationship with technology, but there is nothing better when I am on a roll and my brain is moving too fast for my hand to keep up.

The other advantage is list-making and outlining.

I keep a master to do list (easily about four pages long by now) divided into categories and pull a more manageable amount off of it each day onto index cards. I feel less overwhelmed, and I can take the baby steps necessary to finishing.

When I am working on a story, be it fiction or non, I use outlines. There have been times that I have even written entire stories in this format. I will make notes then, before I know it, will have filled in whole scenes. It makes it easier to plot multiple storylines and keep them in sequence.

How do you stay on track?