Get Organized, Get Published!: 225 Ways to Make Time for Success
Before settling down to write about this book, I checked my e-mail. I searched for a vintage pedestal sink on eBay. I looked at the weather forecast for the weekend, and I glanced at my town's electronic message board. I even contemplated cleaning off my desk. And all the while, I imagined Don Aslett, in his ordered universe, typing away at one of his 40 books-in-progress. Aslett is best known as the author ofClutter's Last Stand, published in paperback in 1984. InGet Organized, Get Published!, Aslett, along with co-author Carol Cartaino, brings his theories of efficiency to bear on the writer's life. If you de-clutter every aspect of your life, he reasons, you'll have a lot more time to write. Sleep less, eat more simply, eschew vanity, and convince your plumber to give you an actual appointment time and you will have more time for your writing. Streamlining your belongings, exercise regime, and work area ("out, route, doubt, sprout" is Aslett's mantra) will buy you even more time. ForGet Organized, Get Published!, Aslett and Cartaino offer advice on creating a writing agenda and a "getting published action plan"; they'll help you organize your workplace, research, market attack, career, even the writing process itself. It's hard to imagine when Aslett has any fun (crossword puzzles, videos, chats with the neighbors, and the like all take time away from writing, you know), but considering that--as quoted here--the average American will spend 12 years watching television, eight months opening junk mail, and one year looking for misplaced items, it's hard not to sit up, listen, and get writing.--Jane Steinberg