Productivity Pitfalls

Sometimes, you have to just give up and admit your weaknesses. I've realized this the past few weeks. I swear I would bring in so much more money with my writing if I could just get my act together. As the mother of two young children, I have precious daytime hours to work while they are in elementary school and preschool so I don't have to shell out additional money for child care. But lately I've been finding myself piddling around during their school hours and not being very productive at all. Sure, I may get to the gym, but what about all those perfectly crafted query letters in my head? I tell myself if I work out in the morning I'll focus on the writing business in the evening after the kids have gone to bed, but let's face it. By that time I've endured the afternoon carpool, run one or two errands with both kids, worked on school assignments, made dinner and generally ensured my brain has turned to mush. I end up in a daze on the couch watching whatever show is waiting for me on the DVR.
So here is my new method. For the next two weeks, I am not allowed to go to the gym during daytime hours until I have at least three writing-related tasks checked off my list. Next I have to work on creating a calendar so I can get specific tasks down on paper. We'll see how this goes.
Oh, and speaking of query letters, check out a great example of a query letter that rocked, courtesy of Linda Formichelli over at The Renegade Writer blog.