Short and Sweet #7
By Annette Dammer

Become Your Own Nag!  

Nagging - not just for moms anymore!  I often read of a good tip, publishing opportunity, or have a deadline I want to meet.  I sometimes email them to myself, with the deadline in the SUBJECT line.

Great, so far.  Right?

But I am, by nature, a forgetful creature.  So I have begun to email myself through a calendar.   Most computers have popup calendars.  For me, as I already have a free YAHOO! account, I use their calendar.  It, too, is free and has become an invaluable tool to me.

Here's an example.  I had a proposal to write for my agent.  I didn t have time for two weeks, so I calendared it for then.  I asked the calendar to email me everyday with reminders.  A daily repeat.

Then life hit.  Then the holidays.  Then family stuff.  Exams, on and on and on and  I continued to put off my important project...  Polite and busy with other things, my agent never bugged me.  He encouraged me with, "Keep on writing," but never pushed...

So, who IS gonna nag me?  Me, of course.  After all, this is my goal.  This is what I want.  I just don t want to actually sit down and do it!

So each day, there it was.  An email with WRITE PROPOSAL in the subject line.  Finally, I felt guilty enough to write the thing.  And you know what, it
wasn't even that hard. I still have final rewrites to do - and my calendar continues to nag, uh, I mean, remind me!

Who knows why I put off writing the important things...  Who cares?!  As long as I have a tool to stop doing that and start getting God s work done.

Right on time!  Write! Right?


Copyright 2003 Annette Dammer

Let us know what you find... or what you're writing!
publisher@teenlight.org

Or visit one of our sites for writers: http://www.teenlight.org

Or JO: Journalism Online at: http://www.teenlight.org/JO