About handling multiple projects again …

I had a virtual conference this past weekend and I was talking to some friends I haven’t seen in over a year. This is usually how it goes for me: someone asks what I’ve been up, to, and … I realize I need to start counting things off on my fingers. Which inevitably leads to another question of “How in the world do you do it?”

Right now, in this very moment, I’ve got three book projects going. They’re all in different stages, but they’re all currently in progress. Some of the progress of getting a book published is actually “waiting,” which is helpful, because I can fill the “waiting” time with other work.

It’s also something I rather seriously compartmentalize. Two of the projects are currently in the “waiting” stage. I’m waiting for one of them to get me proofs, and for feedback on the other, so currently I don’t really consider either of those as “active.” I don’t know exactly when they will be “active” again, but, until they hit my mailbox with the next step and a new deadline, they’re basically snoozed.

A downside to the “waiting on other people” can be that multiple things hit your inbox at once. There was that one memorable year when I wrote three chapters for different collections, plus a book, and things just kept hitting my inbox with tight deadlines and a lot of tasks. That’s when I had to step my compartmentalization up to the next level, assigning each project a block of time per day instead of a block of days.

This is also the time when anxiety can kick into higher gear and imposter syndrome can rear its head, because people are actually reading what I wrote, or they’ll soon be able to. They can pick it apart and tear my argument down piece by piece. (For some reason anxiety never worries that the publisher won’t be able to keep up with demand and people will complain about that.)

And usually when you get feedback, there are at least some positive comments in the mix … but you’re not concentrating on those. You’re looking at what you have to change, and how you’re going to do it, and whether you’re going to be able to keep to your main goals and ideas secure while responding to outside influences. (This is why it’s nice to only have one project in the feedback part of the process at a time, if possible, so at least you can retreat to something else for a break.)

And honestly, it’s only when I have to catch someone else at my life that I step back and see the forest for the trees. I know that’s usually meant as something people should do, because otherwise they miss things, but … for me, at least, focusing on one project at a time (and strictly outlining what those times should be) helps me block out the wider anxieties and put as much of my energy as possible into the project at hand.

How do you deal with working on multiple projects at once?