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Back in the '80s, living in Devon, England, and touch-typing endless conveyances on a much used electric, I wondered why Dina, another part-time secretary and my daily companion in the dreary solicitor's office, had little to say.
I'd try to make conversation, but Dina typed solidly on, whisked her work away at the end of the morning and with a swift goodbye, headed home.
Some time later, when I no longer worked for the lawyer, I met Dina again, this time at a writers' club, where she read us some of her eloquent stories and clever plots.
Dina McCall had several books published by Robert Hale, including
"The Final Act", "No Substitute For Love", "Dance My Heart",
"White Orchid", "Precious Cargo" and "Leprechaun's Gold". She was hoping to resurrect in big print three of her paperbacks, published by F.A.
Thorpe - "The Lacey Inheritance", "Bells of Danger" and "A Heart
So Strong". Dina was also very successful with magazine articles and stories and while working as a tutor for a writers' correspondence school, built up her number of students to around one thousand.
Dina and I became good friends. She moved to Australia with her husband, her elderly mother and their two dogs, but we still keep in touch. She writes beautiful letters from Australia's west coast.
I believe a major part of Dina's success was "Time Management". She went to the boring job every day because she needed the money, but didn't waste any more time than she needed to. She did her work and got home quickly, to do what she most loved to do - write.
I used to think time management was only for personnel departments of large corporations. Then I purchased a set of organizational cassette tapes
"How to Organize Your Life & Get Rid of
Clutter" by Ab Jackson (CareerTrack Publications, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.). These tapes helped to "declutter" my life and set me on the happy path to time management.
If you have a busy lifestyle - or even if you don't - "stuff" will often pile up. One tip that I remember from Ab Jackson's tapes and still put into practice is the "four box system". I don't actually use four boxes, but you'll probably find a way to use four or less or even more.
When I have a "clear out", I enter a room armed with a box for garbage, a box for action and a box for items to keep. I think the Ab Jackson system also included a box for redirecting to other people.
To save time, I take a pad, pen, stapler and staple remover with me. The pad and pen are for making notes of things that come to mind as I am going through files or junk. The stapler and staple remover are for paperwork that needs to be associated or disassociated with a particular project or file.
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