Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 404: The Secret to Writing a Cookbook With a Busy Life

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Episode 404: The Secret to Writing a Cookbook With a Busy Life · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker: You are listening to the Cookbook Love Podcast with
• 0:05
  Speaker: Maggie Greene, episode number four hundred and four.
• 0:10
  Speaker: Welcome to the Cookbook Love
• 0:12
  Speaker: Podcast, a podcast that
• 0:14
  Speaker: celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  Speaker: buyers, collectors, writers, and
• 0:18
  Speaker: clubs.
• 0:19
  Speaker: And now your host, cookbook
• 0:21
  Speaker: author, culinary dietitian, and
• 0:23
  Speaker: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
• 0:24
  Speaker: Greene.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the cookbook Love Podcast.
• 0:35
  Speaker: How's everybody doing today?
• 0:37
  Speaker: Hope you are all doing well.
• 0:39
  Speaker: We had a quiet at home weekend.
• 0:44
  Speaker: We did get to take in a Cincinnati Reds baseball game,
• 0:47
  Speaker: which was a lot of fun, and spent some time on Sunday with a
• 0:52
  Speaker: couple of my sisters making a table favor for our niece's
• 0:57
  Speaker: wedding that is coming up at the end of the month.
• 1:01
  Speaker: Other than that, it was just nice to be home.
• 1:03
  Speaker: It was a beautiful weekend.
• 1:05
  Speaker: Um, seventy degree weather, fifty degree nights and low
• 1:11
  Speaker: humidity and lots of sunshine.
• 1:13
  Speaker: Talk a lot about the weather I feel like on this podcast, but I
• 1:16
  Speaker: think one thing about Kentucky that I truly, genuinely love is
• 1:22
  Speaker: the change of seasons and how every season is so different.
• 1:26
  Speaker: But this is one of the great things about this time of year.
• 1:29
  Speaker: So it's exciting to be here in June.
• 1:31
  Speaker: Welcome to June.
• 1:33
  Speaker: And sometimes during the summer, I take a little bit of a
• 1:35
  Speaker: different approach with the podcast, um, doing episodes
• 1:40
  Speaker: among where I'll be doing some interviews, but also episodes
• 1:45
  Speaker: where I want you to really think about what might be holding you
• 1:48
  Speaker: back from writing a cookbook.
• 1:51
  Speaker: And today I want to talk about
• 1:52
  Speaker: the big concept of time, because
• 1:55
  Speaker: even if you've decided that it's
• 1:56
  Speaker: a project that you want to
• 1:57
  Speaker: pursue.
• 2:00
  Speaker: Sometimes I think we need to shift the way we think about
• 2:03
  Speaker: time in order to create some opportunities to get momentum on
• 2:07
  Speaker: our cookbook projects.
• 2:09
  Speaker: So a lot of people think that the secret to writing a cookbook
• 2:12
  Speaker: is just having more time.
• 2:15
  Speaker: And the truth of the matter is, is it's hard to create more time
• 2:19
  Speaker: because we all have the same amount of time.
• 2:22
  Speaker: We maybe think we'll have a quieter schedule at some point
• 2:25
  Speaker: in our life.
• 2:26
  Speaker: Maybe we think we'll have fewer responsibilities.
• 2:29
  Speaker: Um, a calmer season of life.
• 2:32
  Speaker: And if that were true, cookbook
• 2:35
  Speaker: writers would never really get
• 2:37
  Speaker: started until everything lined
• 2:38
  Speaker: up perfectly.
• 2:40
  Speaker: And as we know, that's not how life works.
• 2:42
  Speaker: We can't wait for everything to be perfect before we move
• 2:45
  Speaker: forward on a creative project, like a cookbook.
• 2:49
  Speaker: So I want to talk to you today about something that I've
• 2:52
  Speaker: discovered in my own life with years of running a business,
• 2:58
  Speaker: writing books, coaching clients, and truly watching my clients go
• 3:04
  Speaker: from not being a cookbook author to being a cookbook author and
• 3:09
  Speaker: getting published and moving through this exact challenge
• 3:13
  Speaker: that we're going to talk about today, about their time.
• 3:17
  Speaker: Okay.
• 3:18
  Speaker: What I want to talk about is that the secret with the busy
• 3:22
  Speaker: life is not more time.
• 3:23
  Speaker: We all have enough time.
• 3:25
  Speaker: We all have plenty of time.
• 3:27
  Speaker: What everyone needs to do is create containers inside the
• 3:32
  Speaker: life you already have.
• 3:35
  Speaker: So let's talk a little bit about what that means.
• 3:40
  Speaker: If you're juggling work and family or caregiving or
• 3:43
  Speaker: business, or just normal day to day activities of your daily
• 3:48
  Speaker: life, maybe even if you're retired and you're wanting to
• 3:53
  Speaker: start an author career is like a second act in your life, but you
• 3:57
  Speaker: don't want to feel extremely busy all the time.
• 4:01
  Speaker: It's quite possible that cookbook writing feels
• 4:04
  Speaker: impossible, not because it's not something you don't want to do.
• 4:09
  Speaker: And of course, I firmly believe you're fully capable of doing it
• 4:12
  Speaker: because you haven't really created clean space for the
• 4:17
  Speaker: project to exist.
• 4:20
  Speaker: So what this means is that when we don't create a clean space
• 4:24
  Speaker: for the project to exist, it gets pushed out into the edges
• 4:28
  Speaker: of our life.
• 4:30
  Speaker: We look at early, early mornings or late nights, or random
• 4:34
  Speaker: weekends, or just scattered moments of energy when the time
• 4:38
  Speaker: actually appears and when things get pushed into the margins.
• 4:43
  Speaker: That's where they stall.
• 4:45
  Speaker: Okay.
• 4:47
  Speaker: This is where things don't get the attention that they need.
• 4:53
  Speaker: So if we take a high level look
• 4:55
  Speaker: at it, the problem does look
• 4:58
  Speaker: like time.
• 5:00
  Speaker: Maybe you think it's your discipline.
• 5:01
  Speaker: Maybe you think it's your organization.
• 5:03
  Speaker: Maybe you think it's your motivation.
• 5:06
  Speaker: Maybe you think you're going to wake up early or stay up later.
• 5:09
  Speaker: Or just wait till everything to come to calm down.
• 5:13
  Speaker: But underneath all of that,
• 5:15
  Speaker: something else is really
• 5:16
  Speaker: happening.
• 5:16
  Speaker: And what that is, is that you have not created a container to
• 5:20
  Speaker: hold the work together long enough for it to accumulate and
• 5:25
  Speaker: for you to get momentum.
• 5:29
  Speaker: So if you're only doing work on your cookbook haphazardly, every
• 5:34
  Speaker: time you return to it, you feel like you're starting over.
• 5:38
  Speaker: You're maybe re deciding what to do, rebuilding momentum, trying
• 5:42
  Speaker: to remember where you left off.
• 5:44
  Speaker: And that is exhausting.
• 5:47
  Speaker: Have you ever looked in the
• 5:48
  Speaker: files on your computer and you
• 5:49
  Speaker: run across something that you
• 5:51
  Speaker: created, or a recipe that you
• 5:52
  Speaker: wrote or something that you did,
• 5:54
  Speaker: and you can hardly even remember
• 5:56
  Speaker: the time that you did that and
• 5:58
  Speaker: you actually forgot that you had
• 6:00
  Speaker: created that.
• 6:01
  Speaker: That's what happens when we don't create containers to work
• 6:07
  Speaker: on a focused project.
• 6:09
  Speaker: We create these little bits, but
• 6:11
  Speaker: we don't move forward and we
• 6:13
  Speaker: think it's because we don't have
• 6:14
  Speaker: time.
• 6:15
  Speaker: So let me give you a metaphor.
• 6:17
  Speaker: Think about your kitchen in leftovers.
• 6:20
  Speaker: Or think about your kitchen and dry ingredients that you bring
• 6:24
  Speaker: into your kitchen.
• 6:25
  Speaker: You don't just throw everything into the refrigerator in a pile.
• 6:31
  Speaker: You put things in containers.
• 6:34
  Speaker: The same thing for your pantry.
• 6:36
  Speaker: You don't.
• 6:37
  Speaker: If you take the rice out of the bag, or if you take the oatmeal
• 6:40
  Speaker: out of the box or the dry cereal out of the box, you don't just
• 6:44
  Speaker: pour those things into a shelf in the pantry.
• 6:49
  Speaker: You put them in containers.
• 6:52
  Speaker: And the best containers are see through containers that you can
• 6:55
  Speaker: see what's inside.
• 6:58
  Speaker: They keep everything fresh.
• 6:59
  Speaker: They keep everything organized.
• 7:01
  Speaker: They keep things from spilling into each other, and they make
• 7:04
  Speaker: it easy to find what you need at the time you need it.
• 7:09
  Speaker: Without those containers, we'd have a big mess.
• 7:11
  Speaker: The pasta dries out, the sauce spills, the salad wilts, the
• 7:15
  Speaker: rice gets all over the place.
• 7:17
  Speaker: The oatmeal is spread far and
• 7:19
  Speaker: wide, and when you open up the
• 7:21
  Speaker: refrigerator or the pantry, you
• 7:23
  Speaker: really can't even tell what's in
• 7:24
  Speaker: there anymore.
• 7:26
  Speaker: So what if you thought about time in your week?
• 7:30
  Speaker: In the same way, when you don't have a container during your
• 7:35
  Speaker: week for your writing?
• 7:38
  Speaker: Your ideas will dry out.
• 7:41
  Speaker: Momentum spills, progress wilts, and you come back to it not
• 7:46
  Speaker: picking up where you left off, but starting all over again.
• 7:52
  Speaker: So here's the difference.
• 7:55
  Speaker: Thinking this way can make in your life today.
• 8:00
  Speaker: Your busy life is not the enemy of writing a book.
• 8:06
  Speaker: A lack of structure inside your busy life is what the enemy is.
• 8:12
  Speaker: So instead of you thinking, how can I find more time?
• 8:15
  Speaker: I want you to start asking how do I design containers for the
• 8:20
  Speaker: time I already have?
• 8:23
  Speaker: I firmly believe that if you're alive and you have a desire to
• 8:29
  Speaker: do this, you have time.
• 8:32
  Speaker: My clients laugh at me when I
• 8:35
  Speaker: tell them that because it is
• 8:37
  Speaker: such a deep rooted belief in my
• 8:39
  Speaker: soul that I have time to do what
• 8:41
  Speaker: I want to do, that they almost
• 8:43
  Speaker: can't even believe that I say
• 8:45
  Speaker: it.
• 8:46
  Speaker: But I firmly believe it's true.
• 8:48
  Speaker: If there is a desire in my heart to create something, if I really
• 8:53
  Speaker: want to do it.
• 8:55
  Speaker: I know that I have time because I'm alive and I'm here.
• 9:00
  Speaker: Um, and it's something that I've decided that I want to do and
• 9:04
  Speaker: something that I'm going to do.
• 9:06
  Speaker: And we get to totally make that
• 9:07
  Speaker: decision about how we spend our
• 9:09
  Speaker: time.
• 9:10
  Speaker: So writing needs a container in
• 9:12
  Speaker: order for it to accumulate,
• 9:13
  Speaker: because without it even good
• 9:14
  Speaker: intentions scatter.
• 9:16
  Speaker: And this even goes beyond the time I want you to think about
• 9:21
  Speaker: writing needs a container.
• 9:23
  Speaker: So it's almost like you're going to create the time container to
• 9:27
  Speaker: create the writing, but you're also going to have a container
• 9:32
  Speaker: where the writing is published.
• 9:34
  Speaker: If it's in an email, if it's in
• 9:36
  Speaker: a newsletter, if it's for a long
• 9:38
  Speaker: form content on social media, if
• 9:41
  Speaker: it's for a Substack newsletter,
• 9:43
  Speaker: if it's for a chapter in your
• 9:44
  Speaker: book, for a blog post, the
• 9:47
  Speaker: writing needs a container also,
• 9:49
  Speaker: and then it accumulates there
• 9:51
  Speaker: the more that you publish there,
• 9:54
  Speaker: but every container has three
• 9:56
  Speaker: parts.
• 9:57
  Speaker: So number one, the first part of
• 9:59
  Speaker: the container is protected
• 10:01
  Speaker: space.
• 10:04
  Speaker: What this means is that your time is no longer negotiable.
• 10:11
  Speaker: And this is not because you have an empty life.
• 10:16
  Speaker: It's actually quite the opposite because you have a busy life.
• 10:20
  Speaker: You are going to protect sometime during your week to
• 10:25
  Speaker: write and work on your cookbook.
• 10:29
  Speaker: It could be thirty minutes
• 10:30
  Speaker: before everybody wakes up in the
• 10:31
  Speaker: morning.
• 10:32
  Speaker: It could be a weekday afternoon
• 10:34
  Speaker: while your kids are at swim
• 10:35
  Speaker: practice.
• 10:36
  Speaker: It could be two evenings a week.
• 10:38
  Speaker: It does not matter when it is, but this protected space has to
• 10:44
  Speaker: be on your calendar.
• 10:47
  Speaker: And what matters is that you
• 10:49
  Speaker: consistently show up during that
• 10:52
  Speaker: protective space.
• 10:55
  Speaker: You know, we we protect space on
• 10:57
  Speaker: our calendar all the time for
• 10:59
  Speaker: things that we think are
• 11:00
  Speaker: important.
• 11:02
  Speaker: My daughter has set her wedding
• 11:04
  Speaker: date for next June, and I
• 11:06
  Speaker: guarantee that that day will be
• 11:08
  Speaker: protected.
• 11:09
  Speaker: Space on my calendar has a high priority.
• 11:12
  Speaker: I will not be scheduling anything else over that time.
• 11:18
  Speaker: Many years ago when I started my business, I decided that my
• 11:22
  Speaker: weekends were protected space.
• 11:26
  Speaker: They were for me, my husband, and our family.
• 11:31
  Speaker: And if we weren't doing things together that weekend, barring
• 11:35
  Speaker: any unforeseen circumstances, I wasn't going to schedule
• 11:39
  Speaker: anything else to do.
• 11:41
  Speaker: And if I did any work on the
• 11:42
  Speaker: weekend, it's while they were
• 11:43
  Speaker: asleep.
• 11:45
  Speaker: I protected that time.
• 11:50
  Speaker: Okay, so Doesn't really matter how big the space is.
• 11:55
  Speaker: What matters is that it's consistent.
• 11:57
  Speaker: And we're going to stop re deciding every week when our
• 12:00
  Speaker: protected space is.
• 12:03
  Speaker: We're not just going to squeeze it in.
• 12:06
  Speaker: We are going to carve out a protected space where the
• 12:09
  Speaker: writing is allowed to exist.
• 12:12
  Speaker: So I want you to think about that.
• 12:14
  Speaker: Think about the space as being
• 12:16
  Speaker: like the dish that holds the
• 12:18
  Speaker: leftovers.
• 12:22
  Speaker: It's it's the container.
• 12:23
  Speaker: It's the space.
• 12:24
  Speaker: Okay.
• 12:25
  Speaker: So protect your space.
• 12:26
  Speaker: And you, you pick when you want that to be.
• 12:29
  Speaker: I'm going to give you some
• 12:30
  Speaker: examples here in a few minutes
• 12:31
  Speaker: of things that I've seen work
• 12:32
  Speaker: for people.
• 12:33
  Speaker: But my protected space for
• 12:35
  Speaker: writing, even for the best
• 12:38
  Speaker: emails I write, the best focus
• 12:40
  Speaker: time that I write, the time I'm
• 12:42
  Speaker: the most awake is in the
• 12:44
  Speaker: morning.
• 12:47
  Speaker: It's always been that way.
• 12:48
  Speaker: It still remains that way.
• 12:50
  Speaker: I protect that time to write content for you, for scripts for
• 12:56
  Speaker: this show, for my email list.
• 12:59
  Speaker: If you're on my email list.
• 13:00
  Speaker: If you're not, you should join my email list.
• 13:02
  Speaker: I'll tell you how to do that at
• 13:04
  Speaker: the end of the show, but it's
• 13:06
  Speaker: protected.
• 13:08
  Speaker: Okay.
• 13:08
  Speaker: The second thing then is once you've set up the protected
• 13:12
  Speaker: space, you need to decide what you're going to focus on.
• 13:16
  Speaker: And remember, you're not writing everything for everybody.
• 13:20
  Speaker: If we're specifically talking about a cookbook project, you're
• 13:24
  Speaker: going to be doing a very specific thing when you are
• 13:27
  Speaker: writing to create that cookbook.
• 13:30
  Speaker: Sitting down with vague work
• 13:32
  Speaker: does create overwhelm, and
• 13:36
  Speaker: specific focus helps you to
• 13:38
  Speaker: create progress.
• 13:40
  Speaker: So instead of saying, during this protected space, I'm going
• 13:43
  Speaker: to work on my cookbook.
• 13:45
  Speaker: You have something that's very
• 13:47
  Speaker: tangible that you're going to
• 13:48
  Speaker: work on.
• 13:49
  Speaker: I'm going to write head notes for five recipes.
• 13:52
  Speaker: I'm going to work on the target
• 13:54
  Speaker: audience section of my cookbook
• 13:55
  Speaker: proposal.
• 13:56
  Speaker: I'm going to rewrite three recipes that I tested this week.
• 14:01
  Speaker: I'm going to write a story that
• 14:03
  Speaker: I can put in this section of my
• 14:05
  Speaker: cookbook.
• 14:06
  Speaker: Do you see what I mean?
• 14:07
  Speaker: You pick, actually and define and focus on what you're going
• 14:10
  Speaker: to write during that time.
• 14:12
  Speaker: And you should know what you're going to do before you sit down.
• 14:15
  Speaker: So you don't spend a lot of
• 14:17
  Speaker: energy trying to decide what
• 14:18
  Speaker: you're going to do when you get
• 14:19
  Speaker: there.
• 14:20
  Speaker: Um, this morning when I started thinking about my day, actually,
• 14:25
  Speaker: I look at my week.
• 14:26
  Speaker: I had five two hour projects that I needed to work on.
• 14:31
  Speaker: And every week I set a container of space for my podcast.
• 14:36
  Speaker: If I'm not doing an interview, I set up time to do the solo show.
• 14:40
  Speaker: I write the script, I create the
• 14:42
  Speaker: recording, which is what I'm
• 14:44
  Speaker: doing now.
• 14:45
  Speaker: I create the show notes, and
• 14:47
  Speaker: then I work with my VA for the
• 14:48
  Speaker: images and getting everything
• 14:50
  Speaker: uploaded and put where it should
• 14:51
  Speaker: be.
• 14:52
  Speaker: And then Scott does the
• 14:52
  Speaker: production, and then we put the
• 14:54
  Speaker: podcast up on the feed so that
• 14:58
  Speaker: you receive it on Thursday
• 14:59
  Speaker: morning.
• 15:00
  Speaker: But there's protected space on my calendar to do this podcast.
• 15:04
  Speaker: I promise it's the only way I've ever gotten four hundred and
• 15:08
  Speaker: four episodes done.
• 15:10
  Speaker: I didn't just wait until I wanted to do it, because if I
• 15:14
  Speaker: waited to do what I wanted to do it, it would probably have
• 15:18
  Speaker: gotten done about half the time.
• 15:20
  Speaker: There are going to be times when
• 15:22
  Speaker: you don't want to write, but the
• 15:24
  Speaker: space helps you to protect that
• 15:27
  Speaker: time.
• 15:29
  Speaker: You can decide ahead what you're going to focus on.
• 15:31
  Speaker: Like so today, this Monday, this is Monday.
• 15:34
  Speaker: I had, um, it's going to be in
• 15:36
  Speaker: the office I just committed from
• 15:37
  Speaker: about nine o'clock until about
• 15:39
  Speaker: four o'clock.
• 15:41
  Speaker: So I have several two hour blocks of time in.
• 15:45
  Speaker: One of those is my protected space for this podcast.
• 15:48
  Speaker: I knew exactly what I needed to
• 15:50
  Speaker: do when I got here during my
• 15:52
  Speaker: podcast time.
• 15:54
  Speaker: So put a little note in your container, what you're going to
• 15:58
  Speaker: be working on it.
• 16:00
  Speaker: It helps so much if we make decisions ahead of time when
• 16:03
  Speaker: we're using the higher functioning part of our very
• 16:07
  Speaker: smart brains to plan the weeks and the containers that we have.
• 16:12
  Speaker: Because I promise when you get
• 16:13
  Speaker: to that time, the lower
• 16:15
  Speaker: functioning part of your brain
• 16:17
  Speaker: that I like to call my cat
• 16:18
  Speaker: brain, some people call it their
• 16:20
  Speaker: lizard brain, is going to tell
• 16:22
  Speaker: you that it's not important,
• 16:24
  Speaker: that you don't need to do it at
• 16:26
  Speaker: this time.
• 16:27
  Speaker: But if you know that this space
• 16:30
  Speaker: is the time for you to do it,
• 16:31
  Speaker: and I know this is the space
• 16:32
  Speaker: that I need to do this, if I
• 16:34
  Speaker: don't record this podcast today,
• 16:36
  Speaker: it's going to get pushed to
• 16:38
  Speaker: tomorrow.
• 16:39
  Speaker: And that gets to be too late for Scott to put it together.
• 16:42
  Speaker: It's not fair to him.
• 16:43
  Speaker: It just has a cascading domino effect of things that happen
• 16:47
  Speaker: that make it feel more last minute than it needs to feel?
• 16:52
  Speaker: Okay.
• 16:53
  Speaker: So when it comes to our
• 16:54
  Speaker: cookbooks and your cookbooks, be
• 16:56
  Speaker: very specific about what you are
• 16:58
  Speaker: working on during that protected
• 17:00
  Speaker: time.
• 17:01
  Speaker: If you're a student in my
• 17:02
  Speaker: program and you're working on a
• 17:04
  Speaker: cookbook proposal, you have
• 17:07
  Speaker: different parts that you're
• 17:08
  Speaker: working on.
• 17:09
  Speaker: If you're being coached one on one by me, you have different
• 17:12
  Speaker: parts that you're working on.
• 17:14
  Speaker: Um, and so you can be very clear about what you're working on
• 17:18
  Speaker: during that protected space.
• 17:21
  Speaker: And then the third thing is a boundary.
• 17:23
  Speaker: Every container has an edge.
• 17:25
  Speaker: You know, when it starts, you
• 17:27
  Speaker: know, when it stops and you know
• 17:29
  Speaker: what you're doing during that
• 17:30
  Speaker: session.
• 17:31
  Speaker: Think about a container having a capacity.
• 17:35
  Speaker: Do you have one cup container?
• 17:37
  Speaker: Do you have an eight cup container?
• 17:40
  Speaker: Um with the boundaries the work will expand.
• 17:45
  Speaker: But to fill the container.
• 17:49
  Speaker: Okay, but the boundaries don't restrict.
• 17:52
  Speaker: Creativity is the most important thing.
• 17:54
  Speaker: They protect your creativity.
• 17:57
  Speaker: A storage container on your calendar without a boundary
• 18:02
  Speaker: isn't a container.
• 18:03
  Speaker: It's just a space.
• 18:06
  Speaker: More like a colander with holes in it.
• 18:09
  Speaker: It doesn't preserve anything if
• 18:10
  Speaker: you put something into the
• 18:11
  Speaker: container.
• 18:12
  Speaker: The colander, the water just runs right through.
• 18:15
  Speaker: And this is when people start to think they don't have time.
• 18:18
  Speaker: It's like a leaky container on
• 18:21
  Speaker: your calendar, and you notice a
• 18:23
  Speaker: lot of open containers in your
• 18:25
  Speaker: week.
• 18:26
  Speaker: Um, make sure those are solid containers with a defined
• 18:30
  Speaker: boundary and you can fill them with specific things to do.
• 18:34
  Speaker: So. I heard about a woman that
• 18:37
  Speaker: wanted to write a book, but she
• 18:39
  Speaker: really believed that she did not
• 18:40
  Speaker: have time.
• 18:41
  Speaker: She had a full time job.
• 18:43
  Speaker: She had two kids.
• 18:44
  Speaker: She was, of course, creating this side business as a author.
• 18:49
  Speaker: Building an author career.
• 18:51
  Speaker: And when she looked at her week, she decided that there were two
• 18:56
  Speaker: two hour blocks on the weekend that she was going to write.
• 19:03
  Speaker: And that was actually it wasn't two hour blocks.
• 19:06
  Speaker: It was two, four hour blocks on
• 19:08
  Speaker: the weekend that she was going
• 19:09
  Speaker: to write between eleven thirty
• 19:12
  Speaker: and three thirty on Saturday and
• 19:15
  Speaker: Sunday.
• 19:16
  Speaker: That was it.
• 19:18
  Speaker: That was her container.
• 19:20
  Speaker: So she turned those blocks of time into containers, and she
• 19:23
  Speaker: showed up every week at the same time for a year.
• 19:29
  Speaker: So same intention, same commitment.
• 19:31
  Speaker: She filled the time.
• 19:33
  Speaker: She stuck to the boundary.
• 19:34
  Speaker: She started at eleven thirty, finished at three thirty.
• 19:37
  Speaker: And within that year she had a
• 19:39
  Speaker: full draft manuscript of her
• 19:41
  Speaker: book.
• 19:42
  Speaker: And you see, it's not because she found more time, but because
• 19:45
  Speaker: she protected some time that she already had, and she made a
• 19:49
  Speaker: commitment to herself to show up during those containers.
• 19:53
  Speaker: So again, the three things you
• 19:54
  Speaker: need to do is protect some space
• 19:56
  Speaker: on your calendar, define your
• 19:58
  Speaker: focus for that block and set
• 20:01
  Speaker: clear boundaries.
• 20:02
  Speaker: And when you become intentional like this, something changes.
• 20:05
  Speaker: You are going to stop feeling vague.
• 20:08
  Speaker: You'll stop feeling overwhelmed.
• 20:10
  Speaker: You'll start completing task
• 20:13
  Speaker: after task after task after
• 20:15
  Speaker: task, and accumulating work
• 20:17
  Speaker: toward the goal that you have
• 20:19
  Speaker: steadily.
• 20:21
  Speaker: You'll be reliably doing it, and you won't necessarily have to
• 20:27
  Speaker: write every day.
• 20:28
  Speaker: And you don't have to overhaul your life.
• 20:30
  Speaker: And you don't have to wait for a calmer season.
• 20:33
  Speaker: Just create small, repeatable containers that hold your
• 20:36
  Speaker: attention for long enough for you to get some traction.
• 20:40
  Speaker: And that's when we start to build momentum.
• 20:44
  Speaker: And it's amazing to be able to operate that way.
• 20:48
  Speaker: Once I figured this out, I
• 20:50
  Speaker: started using this container for
• 20:51
  Speaker: almost everything that I do in
• 20:53
  Speaker: my office.
• 20:55
  Speaker: Time to work on my quicken and
• 20:59
  Speaker: my books, and my business
• 21:00
  Speaker: expenses and my personal
• 21:01
  Speaker: expenses in one container a
• 21:04
  Speaker: week.
• 21:05
  Speaker: Time to write emails.
• 21:07
  Speaker: I usually email my list about two or three times a week.
• 21:09
  Speaker: Time to write those emails.
• 21:12
  Speaker: If I'm creating a launch of a product.
• 21:16
  Speaker: Time to create everything I need for those launches.
• 21:19
  Speaker: The opt in pages, the sales pages, the videos, the products
• 21:24
  Speaker: that I'm going to sell from working on an article for
• 21:29
  Speaker: something or for somebody.
• 21:30
  Speaker: Time to create the first draft.
• 21:33
  Speaker: Time to revise.
• 21:34
  Speaker: Time to, you know, create the second draft.
• 21:37
  Speaker: Time to have it edited.
• 21:39
  Speaker: All of this takes containers of time.
• 21:42
  Speaker: But I think what makes us feel less busy is making progress.
• 21:46
  Speaker: So maybe you don't need more time.
• 21:50
  Speaker: Maybe you need more structure.
• 21:52
  Speaker: Because again, writing a cookbook in a busy life isn't
• 21:55
  Speaker: about empty space.
• 21:56
  Speaker: It's about building small, repeatable containers that
• 21:59
  Speaker: protect the work you already want to do.
• 22:04
  Speaker: Small.
• 22:05
  Speaker: Simple.
• 22:05
  Speaker: Repeatable.
• 22:06
  Speaker: Protected.
• 22:08
  Speaker: Focused.
• 22:09
  Speaker: Boundaried containers.
• 22:12
  Speaker: So if this episode has resonated with you and you're thinking, I
• 22:17
  Speaker: understand this, but I need help maybe building my containers.
• 22:21
  Speaker: I need help knowing what to focus on in my containers.
• 22:26
  Speaker: I want you to know that I do
• 22:28
  Speaker: work with cookbook writers one
• 22:30
  Speaker: on one, as well as in groups, to
• 22:33
  Speaker: help you design the structure
• 22:35
  Speaker: that you need so that you can
• 22:37
  Speaker: finish your book project or
• 22:40
  Speaker: finish your cookbook manuscript
• 22:42
  Speaker: without Overhauling your entire
• 22:45
  Speaker: life.
• 22:47
  Speaker: There is a link to book a free complimentary cookbook Discovery
• 22:52
  Speaker: call down below.
• 22:55
  Speaker: You can pick the time that fits
• 22:57
  Speaker: your calendar best and we can
• 22:59
  Speaker: meet.
• 23:00
  Speaker: Talk about your cookbook writing dream.
• 23:02
  Speaker: Talk about where you are.
• 23:04
  Speaker: Talk about what you've tried to
• 23:05
  Speaker: do so far to get your book
• 23:07
  Speaker: published.
• 23:08
  Speaker: And if I can help you make the next step, we can talk about
• 23:12
  Speaker: that as well.
• 23:14
  Speaker: So head on down to the show notes to book your complimentary
• 23:18
  Speaker: cookbook clarity call.
• 23:20
  Speaker: I would love to help you set up
• 23:22
  Speaker: some containers in your life so
• 23:24
  Speaker: that you can work on the
• 23:26
  Speaker: cookbook that you always wanted
• 23:28
  Speaker: to write.
• 23:29
  Speaker: So if something for you shifted during this episode, I certainly
• 23:34
  Speaker: hope that you will take advantage of that.
• 23:38
  Speaker: Make some changes in your own life.
• 23:41
  Speaker: Don't stay stuck in the I don't have time loop.
• 23:44
  Speaker: And if you know someone that needs to listen to this episode,
• 23:47
  Speaker: maybe share it with them, because I firmly, firmly believe
• 23:51
  Speaker: we all have a beautiful life to create whatever it is we want.
• 23:56
  Speaker: We just need to work on the
• 23:57
  Speaker: containers and the focus and the
• 24:00
  Speaker: boundaries.
• 24:01
  Speaker: Because once you can create that, everything changes.
• 24:04
  Speaker: You're capable of doing anything that you want to do include
• 24:09
  Speaker: writing a cookbook.
• 24:11
  Speaker: So that is it for today's
• 24:12
  Speaker: episode of the Cookbook Love
• 24:14
  Speaker: Podcast.
• 24:14
  Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green.
• 24:16
  Speaker: And until next time, have a
• 24:17
  Speaker: great day and keep loving your
• 24:20
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 24:25
  Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 24:27
  Speaker: You can find out more information at w w w dot
• 24:30
  Speaker: cookbook dot co.