Happily, most days consists of two things only. Writing and dealing with the ephemeral side of writing, email, the odd phone call, sending out the odd gibberish message on Twitter, writing a blog post when I feel like it.

When it comes to priorities it's not hard to work out which is the most important there: writing, naturally. If I haven't done something about that (and it doesn't necessarily mean producing more words, as we've discussed before) I haven't really worked at all. I've malingered. And malingering is bad.

But today I am faced with a true horror. I have several important things facing me. Writing the present project. Very soon revising next year's book. Plus a couple of projects I can't talk about yet, both of which keep beeping at me from my subconscious saying, 'Ignore those others... deal with me, me, me.'

<!--more-->In short I have to prioritise, and this process brings home to me how really bad I am at this. I whinged about it on Twitter half jokingly thus, 'Today I need to prioritise several things. But in what order?'

Couple of suggestions came in very quickly. From Gavreads, 'MIT first'. I was unsure what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had to do with this but it turns out MIT means Most Important Thing. Ah... But they're all important really, and deciding which one is more important than the other is work in itself. And possibly beyond me because I don't know how I'd judge that really.

Then from inksmithy, 'fastest/easiest to longest/most complex. That way if you hang up on something, the day hasn't been a complete wash.'

I can see the sense in that. But again it means I have to sit back and contemplate which of the several things to do would actually turn out to be easiest or longest or most complex. And the problem with writing -- well one of them anyway -- is you never really know that. Sometimes something that appears simple turns out to be rather difficult and prolix. Equally there are intractable problems that can occasionally be solved by rewriting a single paragraph.

What does my consternation over these choices mean? That I'm dreadful at multi-tasking and organising my day I guess. I can't have my head inside more than one project at a time. It just doesn't work. Nor do any of the 'systems' such as Getting Things Done succeed for me, though I've often tried. I don't enjoy trying to put priorities on things. The act in itself seems to be a waste of time (my problem, not yours).

So how do I decide?

I think I'll stick with my usual system. Either I pick the thing I feel will be most enjoyable. Or I grit my teeth and get the least fun task out of the way first so that I can say it's done.

This is a simple decision and it saves me from thinking about how I'm going to work instead of doing some actual work instead. Would-be writers often, as I've said before, spend too much time thinking and talking about writing and not enough getting down words and reading books that might inspire them. I'm temperamentally suspicious of all systems and methods when it comes to my working day. This half-assed philosophy is not the basis for building a successful multinational company. But for a lone professional writer it seems to do the business. At least it does for me.