I recently read a blog post about a husband and wife who took their RV to a dealer/repair shop to have a few things fixed. When it comes time to leave, the husband jumps in the truck and the wife stands back to guide him to the fifth wheel trailer. They have a pattern, a checklist, and a method for this process, which they repeat every time they go out with the RV.
A smart idea, if you ask me. With any type of RV (motorhome, travel trailer, fifth wheel), you’ll generally have a checklist of things to do each time you arrive and depart camp. Important things like watch out for low hanging branches as you back into your parking spot, make sure there’s nothing in the way (like trees and light poles) when you slide out your slides, and make sure you’ve disconnected all the hoses. Especially the sewer hose!
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Many RVers actually have a physical checklist on hand. Some smartphone apps help you keep various checklists at the ready. There’s a peace of mind involved when you know all your checklist items are marked off and you’re not relying on your memory.
Back to the story.
An employee of the dealership comes outside and starts “helping” the woman. Any veteran fifth wheel owner will tell you… never have more than one person assisting the truck driver. Too many cooks in the kitchen! Anyway, the employee sort of takes over, and since the woman is hot and frustrated that the process was taking longer than usual, she goes into the dealership to wait. When she comes back outside, it appears that the trailer is attached to the truck hitch and they’re ready to go. The employee assures her the hitch is
locked. So she hops into the truck and off they go.
A few hundred feet later… Bam!
The hitch was not locked as she’d been led to believe. She’d gotten thrown out of her process thanks to the dealership employee. She didn’t go through her checklist to ensure the hitch was in fact locked. And now their truck had several thousand dollars worth of damage. Oh, and by the way, the dealership claimed no responsibility.
Why you should be writing with checklists
While writers aren’t likely to see anything as catastrophic as this poor truck and trailer, it’s good to develop checklists of your own. Even the process of coming up with the checklists will help you.
When setting up your document.
You know you’ll need:
- 1-inch margins
- Double spaced
- Times New Roman 14pt font
- Bold, centered chapter headings
- Page numbers
There’s your document formatting checklist. Adjust it to suit your needs. Keep it handy and refer to it each time you start a new project.
When printing a document
Far too often I’ve printed a document without page numbers and no sort of title reference in the header or footer. This becomes a problem a week later when my desk is cluttered and the cat decides to moonwalk across the manuscript, sending the pages flying.
- Add page numbers to header
- Add title to header
- Add date to header
- Reformat as Landscape
- Reformat margins to 1” top, left, bottom, 2.5” on the right
- Hide/Show document comments
- Paperclip!
There are many types of quick and handy checklists you can come up with for your writing business. Any time you find yourself repeating the same actions, develop a handy checklist!
When your royalty statements come in:
- Input the numbers into your royalty spreadsheet/database
- Put the document in your royalties folder (organize by year, publisher or distributor)
- Take a moment to go over your recent expenses and make sure everything is listed
- Backup your files
Don’t rely on your mind to remember all the details. There’s no need to and you know if you are writing with checklists you’ll get the details right. Update your checklists when necessary.
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About Alice Anderson
Great points. Checklists are very useful when it comes to writing (I use them, too). They also are a good way to stay focused on the task at hand and help you to feel like you are making forward progress on a particular project. In fact, lists are the reason I’m buying posterboard this weekend…
What a GREAT post! I’ll be linking this to my next blog so I can send my readers over here. I love lists, I don’t know why I never thought of this before 🙂 The advice about royalty statements (not that I have to deal with these yet :p) was incredibly useful — I’m the worst for keeping my filing cabinet organized.
Thanks so much 🙂
I wrote a short nonfiction about this for writers. Many just pocket the cash and then at tax time it’s slap the forehead time.
Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing with us today, Alice!
MGalloway, good for you! Checklists really do help keep me on task. Some days I have a problem keeping on one task and if I have a checklist ready, I can work through each item because I love checking things off. It’s also such a relief to not have to wonder if I’m forgetting something. Assuming I come up with a good checklist, and follow it, I don’t have to worry about missing a step.
Cate, so glad you liked the post. I love lists too. There’s a checklist at the end of every chapter of my Tips for Authors book. That’s how much I love them. lol I think the thing to remember is that you can create checklists for really any aspect of writing. I gave a few examples above but you could also create checklists for your writing as well. For instance if you’re writing a suspense, maybe you develop a checklist for your villain. What does he want, why, how does he go about getting it, what lengths will he go to get it, does he have a code of honor? Check those off as you proof your book, just to make sure you’ve included important aspects.
Checklists?
:gulp:
I can never remember to write them.. much less read them… lol
Maybe if I memorize the RV story, I might remember to write down checklists a bit more often.. 😀
Thanks for an entertaining and instructive post.
J.L., you’re right. Tax time can be crazy for authors. The checklist above is the first start (a simple way) to make tax time a little easier.
Great post.
I am a super list person, so I have one for almost everything! Packing, cleaning, schooling, craft shows, etc. I also have some for my writing, though usually that’s related to proposals. Have I included all the pertinent information and required sections? Is my bio up to date? Is the formatting correct for each section? Does my project match the guidelines offered by requesting publisher (in content, size and target audience)?
Thanks for sharing!
I love this idea! I have never thought about adding list to my writing routine, but I can think of ways they would be useful in making sure all my plot lines were tied up by the end of the story as well. Thanks for making this so understandable! 🙂
Valerie Strawmier
http://www.misswordy.com