I keep a fairly detailed spreadsheet in which I keep track of my writing. Each time I sit down to write I log the start time, starting word count, location, project, ending word count, and end time. I have it set up in a way that makes the data entry straightforward. One nice thing about Apple Numbers, I can just enter the 24-hour time. Then it converts it into a date value, using the current date. Entering two times and two notes, and start and finish word count gives me the writing session duration, total words, and words-per-hour.

I have another table that summarizes my weekly total. That would be the one I’m going to start posting weekly. This screen shot shows the first three weeks of 2015. The weekly averages are the totals divided by six. I give myself one free day each week, so averaging based on seven would be unfair.

The entire table is 55 rows tall (53 weeks because of partial start and end weeks, plus header and totals) and I can’t get a screen shot of the whole thing. I’ll be posing clips of it, showing the current week and the 3 before it, along with the header. I’ve waited until the third week, so I could make sure this was something I would keep updated.

The plan is to post every Sunday night or Monday morning, but with less commentary. I use Monday as the start of my week, so the totals are through Sunday night.

Behold!

The year-to-date totals are: Total words: 10,924 Total hours: 1d 7h 06m Avg. words-per-hour: 356 Avg. words-per-day:  740 Avg. time-per-day:   2h 6m

I expect these numbers to increase quite a bit. I’m planning some long-form work.