In my last post, I shared my 3 P’s of productivity. Plan, Process and Pomodoros = Pathway 2 Success! (P1+P2+P3=P2S) I’m going to spend the next three posts exploring each P more closely.
The first, or P1, is plan. Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Weekly planning is critical. But where do the weekly goals come from? They come from your big goals. The goals you set the beginning of each year.
Author and writing coach and President of The Working Writer’s Club, Suzanne Lieurance, http://www.workingwritersclub.com/ stresses to her clients, “Set no more than 3 major goals for the year, then make sure that each action you take is working toward one of those goals”
My three goals this year are: finish my YA novel in verse, market my middle grade novel and learn to promote myself through social media and article marketing. These three major goals work toward my overall goal of becoming a published children’s novelist. I call this overall goal, my life goal. It’s not the only goal I have for my life…and it can change, but it’s the one I’m focusing on this year.
After I decide on my life goal and my 3 major goals for the year, then at the beginning of every month I choose what short-term goals will bring me closest to those three major goals. For July, my short-term goals are: finish my YA novel in verse, complete and find 10 agents/publishers to whom I can submit my middle grade novel and post weekly to this blog.
Each week I take some kind of action toward completing those three short-term goals, which work toward my three major goals, which all bring me that much closer to my life goal of becoming a published children’s novelist. These weekly actions can include: writing new material, editing or revising already written material, or research. Other actions might be marketing and include writing a synopsis and query, finding editors or agents to send my completed manuscript to, and learning how to promote myself through various social media. (Such as; Facebook, this website, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
When I sit down to do my planning for the week, I decide which area I will work on each day of the week, and then list the action steps I need to take to move me toward reaching my goals for the week. Right now, I really want to finish my novel this month, so I’m spending three of my working days on it, one day on marketing and one day on posts for this blog, non-fiction articles and my social media.
Suzanne also says it’s important to write your goals down and post them where you can see them every day. Having goals for the year, month and week, helps me to plan my days, which helps me stay focused. Taking small, consistent steps will take me down my pathway to success!