Because I was kind of busy in January this year (moving house, caring for invalid husband, and so forth) I didn’t sit down and write a list of writing goals for the year. This is something I do every year, inspired several years ago by my writing buddy Lyn Uhlman who suggested that our online writing group KWDownUnder, set and share writing goals every year.
However, this year I’ve been busy and the writing of goals just didn’t seem so important. But the past couple of weeks I’ve been on holidays from my day job and had time to take a deep breath, and realised I wanted to set myself some new goals. I find that without goals, I get less done. Why? It’s simple really. Without a goal, the discipline of sitting at my desk and working becomes harder. When I do sit down I do a bit of this and a bit of that – a little writing, some answering of emails, maybe a little more writing, maybe checking of twitter, writing of a review, checking my Scrabble scores on facebook – you get the picture. At the end of my hour/half hour/two hours – whatever time I’ve devoted – I might feel briefly virtuous that I have ‘worked’ for that time – but when I stop and think about what I’ve achieved, I’m really not sure I’ve achieved anything.
With a goal, or a list of goals, it’s easier both to prioritise and to measure for myself what it is I’ve achieved.
So, I’m in the process of setting myself some new writing goals for the remainder of the year. Once I’ve done that I’ll break them down into smaller, shorter term goals. And I plan to print them out, stick them above my desk and look at them often.
Yes, when I have such a list I’ll still check my Twitter. Yes I’ll still blog and review and all of those other things – because they’re important to me. The difference is that when I’m clear about what I’m trying to achieve I work better towards achieving those goals. I (either consciously or not) prioritise the competing demands of my time and my attention in order to achieve those goals – and I reward myself with the distractions rather than allowing the distractions to come first. And I get a heck of a lot more done because I know what it is I’m trying to do.
So, to goal number one: sit down and clarify my goals.