Friday afternoon has to be my favorite time of the week, and not because it’s the end of the work week. I love Friday afternoons because as I look toward the weekend, I see oodles of productive writing time ahead. I’ll be able to get so much work done this weekend! I can’t wait. I’ll start… first thing tomorrow. I mean, no sense in doing it right now. Who ever heard of writing on Friday night?
And so it begins. The series of rationalizations that will lead inexorably to my least favorite time of the week: Sunday evening. (A downside of being creative is that you can too often sell yourself a bridge in Brooklyn.) Sunday evenings are as filled with self-recrimination as Friday afternoons are filled with optimism. Somehow, the weekend slips by and I find I’ve done a fraction of the writing I had dreamed of doing.
I think my problem is one of expectations, not productivity. I do get things done each weekend. But on Fridays, I dream up these grandiose plans. I need to practice setting realistic goals.
So, Writers’ Circle, it’s time to do two important things: 1) share your progress for March, and 2) set your goals for April. When May comes around, what would you like to have done?
If productivity and motivation are challenging for you in terms of your writing, set goals that will inspire you to push yourself. If you tend to set pie-in-the-sky goals (as I do) that actually work against you, then pare your goals down.
What? You’re not a member of Writing Power’s Writers’ Circle? It’s easy to join: just introduce yourself to the group in this post’s comments and share your writing projects and goals. To meet the Circle’s amazing current members, click here.
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I’m honestly surprised that there aren’t any comments yet…
I put off posting this out of a little bit of guilt. I didn’t meet all of my goals for March.
I have a good excuse, though… I changed my goals mid-way through.
Then again, that is just an excuse. I missed my goals.
I wanted to have my website up and running with a good start of a tutorial available by now (being the end of the first week of April), but all I have available now are three updates saying that more is coming, and one of the updates is a lesson in planning for your goals.
It isn’t a total failure, but it isn’t a success either. (There are no total failures as long as we keep moving forward, I’m often told.)
My goal for April is to get my web site ready for launch in May. Since my topic is on developing software, I have a bit more work to do besides writing prose; I must also write code. Also, since my first long-term goal for the site is to educate people on how to make a website like mine, I have to create my site from scratch… If I’m teaching people how to make wheels, I’d better have made my own wheel first, right?
So, as for my goals in April, I am scaling back on the prose and concentrating on the code. Here are my benchmarks:
1st week: Database design complete (and is already complete… I already succeeded with that goal).
2nd week: Move existing articles into database. Write three additional pages of prose. (So far, so good.)
3rd week: Write the interface between the database and the site visitors… Heavy coding… writing prose will be on complete hold. (I’m sure the scribes of ancient Egypt had to put their writing on hold while making their inks and papyrus scrolls.)
4th week: Debug the code. Adding features to the code will be on complete hold, only concentrating on fixing bugs. Will also write at least 5 pages of prose.
May, 1st week: Plan the back-end interface, so that I can easily add new pages and new articles without having to muck about with the database directly. Edit existing pages, and plan the final pages.
I’m curious about everybody else’s progress… And Loren, you haven’t shared your goals and achievements yet… –hint– 😉
Great plan, Adam. And thanks for the nudge…it occured to me after I posted this that I ought to include an update of my progress. I’ll get on it!
What about everyone else?
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