Image courtesy of Sharon Drummond.

The Easier you can Make Something…

Case in point – my spreadsheet I use to keep track of my writing. I have removed the time tracking on it, because I simply don’t feel that it’s relevant to me anymore – only word count is. Any extraneous fluff in my tracking will make it less easy to do. By trimming it, there is less chance that in a weak moment I think, “I can’t be bothered to write, because that means I’ll have to track it, and that means I have make note of the time or whatever”.

I know it sounds silly that such a small thing might put me off, and maybe it wouldn’t. But the easier something is to do, the more likely you are to do it. So why wouldn’t you make it easier?

Go Tweak Yourself

Another part of the spreadsheet I’ve resolved to tweak is my goals. Or at least, I’m going to review them regularly. I can’t tell for certain that I’m going to tweak them yet, but given how many of my goals became redundant by the end of last year, I imagine I will.

I lot can change over the course of a year. It might not feel like it, but when you stop and think (and I’ll be doing that regularly now!) you notice it. Events in your life can get in the way of your targets, or you may reach them earlier than expected. But as you go through your year’s journey your mindset may also change, and this has an effect on your outlook. You may realise you need to achieve something sooner than you originally thought; some goals may reveal themselves as unimportant after all; you may realise you work better under pressure or with a greater challenge, and ramp up the stakes.

It’s all part of the learning process, and with that in mind, I am actually hoping I feel the need to tweak my goals. It will be a good indication that I’m changing. That’s a key takeaway right there – we’re working on ourselves as much as our writing.

And that’s really the whole point. There are other aspects of your writing life you should not be afraid to tweak, especially in the early stages of your writing journey. Your routine, for example, can probably be improved a great deal. As you grow, you get to know your writing pattern, or you may find that certain environments help you to write better.

As with any system, little improvements here and there can have a big effect. The key here is to make sure you’re tweaking everything to suit you at that time. “You” in this case, is a moving target, so should you feel something can be made better, don’t be afraid to make that change!

Mine was… mixed. On the plus side I did slightly more writing than I did last year. On the minus side, I only did slightly more writing than last year. And I can’t say that I properly finished anything. Boo!

Of course, I know this because of my stats that I’ve been keeping every week. I’ve only just got round to reviewing them (is it a bit late? It is, isn’t it), and in doing so, I’ve also reviewed the list of goals I keep down the side of my numbers.

Yes, I went for the obvious, cheesy image. Not the first time, won't be the last. Image from Swen-Peter Ekkebus.

In doing so, I realised something. I am one unobservant SOB. Okay, I knew that already, but this is really bad – I put number into that stat sheet nearly every day, and this is the first time in months that I’ve even glanced at my goals for the year!

So, what did I discover about my writing success? Some of my goals had shifted over the year, leaving a number of the targets on my sheet irrelevant. About half the information on that list is useless then. But out of the remaining goals, I had actually completed a few of them – go me! But, this is both good and bad.

I had actually completed some early on in the year – good! Had I reviewed this much earlier I could have set some new goals and reached further, but I didn’t – bad!

Also, I came very close to one of my goals, but it looks like I fell at the last hurdle. Again, a review of my targets could have seen me reach that little bit more and put another cross in a box.

The end result of all this? Missed opportunities. Obviously I don’t want this to happen again, so the first change I’ve made to my spreadsheet this year is to have an extra tickbox at the end of every month (I say “month”, but what I mean is four-week period, not calendar months). This is for my regular goal review, and it’s sitting neatly under every four-week block. It should serve as a reminder to check on my targets every month.

Plus, it’s another thing to tick off. We have to take every bit of gratification we can get!

And as a quick checklist, my review will ask the following questions:

• Have I completed any of my goals?
• Am I close to completing any more?
• Have any goals become irrelevant?
• What new goals have become relevant to my writing?

Okay, so that’s a good start anyway, if a little overdue. I might have said this at the end of my last post, but here’s to a good writing year! Stay focussed, peeps!

I think a big part of the problem is that it’s something done at the last minute, and not a great deal of thought goes into it. It’s like any promise to yourself. Say you had a dream to go bungee jumping. Every month you say to yourself, “I’d love to go bungee jumping – that is a thing I am resolved to do.” But you don’t and the end of the year comes along and you resolve to do it next year. So, what’s changed? Nothing. These things are only going to happen if you make them happen, and promising yourself is only the first step.

Pick it and Break it up!

Seeming as we're making our resolutions early, we can have a party early too, right? Image courtesy of Cedrick Ledesma.

So I would say, rather than making a New Years resolution, make a New Years plan. Start now, not on the first of January. Pick one thing you want to achieve next year, right now. Done it? Good. Now think about the steps you need to take in order to make that come true. Write them down.

I rushed through that a bit, but certainly it can be useful to pick the first thing that comes into your head – that may be the thing that is most important to you. Breaking that down into steps can take a bit longer – you may not know all the steps. All the more reason to start the process now rather than waiting. It will likely only take a small amount of research to discover what’s needed, so do it, and make your plan all the more relevant.

How Long?

Okay, now remember that we have a timeframe here – you have to complete all of these steps by the end of next year. Is there time for that? Estimate how long you think these things will take. Now double it. Don’t poo-poo that by the way. We often overestimate what we can get done in a short space of time (a year) and underestimate what we can do in a longer period of time (like, five years). So, double your estimate, because things almost always take longer than you think. If you complete it quicker than that, well, that’s still a good thing!

Now, is there anything else going on in the year that impacts this? Maybe there is something that directly impacts your deadline, meaning it absolutely has to be done by May, for example. What events might help you reach your goals (like NaNoWriMo). Now look for planned events that are likely to take your attention off this goal, like major birthdays that need planning (or births for that matter), or holidays.

Now, take your steps and slot them around these events as necessary. If possible, aim to complete everything a month or two before your deadline. That way, if you fall behind, you’ve got that extra slack built in to catch up. The alternative is seeing that it’s hopeless and giving up entirely.

At this point you may be looking at your plan and realising that you cannot possibly fit everything in. That may be disheartening, but it’s okay. At least now you know your original goals were unrealistic. Now you can pick somewhere achievable within that list of steps you made. Change getting your novel “completed”, to getting the first draft finished for example.

Finishing Touches

Look your plan over and tweak it if necessary – you may go through a couple of drafts of your New Years Plan before you’re happy with it. What you want to end up with is something that is clear and realistic, so you can look at it and see what stage you need to be at in March, for example.

When it’s finished, put it somewhere you can refer to it often. Write it on a single A4 sheet and pin it above your desk, or write it small so that it fits on a single sheet in your diary. Even better, start making use of an online calendar service like Google Calendar. Here you can add events throughout the year – your steps on the journey to resolution, and add reminders days or weeks in advance that can be emailed or even sent to you via text. Useful, eh!

And finally, don’t forget that your plan is not written in stone. Sometimes unavoidable things will happen to get in your way – none of us know what’s going to happen in that year. That’s why you built a buffer into your plan, so use it. Adjust your plan and see where that puts you. The same goes for when you’re doing particularly well, too.

Do you have any tips for making a New Years Plan? Are you one of those people (I’m assured they do exist) that can make a New Years resolution and simply stick to it? Discuss below!

What a Day for a Daydream

A break in the clouds, courtesy of Satish Krishnamurthy on Flickr

It is a kind of day-dreaming – a visualisation exercise. But day-dreaming isn’t focussed enough, and this needs to be focussed. If done well, you are focussing your life, after all. I always find the best way of getting that focus is, you guessed it, writing. I write out my thoughts as they come to me. It feels much more focussed than staring out the window, and I’ve got something written down at the end of it.

Try this – think of a topic involved with your future. It is probably helpful if it’s in the form of a question (something clichéd but useful like, “where do I want to be this time next year,” or “what do I want to have achieved by this time next year”). Write that topic or question at the top of your page and then just write and see where it gets you. I’m willing to bet money that you will feel more focussed afterwards, and you will have thought of some ideas to help you on your way that had not occurred to you before.

Guided (by the topic/question), restricted (by the medium of writing) thinking tends to draw connections that otherwise remain undiscovered, and allows you to formulate plans and ideas around them. At least, that’s what I think.

NaNoWriMo – More than Just a Month

I’ve just been mulling over NaNoWriMo and the fact that I won’t be able to participate again this year. I was writing my thoughts out. This was not a deliberate, guided, focussed thinking exercise, but I’ll often just write when I’m trying to think up new blog posts (and here we are). This led me to thinking about how I was going to make sure I would be able to participate next year. Practical things like booking time off work in November well in advance came up, but also less obvious things like what I would have to have prepared in advance, and where I would like to be with my other writing by the time it starts.

I will go further another time and properly plan out my year based around getting to this point. At the moment I’m still not sure whether it’s practical to take time off then (in any case I won’t be able to take the whole of that month off, and I doubt it will leave me with enough time to complete a first draft. But that’s not the point – it’s an event I will use to get the most done that I possibly can).

The point is though, that this bit of impromptu planning came almost unbidden, and I’m now a little clearer about one aspect of my writing career. But enough about me – I want to know what you do to help look at the bigger picture. How do you do your planning? Is it a conscious effort, or does it go on subconsciously in the background? Do you use any freewriting techniques like this, or mindmapping? Whack me with some comments. In my FACE.

Now however, I face the second challenge when it comes to The Enemy. I have to write new stuff. From scratch. Gulp.

Out of Shape

So, as I mentioned in my last post, it has been a long time since I actually wrote anything. Even longer since I generated new material. There is something much safer about editing isn’t there?  The ‘hard work’ has already been done (though some may disagree)  Editing isn’t as stressful. Let me go back to my overused exercise analogy. Editing is like doing a familiar workout. It can still be tough, but you know the routine, you’re familiar with it. Generating new material is like starting an entirely new workout. You might have some rough idea of where it’s going to go (especially if you’re one of those planners, and not an improvisational writer) but it’s long, it’s tough, and it’s very daunting.

Well this is where I am right now. I’ve come to the end of what’s familiar, and I’m staring at this massive blank expanse before me.

Where do I go?

The man with this plan is Jez Nicholson. It's probably not a writing plan, but a writing plan could look like this! Click for original photo.

This is the major flaw in being an improvisational writer, isn’t it?  I do have some idea of where the story is headed, but there is that unfortunate gap between where I am now in my writing, and where I have more concrete ideas. And I need to fill the gap. How to do that though?

Easiest option would be to just put it to one side and hope it writes itself, right?

Well we can’t do that, can we?  Or should I say, I…

Options Options

I was going to make another list here but honestly, I couldn’t think of one. Making mental notes and brainstorming are my usual processes, but I’m not sure how well they’d work here.

So I guess I’ll have to plan, right?  It would have been so much easier if I’d done this in the first place. But how do you do this?  The planners amongst you will no doubt scoff, and mutter things like ‘I told you so’ and ‘this is what you get’, but even planners can’t (surely) plan out every beat that a story goes. Sometimes you’ll reach a point where you have point A, and then Point B, but no bridge to get you there. The simplest advice is probably just to go straight from point A to point B (especially in script writing). It’s that maxim again isn’t it?  Start a scene as late as you can, and end it as soon as you can. Short, snappy, to the point.

Which is very good advice, which I should probably follow more often. But sometimes, just sometimes, you can’t do that. Sometimes the void is too big.

Filler

I’ve never been a fan of filler, neither in content and especially not as a writer. If it isn’t interesting to write, then its not going to be interesting to read, is it?  But the filler needs to be written. The in-between bits. And the challenge is to make it interesting. And this is I think the problem I have with my piece. I know where I need to get to, but to get there, the characters have to make a rather uninteresting journey. ‘Make it interesting!  Throw some curveballs in there!’ you might scream. If you’re partial to sporting metaphors. Thing is, I have so many random curveballs in the narrative as it is, throwing in more will only complicate things further.

So, I am not so much offering half baked advice this week, more asking for it. How do I proceed, dear readers?

Well, I’ve hit a bit of a snag with this.

Unfortunately, not all crossroads in life are clearly marked. That's deep that. Image courtesy of Mark Smallwood

There are dangers to this kind of writing.  Both Matt and I have discussed this before, but I’d like to take a direct look at the dangers myself here (since I have recommended freeform writing in the past) 

The Dangers

Danger One of course is ending up with a hulking great brick of a manuscript – a tangled mess of various ideas which don’t really gel together and require massive amounts of redrafting.  This is obviously where having a plan comes in really handy.  Even if you have just a most basic outline, then it can help.  I discovered this while thinking about my first book.  Now this I have completed, and have redrafted many times.  But I have fiercely kept some material which I liked almost from draft one, and since the project has evolved, it doesn’t really fit together.  Now, do I work some magic and smooth it over, or do I amputate the (admittedly less mature) material in another huge overhaul?  I can’t even bear thinking about that.  But I’ll go into that more in danger three.

Danger Two is that you may get to a certain point and not know how to progress.  This is the danger that has hampered me with my newest project.  It’s the new book I was writing, which inspired me to write about improvisational writing in the first place.  Yes, I had a vague idea of where the whole story was going to end up, but having completed part one, I’ve stalled.  I have to get the story from point A to point D, but I have no idea where points B and C are, or what happens there.

So how to remedy this?  Brainstorm?  Come up with a plan?  Some writers would suggest that you do the latter option even before you start the project.  But what if, like me, you have all this material already?  You have the start, and you have the destination, so take some time out and plot out the journey.  Yes, that is the sensible option. 

But how about something more radical?  More out there?  More… foolish?  This struck me while thinking about it.  How about scrapping the destination altogether?  Yes, I knew where this was going, but that was when the journey first started.  Since I started writing, and new plots and characters developed, this ultimate destination seemed to get further and further away (which results in Danger One of course).  So screw the original plan and pick a new destination. 

As I said, very very foolish. 

Danger Three is multi-booking.  How do you see this project working out?  Now, I’ve never been a fan of trilogies for trilogies’ sake.  That was of course until I dove into my first book and yes, I get it.  Spending so much time, effort, energy, blood, sweat, tears and other less mentionable bodily fluids mapping out characters and situations, you can get attached.  And obviously, once you’ve gotten attached it can be hard to let go.  ‘Hey, I don’t need to!’ You might say, ‘I’ll just write another book with these characters.’ 

Which of course can be a blessing and a curse.  Obviously, if your aim is to get published, then it’s good to have ideas for more books down the line.  And let’s face it, its easier to write a second or third book in a world you’ve already mapped out, with characters you already know.  Publishers like this too, because if the first book is a success, then there is a pre-built fan-base for the second and so one.  But the curse of it?  How much do you plan out for the series?  Now this depends on genre.  With crime fiction, I’m guessing it’s a little simpler.  Establish your detective/detectives, then throw new cases at them every book.  I don’t think like that though.  Unfortunately, I’m all about the bigger picture.  It’s the one area where I will plan out in advance. 

So you have an idea for a multi-book storyline.  How much of it do you throw in to that first book?  If I can briefly divert into film territory here, film trilogies can do this a lot.  The first film in a trilogy can essentially act as stand alone (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Back to the Future), while films two and three will often be one story split across two films, which you can’t really watch without having seen the others.  Can you do the same with books?  Well it’s a different medium isn’t it?  A film you digest in a few hours, a book can take anything from a few days to a few weeks.  So there is less room for (seemingly) extraneous material, especially in that all important first book. 

So how do you deal with this?  Personally, I have tended to map out the story for book two in a series (and even begun writing it) before the first book is even finished.  Yes, this is stupid, and pointless, and can definitely hinder you if you want to go mad and ditch the destination as I suggested in Danger Two.  But really, if you do have a multi-book idea, then you do definitely need to chart it out.  In detail.  Have an overarching plot that runs through all the books, and then introduce smaller plots that emerge in a book by book basis.  You cant just freeform a multi-book plot.  Trust me, I’ve tried in the past and it blows up in your face. 

Cul-de-sacs

Sometimes you just have to throw things out. Image courtesy of Sharon Drummond.

So this is where I am.  I am hitting dead ends everywhere, and am failing to see a way to progress.  Part of me deep down (a sick twisted part of me that I really shouldn’t listen to) is telling me that to take a time out and do some actual planning is dumb, because it’s time being wasted on planning, when I could be using that time writing.  But then, if I’m not doing the writing in the first place… 

Another part of me is telling me to just bin everything and start from scratch.  It’s all well and good moving chunks of text around to try and get them to all fit so you can open up a way forward, but it doesn’t help in really pushing me to progress.  Whereas if I got rid of all of those blocks, I might be able to see a path. 

A third part is telling me to take a step back, breathe, and next time I start a new project, make it something small and simple, two girls sitting on a beach or something.  No aliens, no government plots, and no multidimensional creatures intent on destroying the universe.

The blog

First though, a quick look at the blog itself. Let’s say that number again – 51 blog entries! That’s one a week since we started (well, almost – I had a week off last week. Okay, I’m sorry. I’m a bad person). Now I know that in the grand scheme of blogs, that’s no great achievement, but it was for me! Of course I had some help, and you can see my thankyous in my Christmas message (I feel like the Queen), but I’m genuinely proud of that achievement. And it does seem to have been helping. I have at least done some writing this year, and the posts I write have at times been a great tool for reviewing what I have learnt.

It has not been as successful as I would have liked however. Of course, that is my fault. I know the days of, “build it and they will come”, have long since passed, but in truth I have hardly done anything to promote this site. Again, that is largely to do with time (isn’t everything?) but I will just have to build it into my routine. So, that will form the basis for my goals on the blog.

The writing

Way back in May, I wrote about measuring improvement in writing. I have been gathering these stats ever since, so I now have a good half a year of figures to pour over.

Looking at it overall, I can see that I hit my productivity peak during September. This was when I was approaching the end of a story I was working on. However, after that it drops right down. I started a new piece of work then, and I must confess, I have been rather timid with it. This is of course, not the way to behave when approaching a new piece of work. The best way will always be to take the bull by the horns and go for it! Whatever it is I’m afraid of can be fixed later!

I have been rather down on myself about how much writing I have done this year. I have always had the impression that I was not trying hard enough, and not knuckling down. I was right – there is a huge difference between my best week and my average week. This shows the difference between the potential of my current routine, and the reality of not sticking to it. Still, it is encouraging to know how much writing can be done, even in short bursts. When I total up each month, then the year, it is shocking how much can be achieved. I said that I wanted to see how small improvements can accumulate into big gains when I set up this method of measuring, and I can certainly see that!

I wasn’t writing in 2008, that’s the thing. So, as much as I rightly berate myself for not doing more, I am doing a hell of a lot more than nothing! This in itself is an achievement, but before I pat myself on the back too much (let’s not get carried away now), I have also taken a look at how my best week would look over a whole year. What a difference! I took my best week, multiplied that by 52, and was amazed. I knew that my best week was over double my average (meaning I’m not even reaching half the potential that my routine offers me), bit it is still an eye-opener to see the full number there.

Once again, I must recommend keeping some kind of stats on your writing. If you are doing everything electronically anyway, getting a word count is normally a snap, and it only takes a couple of minutes to add that to a spreadsheet. Seeing the effect of small changes to my habits over time is a real inspiration. And being able to extrapolate from that gives further motivation. If you’re not trying it already, I urge you to give it a go.

I would very much like to hear from anyone who has been measuring their writing over the past year and what hey think of the results. Or if this is part of your new year resolution, please let me know, too. And I would really really like to know if you visited getmewriting last year and found it helpful. All feedback in the coments section below, please.

• How it’s going to be distributed?
• How you’re going to get the word out?
• Where the story fits in with your other work?

The reason this is on my mind is of course that I have recently finished a story. I’ve been dwelling on the whole process of getting the story out between writing stints and the picture of what I wanted to do grew gradually.

I’ll put the plan out there as an example. The story is about 9,500 words at the moment. This puts it in a kind of long-short story category I suppose (you know what I mean). I decided a while ago that I would write a series of science fiction stories around a quite specific theme and so decided that this one would work as an opener.

It is also my “practice” story; the first thing I’ve written from beginning to end since starting this website (how did it take so long?) and the launch of my newfound dedication to writing. By practice I just mean that my primary goal with this story was to get into a routine (to just write, dammit). I chose it because it was something I’d had in my head for a while, and was pretty well mapped out. I thought it would be an easy one to start with (I was wrong).

So, that’s where it fits. The immediate plan is to put it to one side for a couple of months and work on something brand new. Then I’ll come back to it and edit away from a fresher perspective. Then comes the point where I have to show it to people. I’ve got a small selection of friends and relatives I’ll share it with (I’m basically following Stephen King‘s door shut/door open recommendations for these stages). In addition I may also bandy it around some writing community sites as well.

Then, after another round of editing I’ll show it to everyone! It will be a free download on this very site, so people get to see it and see what my writing’s like.

As far as the bigger picture goes, I will carry on with the other stories, and when they’re pretty much all ready to go, I’ll offer another free one out of the collection (again, getting the word out- everyone loves a free sample).

By that time I should have enough material and enough impetus to be able to sell the collection. Fingers crossed.

I’m under no delusions about how long this will take (at least I don’t think I am, but then if I was deluded, how would I know?). I intend to write other things as well, plus I’m writing at a snail’s pace at the moment! I’ll have to step it up a gear and still don’t expect this scheme to come to fruition for about three years(!)

Still, I always said I was playing a long game.

I had begun to get used to my routine. What i try to do is write on the train on my way home, just as in the grand plan I had when I  started this blog. My other writing time would be early Saturday morning.

Although I managed to get up regularly every Saturday and sit in front of my computer, the writing part would often come slow or not at all. As I have mentioned before, I would often end up fiddling with the website, or checking my emails and Twitter. Although that was my greatest opportunity of the week for getting my writing done, it was actually my train writing that was becoming most productive. I suspect  it was because this was a more regular event anyway, and I was much more inclined to work on my writing when I was fully awake! But whatever the reason, I was finding it easier and easier to slip into a writing frame of mind every work day. I had got to the stage when 80% of the time I could simply find a seat (and not be too picky about it either), open my laptop, and just go at it. No pondering. No time wasting.

The Problem

Then something happened. I had a week off work. Great, you may think, that’s more opportunity for writing, you can get more done! Well, yes it is. But no I didn’t. My routine was centered around my journey home from work. Without that time to myself and the “mental hook” I’d programmed my brain to hang it’s writing hat on, I was doomed.

What’s worse, since I’ve been back at work I seem to have taken several steps back in terms of the effectiveness of my routine. Now I’m back to pondering, putting off, or just not doing. I have to start all over again!

Lessons

I’m sure there are lessons to be had here. Here are what I think are correct assumptions to be made:

1. Routines do work – I was getting better at writing in my allotted time.
2. Don’t break them unless you really have to. Taking a holiday from work should not have meant taking a holiday from writing!
3. It’s good to have a bit of variety in your routine as long as you’re disciplined. I’ll use an example to explain. Part of my writing routine is supposed to include writing on a Saturday morning. At home, for two hours, rather than on the train for one hour or less. If I stuck to that i would have got more writing done during my holiday (or when trains are cancelled and I have to write at home). But I have not been disciplined enough with that part of my routine, so that particular bit of brain programming was not available to me.

These are the rules as they appear to me, but some people will disagree with some if them. For example, a lot of people advocate having one place, and one place only, where they write. That’s too difficult for me though I’m afraid. I’m out if the house from 8 until 8 most days, so the train is appropriate (though hardly ideal), but not enough.

Still others might take that rule further and abolish a set routine altogether. The idea here is that if you learn to write whenever the opportunity arises rather than boxing yourself into a set routine, you are in a better position to keep on writing when the unexpected happens. I don’t really buy that either. I see the reasoning but I’m sure that would lead to no writing at all for Matt. Plus I think that habit can be a very powerful tool when used for good! And I need all the help I can get!

And right now I need your opinions! What do you think about keeping a writing routine? Is it a help or hindrance? Do you have one that works for you, and what is it? What’s the weirdest writing routine you’ve heard of?

Such adjustments are a natural consequence of discovering how much you can do each month, and maybe trying to improve on that as well. But it could pay to take a closer look, and examine why exactly things went awry, or  why they went particularly well. As an example, I’ve just been planning my March tasks. I’m a little behind, which is disappointing considering how conservative I’d been with my goals, but I definitely feel like I can improve. The general feeling I’ve had is one of a lack of focus, and there will be small things I can do about it. I set out my tasks under several headings – write novel, write blog entries, write short story, yadda yadda, and so on. So, I’m on the train home, I take out the laptop, I look at my task list. I tended to pick the tasks I felt like doing at the time, regardless of what heading they were under.

As well as showing a distinct lack of priority for my most valued tasks, this leads to a bit of um-ing and ah-ing before I actually get started. But perhaps the worst effect is a lack of focus over the week. There’s is more of an effort made in getting into it (whatever ‘it’ I have chosen) each time. All of these things waste time, and likely produce poorer results. Time, as I may have mentioned, is precious for me, and I simply cannot afford to waste it on procrastination and a woolly-headed approach.

So, Each week, I pick one of my headed projects, and will concentrate on those tasks for the whole week. This should ensure I can get straight on with it, and that I am more likely to be in the right ‘headspace’. Simple? Yes. Am I stupid for not realising this sooner? Probably. Should I be embarrassed at my idiot mistake? I refuse! That won’t do anyone any good! No one should be afraid of admitting to even the slightest of mistakes and learning from them.

And with that in mind, I’d like to open up the floor to anyone else who has learnt something from having a plan and looking at how they have worked towards it. From reviewing, in other words.