Reviewing your progress
One thing that goes hand in hand with planning your goals and how you will spend your time is reviewing. How do you know if you’re still on track if you don’t review where you’re at? Part of reviewing comes naturally. When you look at what you have to do for the next week, you have to look at what you expected to achieve the previous week and whether you made it or not. Similarly, when you come to a new month you will need to examine whether you met your goals for the previous month and how that affects your future plans (to pick a realistic (I nearly wrote pessimistic, but it’s bound to happen at some point, and that’s okay!) example, at some point you may miss targets and have to catch up the next month).
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.
This is one of those things that The 35 Points can help with. But it really does depend on what you want to achieve. I myself have numerous finished projects that then need the finishing touches, but when, where and how? Do I find myself an agent… do I find someone who might be interested…. maybe self publish… maybe try (if it’s a play) to get it performed yourself… I guess the problem with reviewing in general is that you always feel that this is time wasted that you could be using… I don’t know, say writing… It’s difficult. You sit and think, right I am going to read everything…but that might take some time… I know I’ll get someone else to do it (Best opinion is never never your own) but then you may have to wait a few days/weeks even before you get the comment and if all they have to say is either ‘i liked it’ or ‘i didn’t like it’ you may again feel that time has been wasted. In terms of setting goals and making sure you achieve them… it’s a difficult quandry… You say I must have the book finished before June… you look at whether that’s possible (again this comes more with planning) but by rushing yourself you may force yourself to write drivel whereas you may be one of those people who seem to be able to not write forever… and then write a whole novel over a weekend. It’s a tightrope all us writers must face.