Keeping Your Tank Full (Achieving Goals - Part 1)

Looking up in London

Goals, goals, goals. The bread and butter of the writing life. Set them. Refine them. Achieve them. Set more. Repeat ad nauseum.

I think now and then it helps to receive a little creative input about the goal-setting/refining/achieving process. At the very least, it gives us a figurative wedgie to goad us into action. 

So here are ten ideas to get your literary goal-producing juices flowing. 

1. Ask yourself: Why am I doing this? What do I hope to accomplish today? Tomorrow? By next year? Then follow that question up with another: What do I have to do to make this goal possible? Jot down your answers and tape them to your computer desk just over the monitor so you can see them daily.

2. Assess your time management. Are you getting the most effective use of the limited writing time you have? Are you using your prime creative time to do your most important writing, or are you frittering that time away answering e-mails and doing busywork, leaving your primary writing project for when you're mostly-dead?

3. Schedule how much daily time you will allot to online activity, and STOP when the gong bongs. Don't let social media become the boss of you.

4. Scarf chocolate. Seriously. Chocolate triggers endorphins that can make you feel infatuated .. falling in love with your project is a surefire way to get it finished and promoted with the utmost enthusiasm.

5. Consider all the writing you do as skill-building fodder. Even e-mails and less-than-stimulating research. You can't change the fact that these are a necessary part of the writing life, so give them your best creative effort and make them the best writing they can be.

Stay tuned for #6-10 on my next post. See you then!