Yearly Wrap-Up (Part 5) Weekly goals

And I'm moving down the increments of goals. We have now reached setting weekly goals.

I confess that in January 2005 I joined a online group that Amy Atwell was forming called GIAM: Goal setting, Inspiration, Amity, and Motivation. This group originated with RWA members who had achieved their PRO status of finishing a manuscript and attempting to publish it. This original group capped out at 55 members, about half of which are still active within the group. Sinch then, GIAM now expanded into four online goal-oriented loops, with a new one forming called GoPRO for writers struggling to finish their first manuscript. And I don't know where I'd be without this wonderful group of women--there are guys in the groups, just not in this particular group. This group has offered {{HUGS}} , ***CRAAAACK*** the whip, and a heavy encouragement of BICHOK {Butt In Chair Hands On Keyboard}, and WARM FUZZIES when needed.

Setting goals or belonging to a goals group will not help you get published, but it will help you set goals and deadlines to prepare for the day when you do have solid deadlines to meet. It trains you to work from home, or elsewhere, ignoring distractions to finish your obligations to yourself. Goals can change, but the only way to challenge yourself is to set goals that are slightly out of your reach. You must learn to push yourself to the next level, because no one else is going to do it.

So, for weekly goals, I am obligated to myself and my goals group to share my intentions for the week and recap my previous weeks goals, whether or not I achieved my goals. I think this is the biggest part of stating goals, you have to be responsible for whatever happens. So you didn't make your 5,000 word goal, BUT maybe you wrote 3,000 words. That's still 3K more than you could have done, and if you write in Times New Roman, that's about 10 pages. Not bad! So even if you didn't succeed 100% in your goals for that week, it doesn't mean you didn't succeed.

When I set my weekly goals I take into account what is going on that week.
--what's going on with the family? Health issues?
--am I working at my day job? How many hours?
--is the kid home from school? Do I have to chauffeur her to XX number of activities?
--do I have to get the house ready for company? Is the dust so deep you can make dust bunny poop piles?
--do I have a ton of errands and chores to accomplish? Getting my hair trimmed and colored takes 2-3 hours minimum--not because it's that grey, but it just does.
--did I forget that I volunteered to judge a RWA contest and just got a packet of five submissions, consisting of forty manuscript pages and a ten page synopsis with a detailed five page scoresheet? Been there!
--do you write on the weekends only? Or are your weekends reserved for family?
--is your day so busy you come home so exhausted that you are too tired to even sit at the computer? Or you don't want to even look at the computer because you are inputting information for the day job?
--when are you the most creative? Morning? Night? After everyone goes to bed? Or before anyone gets up in the morning?
-- do you want to keep track of what you write by time? XX minutes/day? by word count? or page count?

These are all the things you need to think about when you set your weekly goals. You might be so new to the writing game that you don't know when you are most creative, or you can only allow yourself 15 minutes a day to write--uh, that would actually be a good goal. :-) Take a look at your Outlook calendar or wall calendar. How full or empty is your week? Once you have that info you can set a weekly goal.

I don't write on the weekends. They are reserved for family. I don't write past three in the afternoon as I go collect my kidlet at 3:20 and the rest of the day and evening is for family. I actually have 9-3 blocked out on my Outlook calendar, but I also have my other appointments alongside my writing. For me, my weekly goal is not to allow my other obligations to take the place of writing--yes, spider solitaire did that for awhile, now I've switched to Farmville and Cafe World. *sigh* if it's not one thing, it's another.

So what does a typical Margaret week look like?
Here's this last week's goals:
--Jog/walk or Wii Fit 4X this week--nope, bunged up knee--Aleve helps
--read--yep, Soul Magic by Jen Lyon
--work on baby afghan for goddaughter--Yep on the weekend
--Christmas candy--YES!! I made over 11 pounds of fudge (4 varieties), 3 lbs. peanut brittle, 3 lbs turtles, 2 lbs English toffee, and over 25 lbs of filled candies (16 different fillings) It took me over 4 10-hour days to make all this! Whew!
--Christmas cards--done, hubster did most of the work. :-)
--Christmas shopping

My goals are in black and what I did is in red. True, there are no writing goals, but if I showed you my monthly goal you would see:
--NO WRITING RELATED GOALS
I knew I wouldn't get any writing accomplished, so I'm not even attempting it. From about mid-November until the family goes back to work and school, I don't plan to write. I have critiqued for a friend, judged contests, and edited previously written material, but no new stuff as I have too much on my mind and can't concentrate.

Documenting weekly goals. Since I have my goals group to help me, I send my bullet pointed (notice the bullet point pattern?? It's the way I function best, but you need to figure out what works for you.) recap and goals to my group, then I cut and paste this week's goals in a new email document and save it under drafts. I know it's there as it taunts me every time I open my email program.

On Wednesday, I'll discuss daily writing goals . . . uh, it might be a VERY short list since I stink at daily goals. Sorry, but it is what it is.

Write on!