How to Make Writing Goals You Can Keep

Photo by **Sies studio** from **Pexels**
**A clay vase of yellow, cream and white flowers on a pedestal.**

My goals for the second quarter took a very long time to pull together. I’m using my HB90 goals planner, which I'm still in love with, to get a handle on what I want to accomplish.

I spent about four hours of my time trying to figure out what goals I wanted to roll over from my slow first quarter. I’ve let finishing Rescue Me fall off. Tentatively, I’ll tackle it in July.

HB90 planner asks me to come up with time estimations. I start with a calendar of the quarter. The first thing I do is plug in days I know I will not work. I don’t do Sunday’s and I have events and such sprinkled in here and there. This helps me come up with a rough idea of how much time I must work with.

Next, I look at my ideal day. I love this exercise. Occasionally, I get a magical golden glittery day. My heart explodes with the space my ideal schedule leaves me. While not a unicorn, it doesn’t happen often. But I look for them and practice getting to my dream day. It's something to strive for.

The HB90 method has added task blocks. They’re an absolute bottom line time estimation tool. I’m not sure I’ve got them completely figured out, but I’ve given it a go. Sarra Cannon, who makes the HB90 planners, put up a video on Instagram Sunday. She’d been working on her own second quarter goals and realized she’d been too ambitious and would need to whittle her plans down to fit her time constraints. She said, “It makes you realize why you always feel behind.” A light bulb fired bright in my head. I know exactly how she feels.

Here is a video of her talking about how she worked on her own quarter one goals.

Last year I tracked time and tasks. For instance, how long does it take me to write and publish an article? Two hours a week. I write one article per week, so for a month that’s eight hours. I can go further and estimate it will take twenty-four hours a quarter to write articles. When I see the cumulative time, it’s scares me. Do I want to keep spending that much time on something I don’t get paid for? I don’t have an answer yet, but a reckoning is coming.

After drilling down, I made a list of what I needed to do. It was long and laborious and filled with little creative writing. A bummer. I tossed that list into the abyss and decided I would concentrate on three big things.

Photo by Tim Mossholder: https://www.pexels.com/photo/yellow-dandelion-field-383640/
Field of yellow flowers.

I will finish drafting Killing Me. I’m using Camp NaNoWriMo in April as a springboard to get me back in the saddle. My goal is one page per day. That will equal out to around seventy-five hundred words for the month of April. If I get inspired, I’ll write more, but my minimum is one page. When I get close to the end zone, I write fast. We’ll see how we go.

Second, I’ll do the edits on The Devil You Know. Last year, it took me almost six months to edit a seventy-thousand word book. I learned so much. Hoping I can turn my lessons into a faster and tighter schedule. But I will not push hard. Even if I take half the time, I’ll be pleased.

And lastly, I’m going to keep tackling my writing communities. I’ve got a couple of classes lined up. I’m loving Instagram. Communities that don’t add value will be canceled. Rude people excommunicated. I’m not in a place where I can volunteer to serve any of the groups I’m in, but I still want to do what I can. I dub this goal “Outreach.” An umbrella for all the minor stuff that chisels at my time.

There are a bazillion tasks that go with each goal. They all have due dates, task blocks, and follow ups. The plan allows me a defined schedule that’s flexible enough that I can adjust as life twists and dances to music I can’t hear.

I’m exhausted, but tomorrow is a new day. And I have a plan. This is doable.

Where are you doing in the second quarter? Writing? Editing? Percolating? Let me know.

Happy Writing.