The 2018 Process part two Setting goals and creating deadlines

This process of setting goals and creating deadlines is something that I visit again and again. I visit it at the onset of my chosen time limit, a year, and I analyze it quarterly, monthly and weekly.

A year is not a long period of time. I feel like it's just long enough to manage and to stay fresh. Quarterly, at least for me, is easily divided up not by seasons but by UFM issues (the 15^th of March, June, September and December). I prefer to have quarterly goals more than anything because ninety days is a good sprint.

Weekly goals get a little more intense. I think a week can be planned well in a matter of minutes, and life's schedule is easy to juggle in seven day increments.

For me, when I set my goals, I look at two things: first, how much have I accomplished in my most prolific year? And second, how much do I accomplish in an average year?

If I can write four novels and forty short stories during my most prolific year, but over the course of my entire writing life, I average two novels and ten short stories, then I can create a goal off of that. It really forces me to think about all that I've done and all I can do. So, setting my goals is not arbitrary, it's based on what I do averagely and then bumped up to a third to something just at or outside of my limit. If I do no reach my goal, I know that I have done an appropriate amount of work and hopefully more than average.

Deadlines.

If what I want to do takes a year, I just can't leave it at that. It is not wise to create a superhuman list of goals and not set several deadlines. I cannot say I'd like to write two novels and twenty short stories and say 52 blogposts this year and leave it at that. If I did, it would suddenly be December and I'd have all of this to do in the last 31 days of the year.

Here I have a choice.

Weekly I could say that I'd like to write one blogpost and maybe a short story. Quarterly I should want to write six short stories. And the larger projects? The novels? Write one in the spring, one in the fall. I just have to plan for it.

Self imposed deadlines, much like personal goals are best left to the individual, but they need accountability.

Goals + Deadlines = Accountability. As you schedule and some disciplined practice the process develops and will lead to success.