Every Month Can be a New Beginning

Image by Andre Chinn

We tend to make yearly resolutions or goals, setting our desires down in a tidy list that acts like a straight jacket, holding us to the promises of January 1st no matter what happens in February or July or November. Failure to meet one or more of those goals in a timely manner leads to discouragement and perhaps giving up on the resolution for the rest of the year.

That’s the part that doesn’t make sense: for the rest of the year. If we break our lists down into monthly achievable segments which can be revisited and revised as we go, we have a better chance of success.

It often takes only a month to feel overwhelmed by the number of tasks we’ve put on our To Do lists, the word count goals we didn’t achieve even in month one, or the weight we swore we’d lose but did not even come close.

That’s when it’s time to begin again.

If we mess up in January, we can do better in February. Rewrite the goals or resolutions. Aim for achievable and specific. Learn how to prioritize by day, week, month, and year.

There are resources and tools to help. One of the books I found to be most instructive and insightful is Colleen M. Story’s Overwhelmed Writer Rescue: Boost Productivity, Improve Time Management, and Replenish the Creator Within, available in ebook and trade paperback.

Here are some of the comments about this book I posted on my own blog in September:

Overwhelmed Writer Rescue is for those of us who have problems related to procrastination, balancing writing time with work and family, or prioritizing projects. We need to learn why we’re struggling and what we can do about it. In chapters on increasing productivity, outwitting productivity saboteurs, and motivation, Story provides exercises and quizzes to help the writer identify roadblocks and develop new methods to manage time and get organized.

The author also tells us a little flexibility and a lot of grit are the writer’s best tools for pulling us out of the quicksand and getting our feet on solid writing ground.

By reading Overwhelmed Writer Rescue and answering the questions, I’ve recognized (1) how much time I waste and how I waste it, (2) how perfectionism is holding me back, and (3) how a To Do List can be tamed with proper organization and careful prioritization.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who’s having difficulty finding time to write or suffering from severe attacks of procrastination even when the time is available and waiting.

If that’s not enough to get you going, here’s another new tool available, this one especially for those who self-publish or plan to self-publish in 2018. Corinne O’Flynn developed the 2018 Publishing Planner to keep her on track with her aggressive writing and publishing schedule. The first part is a Monthly Activity Planner & Tracker with each month on two facing pages, useful for any writer to track everything that needs to be done and when to do it. Part two of the planner is for Launch Planning and Tracking, laying out the specific requirements and timeline hints for the publish-it-yourself writer. You can see small versions of the pages at AuthorProductivity (tools for organizing your writing life). The planner is available through Lulu.com.

One more helpful tool if you’re interested in word count goals and tracking is an Excel spreadsheet developed by Svenja Gosen. Svenja takes donations for the spreadsheet, but writers may download it first at no cost to see if it will be useful.

We’ve set those goals or made our list of resolutions and faced January with courage and determination. Some of us will succeed brilliantly and need no adjustments when February shows up. Others will find the plan didn’t go so well.

Take a look at Overwhelmed Writer Rescue. Refuse to be discouraged. Don't give up. Tweak the goals, trim the resolutions, and find a new diet plan. Every month can be a new beginning.

Pat (Patricia) Stoltey is the author of four novels published by Five Star/Cengage: two amateur sleuth, one thriller that was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award in 2015, and the historical mystery Wishing Caswell Dead (December 20, 2017).

Pat lives in Northern Colorado with her husband Bill, Scottish Terrier Sassy (aka Doggity), and brown tabby Katie (aka Kitty Cat).

You can learn more about Pat at her website/blog, on Facebook, and Twitter. She was recently interviewed for a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers podcast that you can find at the RMFW website.