Just Arrived - A New Year!

Nothing is more exciting to me than starting a New Year. Resolutions to work harder and do better flow from an upbeat mindset onto paper. Then life happens.

Maybe you find you have to move. Maybe someone gets sick - or gets married! You may find unexpected hours spent trying to learn a new craft or marketing technique, or a new piece of software. An opportunity may come up that, while exciting and worthwhile, totally messes up your schedule.

Whether good times or hard times, you have to figure out how to manage your time and your projects so that your goals don't slip away in the bubbling stream of "busy-ness."

If you allow yourself to compare your accomplishments to others' - particularly the top authors making six figures a year - you may feel "behind" no matter how much you get done. I've moved at least twenty times in the last eighteen years, seven of those moves overseas. My husband was in a motorcycle accident during that time, proceeded by two years of unemployment. I had very few moments of feeling settled during the first fifteen years, and I've always felt I never get quite enough done in my writing career.

Nevertheless, during that time I finished my master's degree in creative writing, figured out how to publish my first novel in 2011, wrote short stories for two anthologies, published eight more titles, taught a variety of online classes, became a writing coach, and more.

More Accomplished with Less Stress

Are you stressing out about how much you didn't get done last year? Are you worried about how to accomplish more without losing your family or your mind? Wherever you are in your career, time management is often one of the biggest challenges. Every New Year’s Eve, as the fireworks explode, we try to figure out how to make our goals into our reality.

The first step is to begin to believe that if you are like most creative people, you cannot accomplish everything on your To Do list in this lifetime. You need to prioritize. So time and project management becomes all about making choices. But it's also about believing you can do this. 

The second step is to stop trying to do it all, alone, with a plan you have in your head. Join me and other like-minded people and we will create a personalized plan for the year, a plan that will work for you.

Doesn't Matter If You're
a Plotter or a Pantser

You may be the kind of writer who writes pages of notes and creates detailed color-coded spreadsheets about your novel. Or you might be someone who prefers to wing it, letting the story take you where it will, discovering what happens as you type.

I will present you with a variety of ways to look at goal setting and time management specifically designed for writers. Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, this interactive course will help you design a game plan that will work for your writing life. (If you are an entrepreneur with a creative business, you'll find that many of these techniques are adaptable to your situation as well.)

Keep It Simple

Although I will provide you with a lot of material to create a plan tailored to fit your needs, you only need to do three things:

How It Works

• Create your Master Goals List
  Write down on paper every goal and plan you have for the year, from losing ten pounds to attending every home game for your daughter's basketball team to writing two books and three short stories. Everything. Then prioritize and break it into workable chunks.
  
• Track your Accomplishments
  Whether you use a Done Journal, a spreadsheet on your computer, a printout in a binder, or a giant wall calendar with colorful "Done!" stickers, you need to know what you achieved and how long it took. Then you can update your annual plan to keep your monthly and quarterly goals achievable.
  
• Reward yourself!
  Most people don't reward themselves for what they've accomplished, so they feel they haven't gotten much done as weeks turn into months and a new year looms again. Create a "Rewards Menu" and decide in advance what you'll celebrate and how. Your accomplishments will be memorable and you'll feel better about yourself. (And that translates into more energy to do even more!)
  

If you have some big writing goals this year, this is the course for you.

In Going the Distance, you will get 12 full lessons helping you to create a written plan for the year. You'll also get four weekly check-in video calls with the whole class so we can help each other get back on track and encourage each other in meeting our goals.

New this year - Each lesson will have video, downloadable audio, and downloadable transcripts so you can learn the way you like.

Also new - membership in the class is now lifetime membership!

Yes, I want to start getting organized now!