Jan 26

Jan 26 How great goals can increase your productivity this year

Time management, Writing goals, Productivity

Goal-setting: Creating a personal time management system to support your dream

One of my favourite things about the beginning of a New Year is the fresh invitation to look to the future and create inspiring goals. I love to do this both in my personal life and as a writer.

Have you noticed that the world appears to be divided into the goal-setters and the cynics? I wonder which way you incline? Personally, I believe the goal-setters have the best chance of moving forwards on a positive pathway of self-improvement, thereby achieving difficult things. Such as writing novels, producing non-fiction books, or penning plays. And though I’ve had bad years and good years, I still plan for the future with an optimistic spirit.

But what if I fail to achieve my goals?

One of my goals last year was to finalise the manuscript of my first novel, A Case of Conviction, and get it published. That didn’t happen. But I’m a great deal closer to publication than a year ago. In other words, I’m getting there, just a mite more slowly than I thought.

What does my failure to achieve that goal signify? That I was naive to set the goal? That I should give up, accept defeat, and take up knitting? Hardly. I already enjoy knitting; I’m not inclined to give up; and I do not consider it a defeat.

Don’t change the goal – change the time frame

It simply means that if we can’t attain our goals within the time frame we’ve set, we may need to extend the time frame, while maintaining our efforts. And we should extend ourselves a little grace, too; not abandon goals that are dear to us.

Why you need goals

Have you set yourself specific goals on the path to your dream for this year?

If not, how will you know you’re steering in the right direction when the going gets tough? As it will. During the next twelve months, Life will sneak up and steal your time; interesting opportunities may arise to entice you away; you might get overtaken by despair that you can ever complete a highly complex project, such as writing a book; you could lose a sense of direction and scatter your energy in different fields.

I believe that goals are not just spin or hyperbole, or an exercise in self-deception. If we set them thoughtfully, align them with our values, and use them to guide our choices and actions, they are valuable tools that can help us stay on track and move further along our chosen path. Remember, too, to write your goals down and keep them in full view to remind and inspire you.

Let me share my own attempts to shape at least this part of my destiny for the year and then tell you how I’m going about it: not by chance, but by design.

Any time is a great season to set goals, by the way!

Set a truly challenging goal

My overarching Writing Goal is a true challenge. It starts with the decision to make my writing my One Thing for the year. Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, in their highly motivating book, The One Thing, give a really useful framework for pursuing your One Thing. Self-evident as it may sound, devoting time blocks of at least four hours to your chosen pursuit is fundamental for deeply focused work. And this is necessary so you can break through to ever higher levels and, over a period of years, achieve mastery. I’m going for it.

My writing desk top with C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia reminding me why I want to write

Applying this approach to my writing, I need to upgrade my attitude and reorganize my working week. In return, my productivity as a writer will increase: that means more writing and more publication than when my writing schedule was somewhat bitty and haphazard.

I aim to devote 750 focused hours to My Writing this year, calculated thus:

4 hours focused work x 5 days a week = 20 hours a week

20 hours a week x 39 productive weeks = 780 hours (– 30 for the unexpected) = 750 hours

If you’re starting to think I’m mad, stay with me. First, you’ll notice that this overarching goal is framed in hours of focused work, not as a more traditional word count. This is because achieving a good word count represents only a part, however significant, of the full range of actions needed to reach publication. Time spent on “My Writing” indicates all the required actions and my goal creates a time frame that will encompass each of the steps and phases of activity from writing first drafts to publication.

There is far more to 'My Writing' than just writing

Producing notebooks of freshly drafted text is the heart of the matter, but if we want to put our writing out there, we need to go much further. And that takes further time, many hours of deeply focused work. We are kidding ourselves if we think vital editing or agent hunting can be fitted in during those spare moments in our busy lives. I know: that’s why I failed to reach last year’s publication goal.

To be inspiring, we need to shape challenging goals that will stimulate us to work productively on a daily basis in the weeks and months of the long year ahead. My reckoning of 750 hours is high, definitely a challenge. I love the fact that it is also specific and measurable, key attributes of Smart goals. My favourite guru on this subject is Michael Hyatt, whose podcasts, blogs and books I highly recommend: www.michaelhyatt.com

Is my goal achievable?

To be inspiring, we need to shape achievable goals. Imagining impossible dreams and calling them goals would likely set us up for failure. So is this goal achievable? Let’s leave aside the minefields of life: ill health and death can wreck the best-laid plans and do not arrive just when we’ve scheduled room on the calendar. But to be optimistic, I believe I can achieve this goal: I’ve tried to calculate it in a way that’s tough, but realistic for me.

Even better, achieving my goal of 750 focused hours devoted to My Writing will, meanwhile, enable me to accomplish or move closer to reaching my other three specific writing goals for 2017:

Publication of my debut crime novel, A Case of Conviction
Completing the manuscript of my second novel, Memories of Another Life
Building a platform for Ally Preece by publishing regular blogposts on my website

(The website platform, we are told, is a sine qua non for an author today. We are also told not to use Latin, or long words, but I believe my readers are not only curious and intelligent, but also pretty well educated and open-minded.)

Align your goals with your values

My overarching goal also takes account of my deepest values. Why only 39 productive weeks? You may think I have very long holidays. It’s true, I take several extended breaks a year, in addition to the long summer holiday my husband and I love to share. And that is because I live in Italy, far from my elderly parents, my grown-up children and my sisters. For me, devoting time to be with my family is my absolute priority.

In my set of personal values, family trumps writing, every time.

Your life may be different, but I think many women in different walks of life would understand. It’s important when setting goals to think these things through, so that we don’t set ourselves up for failure or, worse, regrets.

Weekly time management framework

My weekly diary helps me schedule 20 productive hours for My Writing

Turning to practicalities, I strongly recommend the use of a weekly diary or calendar. To hit my 750-hour goal, I need to schedule the week ahead in my diary, giving priority to the 20 productive hours devoted weekly to My Writing. I love to colour code and am using red to show that these four-hour blocks are my primary commitment to myself: my priority. I used to enter other professional engagements (mainly teaching), then squeeze indeterminate writing periods into the remaining spaces. What has changed is my mindset: my writing time is now calculated and non-negotiable. When a four-hour session can’t be arranged, some blocks can be split into smaller packages and my working week extended as far as Saturday lunch-time. But no further: then, personal and family time are a well-deserved reward.

Whatever system you envisage for yourself, remember to adapt it to you, not the other way round.

And at the end of each day, mark your progress on a simple daily record: colourful wall charts work best for me.

I’m already enjoying some advantages of this time management system: foremost, I’m feeling strongly motivated and moving measurably forward with all my writing goals. True, a degree of flexibility is gone – that enviable freedom that goes with working from home – but fixing a mandatory priority saves you time and mental energy formerly spent in decision-making about what working project to fit in when. And knowing precisely in advance exactly when you need to shut your study door, sit down with your mug of tea and get going with Your Writing, helps you to be not only punctual, but focused and ready to dive in at the appointed hour. I use my Writing Journal to decide and organize the actions I need to take day by day. All in all, less anguish and procrastination, more deep work. And another bonus: you know when it’s time to stop and don’t feel guilty.

An inspiring example

On a fascinating guided tour of the Bank of England last autumn, I was entranced by a bronze plaque on a pillar depicting Ratty and Mole “messing about on the river”. Erected in 2008 to celebrate the centenary of the first publication of The Wind in the Willows and its author’s legacy to literature, it reads as follows:

From Bank to Riverbank

Kenneth Grahame

1859 – 1932

Bank of England Official and Author
Joined the Bank of England as a junior clerk in 1878, rose to become its Secretary at 39
(one of the youngest on record to hold that Office) and retired in 1908.
During his time at the Bank
he wrote The Wind in the Willows.

Isn’t it amazing to discover who authors are? People who write; multi-faceted individuals who devise the ways and the means to make time for our craft (plus the steps needed towards publication) and to fit myriad demands into complex lives. Who would have thought that the author of that delightful, whimsical children’s story was not only a gifted writer, but a working man in the City of London? He found a way to combine his different roles in life and pursue his literary goals, to our everlasting joy and benefit. That is truly inspirational.

I’d love to hear your views on setting goals and what time management system works for you. Feel free to contact me.

The main thing to remember, when the going gets tough, is to: