the craft. knowing your destination.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been questioned about how I get it all done. The reality is sometimes it’s haphazard, overwhelming, and a little crazy. But I’ve definitely gotten a rhythm that works for the most part when it comes to balancing a full-time job, managing a writing community, and building a writing career. For the next four weeks, I’ll be sharing what Getting it Done looks like for me.

I think it’s important before we dive in to acknowledge and accept that everyone’s process will be different. And that’s okay. You know me, I’m very much, take what you need and leave what you don’t. There are so many circumstances that vary in each of our lives that contribute to how we’re able to manage our productivity. But I do believe there are some throughlines and I’ll share those in this series this month.

Starting with one of the most important things that, in my opinion, aids in getting it done. Knowing your destination.

If you don’t have an address, the GPS is not going to be much help to you. When planning and plotting a route to your goals, you have to know where you’re going. A huge driver in my ability to get things done is knowing exactly where I hope to go.

The path has not been straight. I will be the first to tell you that. I studied music engineering in college. Went on to pursue a career in songwriting and music. Only to find myself writing and blogging, first for free, then for some extra cash. Got a “real” job. Eventually, I rediscovered my love for fiction and storytelling. Although some of the goals may have changed, in each season of my life, I knew exactly where I was trying to go which helped me determine my next steps. If it was songwriting, it was trying to find producers that could accompany my melody and lyrics. Blogging, building an editorial calendar and posting three times a week to build my audience.

Often, we’re confused about the next steps when we have no idea who or what we hope to be. Present day, I’m the most clear about where I am trying to get to in my career. In this immediate moment, that’s selling my next book and maybe when WGA is off strike, venturing into writing for film and television. There’s also a whole host of things I hope to accomplish for Permission to Write, and so I have some quarterly goals laid out to get to those destinations as well.

What I’m trying to say here is that too often we don’t know how to reverse engineer the result we want. The simplest way to figure out your own next step is to find something or someone who is similar to what you hope to do and tracing those steps. How did they become successful at what they did? Again, all our stories will vary, but there are certain things that will not change. I.e. to have written a book, at some point, you have to sit down consistently and write words. There’s no way around that, yet, anyway. This whole AI thing is another conversation.

Either way, in this very first email in the series, I want you to very simply identify what you want to do, simply, within the next quarter. Time is flying and yes Q3 is approaching. What do you hope to have accomplished by the time September rolls around? And working backwards, what are the steps that need to be taken to end up at that result?

Here’s an example for me:

I’d like to sell my next project.

Submission
Prep for submission.
Revise the draft.
Apply feedback.
Send to beta readers.
Send it to the agent.
Finish initial draft.
Write in the mornings before work.

We struggle when we have no idea what we want. When we are not specific enough about our goals. I see it in practice time and time again. What motivates me most to write? Knowing that at some point I’d love to be able to write full-time. I'd like to open a writing studio and bookstore and spend my days surrounded by books. My end goal tends to be all the motivation I need to try to make each next right step which is something I’ve gleaned from the incomparable Oprah Winfrey. Goals need steps, action items, plans of attack and strategy. When we focus on each step, we will no doubt make the goal.

You need a destination in your GPS before you can entertain actually being productive in your work. And once you have the plan, well it’s about sticking to it. And no one can teach you how to do that. You’re either motivated or you’re not. You either want to get to the other side of that goal or you don’t. Believe me, I have banged my head on the wall over and over hoping that I could motivate other people to reach what they said they wanted out of life. It does not work. So that part of things is up to you, my friend.

Next week, we’ll chat about Working Ahead, which is a major key to my own balancing act.