I’ve been feeling a sense of overwhelm for some time now and I know it’s driven by the numerous tasks and goals that I’ve set for myself as well as the daily, recurring responsibilities from “life happening”.
Having much to do and not enough time or woman power to do it is not new news; but the increasing amount of attention to which I’ve given it (and my strong desire to make my stack of to-dos disappear), has reached a preoccupation of astronomical proportions. Okay, I may be exaggerating slightly; but seriously, I’ve been on this major productivity kick for the last few weeks. And, any productivity maneuvers that I can implement to get to a state of efficiency, leading to positive results (in every area of my life), has been my latest personal and professional development obsession.
I know that we’ve officially arrived at 2020, but I’m still stuck in last year’s business because I have left-over goals from 2019 that are resting heavily on my shoulders . . . content to remain there until I take action to remove them. It’s no use in stating what should-a, would-a, could-a happened if I’d worked a little harder to maintain some constant productivity standards in my day-to-day. As a matter of fact, all I had to do was apply The 3 C’s for successful goal-setting (and goal achievement) to my daily routine. Let me reintroduce them for this discussion:
The 3 C’s are commitment, consistency, and confidence. And the following statements are my personal definitions for each “C”. Commitment is a demonstrated action with an “all in” attitude. Consistency is the willingness to work on a regular and continuous basis until the goal is achieved and then work some more because there will always be something that needs to be done. And confidence is believing you’re capable of achieving what you’ve set out to do and then going for it.
Now, I needed all 3 to be working concurrently and in full force from October through December 2019 in order for my writing goals of completing book #2 and my audio book to come into fruition. Here were my goals for the last quarter of 2019:
- Create an audio book for Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult (my debut book).
- Write and self-publish my second book.
- Research and set-up some future public speaking engagements.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to complete any of them before year-end. I started them all but haven’t finished them in their entirety yet.
Through trial and error, I’ve found that going through the self-publishing process at the end of the year is a battle worth avoiding next time around. It’s very difficult to meet publishing deadlines within this time frame. The chaos that usually comes with year-end festivities keeps many-a-person and business too busy to assist little indie authors who have no idea what they’re doing.
Trying to meet self-publishing deadlines in October through December needs to be something planned way in advance to make it truly happen or you’re looking at moving those deadlines into the first of the new year. And guess what? This is exactly what happened to “naive” me. You live and learn; and so, I’ll know what’s up for next time.
Honestly, I can’t totally blame my delayed goal achievements on year-end madness, because I had every occasion to regularly apply The 3 C’s, research best times to self-publish a book, and utilize organizational tactics that could have allowed me some form of control and ownership of my goal deadlines. But, I didn’t take advantage of these opportunities to be proactive and, instead, found myself in a very reactionary mode and lacking in accomplishing those goals that were extremely important to me.
I’m not going to sit here and justify my mistakes. On the contrary, I’ve decided to hold my head up and take some much-needed action to make great things happen in this first quarter of 2020. I mean I can’t truly move forward in establishing my 2020 goals until I’ve knocked my 2019 goals out of the park. So, my simple 3-step plan for taking care of 2019’s goals will look something like this:
- Attack one major goal at a time in this order: self-publish book, create and distribute audio book for Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult, and seek public speaking opportunities. The first goal will need to be completed fully before moving on to the next goal in line. Whatever progress I’ve made on all three goals to-date will stay at a stand-still until I’ve completed the goal currently in progress.
- I won’t get distracted by any new goals that come to mind. New creative thoughts pop into my head all the time and I can’t turn them off. I’ll handle them by briefly jotting them down in my notebook, so I don’t forget them. Furthermore, I won’t entertain these new ideas by thinking about them in any depth — not until I have time to flesh them out (after 2019 goals are completed).
- I’ll still continue to work on those recurring and routine tasks that must be accomplished on a daily or weekly basis, such as household and family needs. But, my Schedule Board will be adjusted to use any time, devoted to miscellaneous administrative activities and social media engagement, for book writing.
I plan on taking one day at a time and one goal at a time and pouring as much effort into that one goal as I can in order to accomplish it. We’ll see how this plan of attack works out. I’ll keep you posted.
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