How to Better Define Your Writing Goals

On Writing

A lot of us writers have our schedules with Time to Write scribbled in on the weekends (or whenever). And hey, that’s great. Setting time aside to write daily is one of the most important disciplines as a writer, but after some time, it’s important to start being less general. Define exactly what you’re doing when it’s time to write.

There’s a lot more to being a writer than just creating content. We have a boat load of things we are developing as writers. If you want better time management it’s important to flesh out what you plan to do with your writing time. Plus, if you give yourself a small list of specific goals it gifts you by returning a feeling of accomplishment. Check. Check. Check.

Here’s a list of ways you can think about how to be more specific with your writing time.

For a WIP- Focus on things you’re developing like plot, characters, their thoughts and motives, background story, details world building

There’s different areas of the story you can focus on while your writing or editing. Monday can be world building, Wednesday can be character building and so on. This helps so that you can improve on the smaller details of your larger work.

Grammar

This.

Networking

Networking isn’t something that needs to be done daily. 3x a week for 1-3 hours is enough. Anything more takes away from precious time to build content.

Self Teaching

I think it’s important to continue learning different ways to think about your writing. Writing has so many different perspectives that we could read everyday for a lifetime and still have more to learn.

There’s four more specific goals to start with. Let’s think about how they can be broken down even more. With WIP, you can focus on different characters on different days. For Networking you can focus on one specific platform or different target groups on different days. So break them down into each moving part. Doing this will help keep things in perspective. We don’t need the world to know how much we’re doing, but we truly are doing a lot. This will help you have a visual about how much effort you’re already putting in. Believe me, I get it. It feels, sometimes like we’re not doing enough, but trust me, if you’re pumping out content and maintaining an online presence on top of all your other life demands, you’re doing enough! Keep up the good work.

How do you organize your writing goals?

View at Medium.com