One my constant goals with my writing is always to become more focused and more organised. To help with this, I’ve taken to setting concrete deadlines, ones that have actual dates I need to get things done by. My big goals are defined by time limits at last, which is both helpful, and a little scary, because now I actually have to get things done. The only problem with this, however, is that very often the deadline is far enough in the future that my brain refuses to acknowledge any kind of urgency. Setting this big overall goal is not enough for me to be either focused or organised.
It’s simply too big a task for me to focus on in its entirety. And my deadlines are usually in six weeks to a month. How is anyone supposed to focus on a single enormous task for that long? It just doesn’t work for me. So instead, I try to break my big goal down into bite sized chunks, a little goal for every day. It’s like the daily word count in NaNoWriMo. I could focus on writing 50k words in 30 days, which is big and overwhelming. Or I could focus on writing 1,667 words today. Small, achievable, and in a limited time frame. I still write 50k words, but I only have to aim for a little chunk of work each time.
Working my own goals out with little daily milestones in this way gives me a chance to make sure that my time limit is actually realistic. 10 pages of editing a day might be achievable on a day when I have nothing but writing to do, but when I’m working my cafe job, or something else crops up, it’s simply not feasible. Or I just accidentally required myself to edit 25 pages a day, and nope. That’s just not happening. Doing the maths early on however, lets me figure out whether this time limit is realistic, and gives me the chance to tweak things before I become too committed.
Having a daily goal also makes it easier to keep the self-doubt monster at bay. If I’m focusing only on the major task, and have no daily milestone to aim for, it can be hard for me to tell whether I’m making enough progress, or even any progress at all. I could just be sitting there spinning my wheels as the deadline looms closer and closer. Being able to tick off a task every day that I know will add up to me achieving my overall goal means that when self-doubt appears, I can look back at all those days I hit my little goal and say ‘I did all of this. I made all this progress. I’m doing alright.’
Plus, an interesting effect of setting myself daily goals is that when I have a definite number I need to hit, I am often motivated to try and exceed it. If i need to edit 4 pages, I am going to want to try and do 5, or at the very least edit an extra paragraph or two. I’m super competitive with myself. If I don’t manage to beat my goal that day, that’s fine. At least I did the amount of work I needed to in order to keep on pace to finish my big goal by the deadline. And if I do exceed it then that’s awesome, because now I’m getting a little ahead of myself. and I love the feeling of getting ahead.
There is no feeling quite like hitting that daily goal, marking it off, and looking back at all the other days that I completed it. All those little wins feel pretty good, and they all add up to that big achievement at the end when I complete my big goal. It can be a hard slog sometimes, trying to push towards that far off goal post. It can be difficult to know if I’m doing enough, or if I’m making progress at all. But, by breaking my big tasks up into bite sized tasks I can complete every day, completing the bigger task is not only easier, but more rewarding as well. And I am all about making things easier, and feeling more rewarded for the work I’m doing.
But this is just my process. I would love to hear about yours. Do you like to set concrete deadlines for finishing things? Do you tend to break things down into smaller steps? Or do you prefer to focus on the big task and take every day as it comes? Drop me a comment and let’s chat about goal setting!
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