Karen Foley
Lynn Raye Harris
Ellen Hartman
Diana Holquist
Samantha Hunter
Shirley Jump
Dee Tenorio
Jeannie Watt
Focus
I'm what you might call painfully myopic. Not just near-sighted, though that is pretty bad. Occasionally, I have to squint to see my laptop screen. But I'm also myopic in other areas. I get real close to my projects--cleaning, writing, drawing, quilting, painting. I think of it as a kind of meticulousness, but really, my focus on things is just set on high. Which, for the most part is a very good thing. It makes me thorough. But on the other hand...
I not only can't see the forest for the trees, I can't see the tree limbs for the bark.
Looking at the bigger picture is actually really hard for someone like me to do. Which is career planning, future planning and long term goals for me can really suffer. This isn't to say I don't have career plans or future plans or long term goals. Just that they're...a little fuzzy. And how to make those goals happen? Even fuzzier.
So, being the OCD girl I am, I have opted to make my weakness a strength. I'm going to make a list. Ten things I want to happen in my future. They can be any ten things, fall into any category, as long as they are concrete goals for either my career, my personal life or what I want to achieve in this life.
1. Finish my book.
2. Create a list of projects I would like to write in the next year.
3. Create a promotions list and contact everyone on it about my books.
4. Continue to build on design skills.
5. Buy that bookshelf for the right side of entertainment center before I'm permanently tilted to the left.
6. Wean twins before they kill me.
7. Earn enough to significantly help husband with household bills.
8. Create a career I can balance with my family life.
9. Never write a book that I don't feel is quality.
10. Never stop learning.
Now, I can think of sub lists for each of these and ordering them by proper category, but sometimes it's just important to start.
So how about all of you? Keep it simple. What is your goal for today? Do you think you can get it done?
Dee
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Yep
First goal for today was to finish the necessary writing before lunch. That's on track. Part of the reasoning for that is to have the rest of the day free, for sewing, whatever, or thinking about a book idea that's driving me mad w/out pressure of necessary work lurking in the back of my mind.
I think that's just my thing at the moment -- get the necessary, the basics, the dog walk, the writing that must be done to make deadline, done, then whatever happens from there is up in the air.
I like your list. :) I also have intense focus issues... hone in until I lose all sense of what it is I'm looking at, and end up confusing myself.
Sam
Can I steal your list?
Well, some of it anyway. Isn't it funny how us writers have the same goals?
1. Finish my book.
2. Create a list of projects I would like to write in the next year.
3. Create a promotions list and contact everyone on it about my books.
4. Continue to build on design skills. (ask for design software for my b-day!)
5. Get to Cezanne show at the art museum before it closes--and drag the kids no matter how much they whine.
6. Fix the upstairs bathroom tiling. Now. Do it!
7. Earn enough to hire someone to clean (even if I know I'll always be too cheap to do it.)
8. Create a family life I can balance with my career.
9. Never write a book that I don't feel is quality.
10. Never stop learning.
Thanks for the fun, Dee. Great post.
Woohoo! I got to check off #1
Finished the book! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!
I had only a couple hundred words to go. :) So, hey, I'm being progressive! Now to tackle #2. :)
Huge Congrats!
So when do you think that baby will be in the mail?
I also finished my "necessary" writing for the day. :)
Sam
Well..
I need to read it through, edit it down a smidge, make sure it flows. Best case scenario, it's gone by Friday. I want to send to beta readers, but I really need it to get gone. We'll have to see.
Dee
Congratulations!!!
Congratulations!!!
Strengths
Hi Dee,
I just did a very interesting class at work built around a book called StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. The idea is that we should discover our strengths and enhance them. If we try to work on our weaknesses, we just get slightly better at things we suck at. If we work on our strengths, we become experts and we really soar. Fascinating concept.
I took the strengths finder quiz and I thought it did a good job of identifying my strengths which are all in the "thinking" category. (I'm top-heavy in the long-range planning section, weak in the details. Dee, we should collaborate.)
Anyway, I'm stealing Diana's idea and stealing your list.
1. Finish my proposals.
2. Plan the attack on the projects I want to write this year.
3. Plan that promotion I've been promising to do for months.
4. Call the guy to do the bathroom remodel my mom is funding for us.
5. Earn enough to get my almost-teen his own room before he begins to resent his little brother.
6. Teach my family to be more independent so we can spend fun time together.
7. Never write a book that I don't feel is quality.
8. Locate an excellent pastry shop and consume more pastry. (This has been my goal since January--and I remain pastryless. Hey, maybe they make good pastries in D.C.?)
I wonder if you could create a universal writer's to do list. ;-)
The Big List
Since everyone else is doing a big list, I guess I have to, too...
Ellen, I'm fascinated by that strengths idea, but I don't know that I trust it -- I have to think about it.
My list:
1) Get things done each day, be productive in some way (not only writing)
2) Take days off where I don't do much except sit around or have fun, see friends, family, goof off
3) Manage to take two trips alone to conferences and not only survive, but enjoy it
4) Spending August vacation at home, so want to make sure we do fun things all week. Including white river rafting up north, and maybe a weekend to Philly or Pittsburgh.
5) Lose 10 more lbs this year. But if I don't, I just want to stay in good shape at the weight I'm at.
6) Write. Make more money writing. Enjoy the writing, let loose a little.
7) Break through some persistent barriers in my writing, or at least find out what the barriers are.
8) Paint the living room and dining room
10)Enjoy life, and stop worrying so much -- which might address #7.
Outliers
I did the strengths course around the same time that I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a good 1-2 shot if you want to take a look at both.
I am interested in these concepts for myself, but they're fascinating when I think about them in terms of my son who is a super smart, articulate, and facile thinking person who also has a learning disability. What makes sense for him in school and what makes sense for him outside of school? How do you help chart a course for a person who's always going to struggle with some tasks no matter how much he practices them? How does he feel his strengths in school when there are tasks he has to work harder at than other kids despite his many intellectual gifts?
For myself, I've been thinking about why I had such a different experience writing the two books I wrote last year. Did one play more to my strengths and so the experience was more enjoyable? Maybe. So how do I figure out how to do more of whatever it was that worked so well and less of whatever it was that darn near killed me? ;-)
Ellen...
"So how do I figure out how to do more of whatever it was that worked so well and less of whatever it was that darn near killed me? ;-)"
I think that might be question of the year! For everything!
I have these fantasies of wonderful days where everything just works together and I have free time and peace and ice cream and I'm thin... Yeah, it goes from almost possible to flat out fantastical real quick.
I think every day has it's challenges. Every project is daunting. Maybe all it is, the way we look back on the things we've done, is how much stress from other sources was on us when we were writing each book in the past. And...did that stress feed us or drain us?
But I'm thinking about it now. :)
Dee
My goal for today is to get
My goal for today is to get my large flowerbed weeded, so I can put mulch down.
I think i will finish it by late afternoon.
I wish I could grow flowers
I have a black thumb from which there is no return, lol. Hope you got it in today!!
Dee
Wow, Dee...
Damn, girl - why not just add world peace and cure for cancer? You are FOCUSED!
My goal for today was to start writing at 9:30. I achieved that goal. I have the opposite problem - I'm too goal-oriented, to the point of hurtful obsession. So I'm actually making fewer goals and going with the flow more. Now I'm off to tackle my other goal for today - making an appt to get my car serviced. Keep it simple - that's my motto!
Anne
www.annecalhoun.com
www.annecalhoun.wordpress.com
Crap!
I forgot to make appointments today! LOL! (And put my Netflix back out!)
See, splinters.
LOL, I'm pretty sure the key to world peace lies in beating up key people. (It's worth a shot, isn't it?) Simple works for me!
Dee
(who had to de-OCD the house years ago because of my son and has never quite recovered, lol)
My main writing rule...
Quality is a given, I hope, but the thing I really want, and have to keep at the top of my list, is that I want writing to be fun. There are so many jobs I could do that would pay more for me to be miserable and stressed doing them, so I do want to write good books, but I want to enjoy the process. I never want to write anything that makes me feel stressed or miserable.
This is a good reminder on a week when I have been bending myself and my ideas like a Japanese bonsai tree until I don't feel like working on the new idea at all -- and yet the two Blazes that I have in process, both of which were spontaneous, fun ideas -- are just popping along and I'm enjoying them.
I think fun may become my main criteria for writing a book...and then money. ;) LOL
Sam
Wow!
Yay for you, Dee! Good for you for getting your list down AND for already checking stuff off!
My today list?
- Return my ballot
- Clean out that pile in the corner of the bedroom
That's probably all I can manage ;) I have a feeling that modest-sized pile will somehow balloon and take longer than I anticipate!
It's my fervent belief...
That piles and Tribbles are related. :)
Best of luck!
Dee
So true...
on the up side, piles don't eat (that I know of), but Tribbles are cuter... ;)
short term goals
Since the day is nearly over I'll say my #1 goal for the day is to manage to get a full night's sleep.
Tomorrow's goal is to remember to breathe! It's my younger daughter's birthday and her sister's graduation day! I'm very stressed to say the least.
Hey Dee--Chiming in late.
Hey Dee--Chiming in late. This is a great post. My goals are to finish the school year and then gain control of my house and to finish my book. Finishing the book appears to be a universal goal, lol. I loved your list. I may have to steal it, except for the wean the twins part. And once again, congratulations on finishing your book.
Jeannie