Preparation Elation

#Goals! We all have a plan. Some of us made New Year's Resolutions, right? Well, mine are fairly straight forward.

Get those ideas out of your head and onto paper!

My main goal, of course, is to be home to get my children on and off the bus. It's one of the reasons why I chose to work without a steady paycheck. My time with them is priceless. It would be even more priceless if they actually wanted to hang out with me instead of stealing into their rooms to play on their Kindles. But that's beside the point.

Other than being home with my children, my goal has been to work on screenplays, finish up writing the several books I have in various stages of development, edit work for self-published authors, and write marketing material for businesses. That's a lot to manage in an average day, don't you think?

Oh, and by the way, I fit in housecleaning, tackling outdoor chores, laundry, making healthy food for my family, and exercising on a regular basis. Yeah, there isn't a lot of "me" time. So I also try to squeeze in reading, spending time with friends, and taking my kids to fun places that they complain about. (They really prefer those dang Kindles.)

So here is my problem. I am sooo unorganized. I have so many different projects I want to tackle that sometimes I don't do anything! I'm too overwhelmed. So I have started a Bullet Journal to help keep me focused.

My rudimentary schedule for the week

I've still over-scheduled myself, but at least this way I can see what needs to be done and check it off once it's finished. Voila! Instant satisfaction by visually seeing a task has been completed. I left some spaces blank in case a new job falls into my lap.

Although I don't expect to mark everything off on my list, at least I know where I have tried and failed to finish something. I can then look at it and try to figure out why I didn't do it. Lack of time? Motivation? Did something important take precedence? Did I spend too much time on a different task?

My point is that I need to become more organized if I'm going to attempt to make a living off my writing. My biggest goal...perhaps one would call it my New Year's Resolution...is to get organized to I can take tiny bites from my list instead of staring at everything as if I need to swallow it whole. Because, frankly, I know that'll just make me choke. And nothing will get done if that happens.

Next, I'll talk about my main goals and how I plan to handle them.