Ahh, a new year.
All fresh and shiny, with it’s endless possibilities and your newly-minted resolutions…
It’s hard to believe that in just a few short weeks, your 2017 “to-do” list will morph into a hot mess (if it hasn’t already).
And much like last year, you’ll be flying by the seat of your pants – chasing the urgent over what’s truly important – detached from your goals and dreams and lost in the tangle of it all.
Unproductive and uninspired.
Ugh.
How about we hop off that hamster wheel? Instead, I’ll take you through five fundamental strategies that will help you get inspired, realign with your dreams, and allow you to confidently make the decisions that will move your writing career forward in 2017.
#1 | What’s at the core?
Creating a platform and an author business without first knowing exactly who you are and what you stand for, is an uphill struggle.
If you’ve been trying to set goals for your writing career, without first knowing and understanding the reasons why you do what you do (and the people you’re doing it for), you’ve likely been spinning your wheels.
Before you can develop any plans for the year, you must first identify your core values.
This will require lots of thought, reflection, self-awareness…and perhaps even some brutal honesty.
- How do you feel about things like money, status, image, achievement, success or failure?
- What do you expect of yourself, and what do you currently assume about your abilities?
- What do you stand for, what do you believe in, and when you boil it all down, what REALLY matters to you, both personally and professionally?
Your objective is to discover and own those core desired feelings, beliefs, and the world view that drives everything you do.
Be careful to consider which values are truly your own, and which have been inherited, internalized or thrust upon you.
Understand, too, what is holding you back. What’s preventing you from achieving success or reaching the goals that you’ve set for yourself? Shine a light on any fears, beliefs, or assumptions that have been working against you in the past, so that you can put strategies in place to overcome these obstacles.
It’s only with this conscious understanding (and acceptance) of the deeper you, that you can begin to create goals that align with your values, and move you in the direction that you genuinely want to go.
How to Apply This:
As a writer, your personal and professional growth are intertwined.
- Define your vision (What do you do, and who do you do it for?)
- Your mission (What do you provide?)
- And your values (How do you interact with your readers, and how do you operate your author business?)
For help with identifying your core values, check out Dawn Barclay’s Core Values Workbook and Email Series. (Hat tip to Tio Stib for letting me know about this resource.)
#2 | It’s not just the goal, but how you feel when you get there.
One of the biggest issues with goals is this yawning gap between where you are now, and where you’ve told yourself you need to be.
It’s not always easy to stay committed to the big, audacious goals you set for yourself at the beginning of a new year, especially if they are a reflection of someone else’s values, and not your own.
After doing the work to uncover your core values, your vision and your mission for your writing business, it’s easier to see why it’s not just about the goal, but about defining what winning looks, feels, smells and tastes like when you get there.
Therefore, your to-do list needs to have a purpose – moving you toward your goal, but staying connected to your why. [TWEET THIS]
So for every goal that’s set, ask yourself why you really want this, and what you need to do today (this week, this quarter) to achieve it.
Don’t fall into the trap of connecting your self worth with the volume of books you sell, an Amazon ranking, or the number of people who visit your website each month.
Rather, focus on how you can approach your writing, your business and even your personal life, to start feeling happy and successful in your own eyes.
How to Apply This:
Past performance is not an indicator of how this year will shape up, especially now that you’ve begun to understand where your previous efforts fell short.
Stop focusing on what you’re not achieving. Believe in your own inherent value. Set goals based on your measure of success, and not some external validation.
#3 | Take inventory.
To move forward, it helps to know where you stand right now in terms of results, assets and resources.
Take a look at what you’ve done over the last year and do a post mortem. What worked last year and why? What are you most proud of, and what goodness did you bring to your audience that received the highest engagement?
Ask yourself:
- What were your biggest wins last year, and what did you do in order to achieve them?
- Out of everything you did last year, what 1 thing made you feel the best?
- Also take a look at what didn’t go so well. What didn’t work, and why?
Identify 3 very high stress moments. What could have made those times a little easier? Compare your time spent to your goals and visions for your writing and business. Did you spend your time on the things that truly matter to you?
Psst…want my “End of Year Review” worksheet? It’s a free download you can get by clicking the button below.
By tracking your progress, you will be more aware of what’s working and what’s not – then you can do more of what’s moving the needle for your career, and stop wasting your time doing things that aren’t helping you achieve your goals.
Next, get clear on your business financials. Even if your career is in the fledgling stage, knowing where you stand financially allows you to make critical adjustments to keep your author business healthy and growing. Running your business solely on instinct is not wise. It makes it much more difficult to make timely decisions or plan for future growth.
Finally, list out all the time, money, skills and other resources you have available to you currently that can help you reach this year’s goals. Make a note of any gaps that need to be filled. Will you need to take a course, purchase a new software, or pay a cover designer, for example?
How to Apply This:
Track your your stats (regularly), and keep an eye out for any trends in the data.
But remember, a metric is pointless unless it can be traced back to a meaningful outcome for your business. Focus only on those things that impact what you’re aiming to achieve (eg: book sales each month, email list growth each month, words written each month, etc.). Then take the time to review the info you collect weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly to ensure you stay on track.
#4 | Plan for growth.
Now that you’ve defined what success looks like (in #1 and #2), and have begun to think about how to measure it (in #3), it’s finally time to start the planning process for this year.
Let yourself get excited about the possibilities. Think about what you want for your writing career, what you want personally in life, and the experiences you want to create for yourself or the people around you.
What strategies would you like to continue or start implementing based on what you’ve learned above?
In terms of growing your author business, there are three distinct areas to focus on:
DISCOVERY
How will my potential readers discover my books/business in 2017?
- based on your 2016 review, what strategies worked well to increase your reach?
- what are the core strategies you will implement this year to get in front of your ideal audience? (Fine-tune or do more of what worked last year.)
- what additional strategies will you test in 2017? (Choose one or two.)
- what will you need to do, learn, etc. to implement these strategies?
- Starting completely from scratch with your writing business? Pick the low hanging fruit and start with the simplest strategy you can implement quickly, given your current skill set and resources. Examples might include guest blogging, guest podcasting or doing interviews. (Be sure you’re getting in front of your ideal audience.)
AUDIENCE BUILDING/ENGAGEMENT
How will I convert these people into fans, followers and subscribers?
- based on your 2016 review, what strategies worked well to get people to like, follow or subscribe to your email list?
- what are the core strategies you will implement this year to engage and serve your readers (what content will you share, and how will you add value?)
- what additional strategies will you test?
- what will you need to do, learn, etc. to implement these strategies?
BOOK BUYERS
How will I convert these people into book buyers?
- based on your 2016 review, what strategies worked well to convert subscribers into buyers? (Or to increase book sales?)
- what are the core strategies you will implement this year to increase sales? (By consistently improving your discoverability while focusing on audience engagement, you communicate your value and build loyalty.)
- what additional strategies will you test? (Consider strategies that will increase trust or make the buying journey more rewarding.)
- what will you need to do, learn, etc. to implement these strategies?
How to Apply This:
Refer to the list of tools, skills, people or other resources you outlined previously. What will you need in your corner to accomplish your goals and the core strategies you’ve noted above? Keep it simple by choosing only one or two main strategies in each area of your business to focus on.
If you have more time, or are a little further along in your platform building, you can test a few additional strategies. Dump the things that are getting in the way or not moving you in the direction of your goals, and automate as much as possible.
#5 | Plan big (and specific), then break it down.
It may seem counterintuitive, but working backward toward your goals is often the best strategy to map out the specific actions you are going to take to achieve them.
Lay out your goals for the year, then break them down into 90 day stretches. What needs to be done quarterly for you to achieve your purpose-driven goals for the year?
Then take these quarterly strategies, and break them down into meaningful weekly, and then daily tasks. Are some of these tasks recurring? Can any of them be outsourced? Batched?
Remember, you’re looking for the fastest, simplest way you can reach your goal. Don’t get distracted by all the things you could do. Stay focused on what you should do to get where you want to go.
Ideally, you want to take out all the ambiguity about what you need to get done each day. Create a daily routine and develop systems and processes where you can.
It’s valuable to understand the difference between your role as CEO of your author business (which includes planning and strategy, and determines your direction) and worker bee (which includes the implementation and execution of strategies, and determines your progress).
How you prioritize your time, as well as your understanding of the difference between urgent and important tasks, can also help you plan your days, weeks and months more efficiently.
[adapted from Eisenhower’s Decision Principle and Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix]
While most of us have the natural tendency to spend our time on the tasks in quadrants I and III (tending to urgent tasks like putting out fires or finishing that article before the deadline) – we shouldn’t be.
Rather, we should review our task list and spend the majority of our time on the things that fall under quadrant II – important but not urgent tasks. These activities have an outcome that leads to us achieving our goals.
Take the time to list all of the activities and projects that you feel you have to do (no matter how small), then put each activity into one of the four categories.
- For the tasks that you’ve placed in quadrant I (and those that will pop up), leave some time in your schedule to handle unexpected issues and unplanned, but important activities.
- Quadrant II tasks are those that will help you achieve your professional goals, so you should be investing more of your time working on the tasks that you’ve placed under this quadrant. These tasks may not seem urgent today, but are important for long-term development and strategizing. This also helps ensure quadrant II tasks don’t turn into quadrant I tasks!
- Tasks in quadrant III prevent you from achieving your goals, so block specific time slots for phone calls, favours and other requests, and delegate what you can.
- Tasks that fall under quadrant IV are time wasters and don’t contribute to your desired outcomes, so avoid or postpone any of the tasks you’ve listed in this quadrant.
How to Apply This:
So now that you’ve broken your big goals down into core strategies and specific tasks AND you have a clearer idea of what’s important rather than just urgent, let’s look at ways to execute your goal-focused to-do list.
1 || TIME BLOCKING
By regularly blocking out sections of your day or week for important tasks, you are creating the space needed to accomplish the things that actually matter. And blocking out time for specific activities allows you to focus on one task at a time – limiting distractions, procrastination and stress.
Schedule a set time “block” on your calendar with the intention of completing a specific task during that time. Generally, a scheduled block of time should be between 20 to 90 minutes (with no distractions or multi-tasking). I’m testing and tweaking the Pomodoro Technique, which is 25 minutes of focused work, and then a 5 minute break. Of course, some tasks may take more than one “Pomodoro” to achieve, so you’d need to account for that in your time block.
Task “batching” is also an important consideration when you’re planning out your time blocks, as it’s the constant switching between tasks that gobbles up the hours in your day. Therefore, group tasks logically by their function, location or even your body clock (i.e., when you’ll be at your peak to perform those tasks the best).
If you create videos for your author website or YouTube channel, shoot a week’s worth (or even a month’s worth) at one time, since you will already have your equipment and lighting set up. If you are most inspired and creative in the early morning, block your writing time early in the day, and schedule marketing or reactive work (like answering emails) later in the day.
2 || SPRINT PLANNING
I first learned of this technique through Mariah Coz of Femtrepreneur.co, and it’s kind of “next level” time blocking. With sprint planning, you’re “time blocking” projects, rather than individual tasks.
So, instead of making a little progress on several projects, the approach is to focus exclusively on one project at a time – and actually complete it before moving on to the next. (Sounds so crazy, it just might work…). ?
Just like time blocking above, your goal is to eliminate the distractions and stop switching your focus. Each sprint equals two weeks (two sprints per month, six sprints per quarter).
Look at the project(s) you’ve planned for the first 90 days of 2017, and consider breaking them down into sprints:
- Planning a book launch?
- Setting up your author website?
- Building your email list and reader community?
Break the planning process down into sprints or 2 week chunks, and devote your time and energy to that project only for those 2 weeks. (No cheating!)
3 || NEXT DAY PLANNING
Start today’s work yesterday. By dedicating ten to twenty minutes every evening to clarifying your schedule for the next day, you’ll find your productivity skyrocket.
- At the end of each day, write down and prioritize the 3-6 most important things you need to accomplish the next day.
- Start the next day by focusing on your top priority.
- Move any unfinished tasks from the day before to the following day’s to-do list.
To take this a step further, consider adding a weekly planning session to your schedule. Take an hour before you’re done work for the day on Friday (or perhaps every Sunday evening), to re-align with your goals, and review your top priority projects and tasks for the week.
Review what went well, what didn’t, and determine if there are any adjustments that need to be made.
This weekly “check-in” not only ensures that the right stuff is getting done, but also allows you a moment to reaffirm that your goals are important and worth working toward.
Bringing it All Together
Now it’s time to go back over everything:
- your core values, your vision and mission for your author business
- what you want to feel when you reach your goals
- your results from the past year; what worked and what didn’t
- your plans and core strategies for growth this year
- and your strategies for breaking things down and actually implementing your big plans in 2017
What word or phrase encapsulates your intentions, aspirations and emotional energy this year?
Keep this word or phrase visible – near your workspace, on the cover of your notebook, as a screensaver on your computer, or a reminder on your phone – to ground you everyday as you pursue your goals this year.
I’d love to hear about your BIG goals – leaving them in the comments below will give you a little accountability. ?
And if you’re comfortable sharing your one word or phrase for the year, please do!
Mine is fearless.
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