I’m getting a late start this round. Stomach flu took me down for several days. I’m finally more or less well. Probably kinda anemic, and it’ll be a long while until I look at anything with tomatoes again, but it’s time to get into a routine for the new year. It’ll be next week before I attempt any kind of exercise, but it’s time to go ahead and set up some kind of goals for this round of ROW80.
I could talk about production schedules and forecast what all I want to put out this year and so on, but, eh, I don’t feel like making that kind of goal. So we’re gonna keep it simple. I kind of want to make everything about simplicity this year.
- Aim to write 20 out of 30 days per month. An oldie but goodie for me, but works well.
- Finish reading How To Train A Wild Elephant and implement some of the practices into daily life. That’s one of the appealing things about this book, I think, because trying to just jump into mindfulness hasn’t worked particularly well for me. This seems more like practical application. I do better with practical application.
- Learn to quit. I know, that’s a weird one. Kristen Lamb recently did a post about this. Well worth reading. Go check it out. In my case, I need to learn to quit and REST sometimes. I tend to…um…NEVER do this unless struck down by illness and forced. I never sit down. I’m always DOING STUFF because there’s always stuff to be done. It’s one of the reasons I so enjoy my Saturday mornings at the coffee shop because there I don’t have all those reminders lingering and hanging over me. It’s hard for me to carve out long chunks of anything substantial outside of my various commitments (among which is writing, obviously). But I’d like to do better about taking time outs when I can. Even if it’s just five minutes here and there. Little rituals like taking time for a little spa facial before bed and such. Those little chunks of five minutes don’t take that much time and they add up to MEAN SOMETHING.
That oughtta get me through this round.
5 thoughts on “Round 1 #ROW80 Goals”
Life has a way of throwing us to a curb. In due time you’ll recover. As for me, I am a little way behind. still gathering up my writing Chi. And I am keeping an close eye on my dog considering the wolves are lurking around at evenings.
I think it’s interesting that your takeaway from Kristin’s essay was about learning to take breaks – learning when to stop doing things and relax a little.
Mine was very different – I saw what she was talking about more like “learning to stop doing that thing that is counterproductive and useless”. To QUIT the things that are harmful or wasteful of our time and energy. To recognize if a writing group is useless, and if it is, to quit. To see that the ad spot we paid for didn’t come close to paying for itself, and to quit wasting money there. Stuff like that…
Interesting to see two very different take-aways from the same article. 🙂
Oh yeah, Kristen wasn’t talking about this kind of quitting at all. But NOT quitting is often non-productive for me, so that was where my brain went.
Totally valid! 🙂 I just thought your take on the essay was interesting – had just read it maybe an hour before your post landed in my inbox, so it was still fresh in my head.
Glad you are finally making a recovery. I especially hate any nauseating sickness. Am going to be a total sook if I get bad morning sickness when the time comes.
Working the 20 days out of 30 is a nice, measurable goal. Learning to quit is going to be harder, I feel. But we’re here to support you! Good luck.