Blogger: Rachel Kent
Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Barbara mentioned this tool to fight procrastination in her comment on yesterday’s blog. (Thanks, Barbara and Randy Ingermanson, too. $5 per missed goal tip is a great idea!)
How many of you know another procrastinator? I’m sure we all do. I’ve heard that 1 out of 5 people suffers chronically from procrastination. Teaming up with a fellow writer who also struggles with procrastination to hold each other accountable can help. I’ve never done this before with day-to-day work, but I’ve used accountability partners to help motivate me to get back to the gym. Having someone else relying on me to uphold my end of a deal really does work for me.
When working with an accountability partner, you should check in with each other daily if possible so there’s no way to put off what needs to be done until the next day. If you don’t write each day, find a schedule that works for both partners. Maybe you check in on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and set the goal of obtaining a certain word count by Saturday of each week. Each person can have a different goal as well. Just because your partner is writing 4,000 words a day doesn’t mean you have to. Establish realistic goals for your situation.
Do you have an accountability partner for your writing? Sometimes this is in the form of a critique group. If you don’t mind sharing, what is your writing goal for each day or week?
I have several writer friends who get up 5am to write like I do. We regularly check in with each other on Twitter. The accountability definitely helps!
Interesting information Rachel that 20% of us suffer from Procrastination. I don’t have an accountability partner for writing, nor do I have a fixed weekly writing goal. But, for the past few months, my goal was to reach the 80K words to make my novel acceptable. My goal was to write about 1,000 words a week, or about 5,000 words a month. Best wishes.
Right now, all four members of my critique group are working on new stories. When we aren’t actively critting each other, we check in weekly. This is a big help in keeping me accountable.
My daily writing goal (on days I write) was 1,000 words…until yesterday. I read an older interview with Karen Kingsbury. She said that she doesn’t bother to sit down and write unless she’s going to knock out at least 10,000 words. What?! While I don’t have any lofty illusions of reaching such a goal myself, that inspired me. I doubled my goal to 2,000 and exceeded that by 400 words yesterday.
Thanks for these posts, Rachel!
I coordinate and participate in two critique groups. I honestly don’t have a weekly writing goal, but if I complete two – three chapters a month, I’m okay with that. My full-time job combined with my family commitments don’t allow me a regular writing schedule, but I’m making adjustments for the end of the year and into 2012 to change that.
What I find works best for me is to participate in some type of writing event. In November there is National Picture Book Idea Month, where you come up with one new picture book idea every day. There’s also Picture Book Writing Week in May, where you write one new picture book every day of the week.
Thanks for another great idea, Rachel.
Because our critique group meets weekly, my weekly goal is to complete a chapter, which means to have written it and edited it making it as ready as I can for the critique group. Meeting with other serious writers is another source of accountability to me. I don’t want to be the only one not producing, and I want to bring my best.
I have this thing that I must finish what I start. So I love setting goals and aim to be productive. My writing goal is at least 1k a day if not 2k. Right now I have been editing so much I am anxious to dive into a new project that I recently have been brainstorming with my cps.
I also belong to an awesome writing group named GIAM. Each week we post a recap and break down our achievements for the week prior. I think this is great cuz it forces us to see what we did for the past week and at the same time we have a group full of writers encouraging our efforts if we fail and cherring us on when we succeed.
Martha,
I started doing that too because I found I had too many half-completed projects hanging around. It was driving me crazy. I’m not sure how other writers manage juggling multiple large writing projects.
Cheryl
My writer friends encourage me daily, usually through twitter or fb. I don’t need much motivation to put my fingers to the keyboard. I do need motivation to excercise and clean my fridge out. They help in that area, too!
I work better on a deadline. I set a date to have a ms completed, and then I work however long I need to in order to meet the date.
I have a couple of accountability partners. We exchange one chapter a week. One week I might write three chapter, and then I might not write the next two weeks while I mull over what comes next, but we have to exchange one chapter a week.
In the spirit of setting small goals, when I used to make a “to do” list, for the first item I would write “make to do list.” Then I would proceed with the rest of my list.
Once the list was complete, I would immediately cross off “make to do list.” What a sense of accomplishment!
I then felt motivated to tackle the next item right away.