Hi friends, I have a lot to share this week, let’s start straightway.
First, from Monday, I started 30 Days LinkedIn Sprint along with Tom Kuegler and his crew. Today is just Day 4, and it is already a fantastic journey. My first post had 1957 views and 58 comments, and I have gained 100 new fans. Before that, I averaged 200-500 views and hardly had more than 3 comments.
I am also meeting a lot of freelancers who can help me with my business. Yesterday I met a coach who is going to help me create a course - Writing A Book In One Week - a course I wanted to develop since I wrote the book How To Write and Publish An Ebook In One Week.
On Monday I received my copy of the 2022 Author’s Planner and Bullet Journal. I love it. It has everything I needed and the paper is thick and doesn't leave ink marks on the other side. I have started populating it using my productivity system which I am going to share with you here.
This year my action plan is:
To set monthly goals in addition to annual goals. But no more than six per month. At the end of the month, review the ones that I didn’t achieve, and evaluate if I want to still pursue them. If not, I let them go without feeling guilty.
Instead of daily To-Do lists, I will make a weekly To-Do list (my Bullet Journal has a place for it). I will pick tasks from this list and distribute them over to the week. For smaller tasks, I will leave them on the weekly list and do them whenever I can during the week.
I will note all ideas I get during the week in the ideas column so that I don’t lose them. Some of them will be worth acting upon straightway; others might need to incubate for a while.
I will only have one task as the focus for the day. I call it Daily Focus Task (DFT). I will make sure I must accomplish my DFT. For example, yesterday’s DFT was to write and publish an article on Medium. I did it. Today’s DFT is to write and post this newsletter along with the sketch. As long as I do it, I should feel satisfied. No more lamenting about unfinished tasks. Imagine this if I could get the most important task of the day, in one year, I will get 365 important tasks done. Honestly, that will be quite something.
I will not have more than six tasks each day (only three on Saturdays and Sundays). Some of them are permanent, e.g. walking (or gym or yoga) and writing a LinkedIn post. Others could be work or home-related. I will try and finish all six, but I will not beat myself over it if I can’t on certain days. Life happens, and other things will take their place. I will simply move them later in the week.
I have started working on the business plan. I have an entire section on the Author Business Plan at the beginning of the journal, which as pointers for what should be included in your plan. I will share it in more detail in my next newsletter but in a nutshell, my plan for this year is:
Theme: GROWTH. Grow my backlist, grow my reader base, grow my business and grow my skills.
Guiding Principle: Create that doesn’t exist.
In fiction, finish my novel and self-publish it.
In non-fiction, write 5 books 4 journals, 2 picture books for adults.
Exercise first thing in the morning rather than in the evenings.
Write a post a day on LinkedIn, 2 articles a week on Medium, and 1 newsletter a week.
I will record exercises, LinkedIn posting, and article/newsletter writing on Scienfied like tracker to keep me motivated.
If you wish to get the 2022 Authors Planner and Bullet Journal it is available both in hardback and softcover from Amazon. You can get it here.
That’s all from me this week.
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