Time Management Tuesday: The 2017 Recapitulation Post

Ah, Christmas is over. Hurray, hurray. That means that it's now time for recapitulation, something I've been doing at the end of December for five years now.  How good a job did I do meeting the past year's objectives and reaching goals? What can I learn from what happened? How can what I did last year affect what I'll plan to do next year? What does it all mean?

Once again, goals are what we plan to do. Objectives are the things we plan to do in order to reach those goals.

2017's Goals, Objectives, And Assessment Of Both

 

Goal 1. Adhere to Goals and Objectives 

Objectives:

• Set time frames now for at least some of this year's goals.
• Continue weekly checks of goals. 
• Experiment with using timekeeping app to stay on task  

ASSESSMENT: Didn't do so great with this one. It looks as if I set time frames as part of my goal making(see below), and I continued with the weekly check of goals until I gave it up in the summer when a family member had surgery. I did experiment with a timekeeping app. Not at all useful.

Goal 2. Generate New Work Through End Of April--Adult Novels

Objectives:

• Complete final draft for Becoming Greg and Emma.
• Finish a first draft of Seeking God.
• Blueprint new chapters. 
• I have a beta reader lined up for this manuscript
• Assign number of hours per week for each project, using timekeeping app to stay on task

ASSESSMENT: Not bad with this one. I did finish a final draft of Becoming Greg and Emma, probably before the end of April. A couple of beta readers have read it. I've done six chapters of Seeking God, which is now called Good Women, and do have some chapters blueprinted. That whole assigning number of hours a week for each project never happened, if memory serves.

 

Goal 3. Generate New Work, May Through August--Short Stories & Essays

Objectives:

• Food essays!
• External support for willpower essay
• Essays developed from workshop proposals
• Research markets all year
• Make essay and short story reading a priority
• Beginning with the first issue of my Carve subscription, which I've had for a couple of months 

ASSESSMENT: Total bust. Could become one of next year's objectives.

 

Goal 4. Make More Than 33 (last year's number) Submissions Of  Completed Work Throughout The Year

Objectives:

• Trouble at Wee Play World to list of publishers 
• Essay to P&W 
• Research deals at Publishers Marketplace
• Research regional publisher for The Fletcher Farm Body 
• Consider including brief market analysis with book submissions. 
• As described in Fall 2016 SCBWI Bulletin 

ASSESSMENT: I did one and three of the objectives and made 32 submissions, which is 1 fewer than my goal. Which is fantastic, absolutely fantastic, given how little I worked this year.

 

Goal 5. Marketing Effort For Saving the Planet &Stuff EBook For April, Earth Day Month, Targeting Specific Markets

Objectives:

• Create new slide show related to SP&S setting
• Take pictures this month
• Look into adding sound/narrative
•  Research ways to promote the slide show

•  Article on the recycling crafts in SP&S
• Research markets for it
• This objective would also support Goals 3 and 4, so...multiplier! 

ASSESSMENT: None of this happened.

 

Goal 6. Support And Promote Diverse Literature As A Means Of Helping To Maintain A Civil Culture

 Objectives:

• Blog Posts Related To But Not Limited To:

• Chinese New Year
• Black History Month
• Women's History Month
• Earth Day
• Canada Day
• Labor Day
• Native Reads
• Readukkah

• Provide social media support for other bloggers/writers generating diversity material

ASSESSMENT: I was able to keep up with this for about half the year. Maybe less. Definitely didn't make it to Canada Day.

 

Goal 7. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding

One of my most successful goals last year, in terms of accomplishing the objectives.

Objectives

• Continue with writers' group
• Continue with Original Content
• January--Cybils judging
• Check out NESCBWI spring conference, with possibility of attending
• Check out NESCBWI-PAL offerings this year, with possibility of attending
• Attend other authors' appearances
• Continue with promoting Original Content at Google+, Facebook communities, Goodreads' blog, and Twitter
• Continue reviewing environmental books at Amazon
• Research markets (Supports Goals 3 and 4. Multiplier!)
• Supports Goal 7, so another multiplier.

ASSESSMENT: Objective One! Two! Three! Five!...Yeah, this one fell apart mid-year, too. I don't even know what I was talking about with that last objective.

Well, it may not be my greatest year for accomplishments, but this year's recapitulation post is an excellent example of why recapitulation is so worthwhile. Some, maybe even a lot, of what I dropped the ball with last year, I'm thinking of folding right over into next year's planning.