Time Management Tuesday: Goals and Objectives for 2025

I have a number of Facebook friends who each choose a word to guide them for the new year. That just isn't enough for me. I don't need guidance. I need to be told exactly what I'm going to do. That is what goals and objectives do for you. That's why they're significant for time management. Goals and objectives are how we plan to use our time.

Once again, goals are what we plan to do. Objectives are the individual steps
we are going to take in order to meet the goals. I'm doing something a little different with the goal statements this year. I'm using some verbs instead of just phrasing them as topics. I've always used verbs in the objectives, but I think they should be in the goals, as well.

Goal 1. Write And Publish Adult Short Stories, Essays, and Humor

This will be the main focus of my 2025 work.

Objectives:

• Work on the starts made during December.
• Make two submissions a month. Anything. Anywhere.
• Read short-form work every day, using my new reading system that I will someday do a blog post about. Both to enhance my mind, of course, but to look for new publications to submit to. Try to read both a short story and an essay from that system I just mentioned.
• Focus on short-form reading during Retreat Week, which is coming up soon.
• Expand my reading of publications on the Medium platform, looking for new sites to submit to.
• Take workshops on short-form writing.
• Spend more time with essay Facebook group. Really. 
• Revise a chapter in my scifi adult book as a short story.
• Submit that scifi story, of course. It should go without saying, but these are objectives, so I'm saying it.

Goal 2. Build Community/Market Work/Brand Myself And My Work

I'm making this a more important goal this year. The point being to broaden readership and create an identity as a short-form writer.

Objectives:

• Keep the short-form publications features on website updated.
• Continue with the Annotated Reading posts on Original Content, which support other writers.
• Continue promoting the Annotated Reading posts on BlueSky, which both supports other writers and connects with them.
• Continue republishing the Annotated Reading posts as Random Reading articles on Medium. This both supports other writers and fills any gaps in my publishing history there. The bulk of the work is already done, so we're not taking a labor-intensive task.
• Attend virtual events for writers.
• Attend local events for local writers.
• Continue supporting local writers on Facebook by sharing their local public events.
• Update website and blog to feature BlueSky instead of Twitter.
• Work on increasing followers on both Medium and BlueSky. Even though many of the people who follow me at those places do not seem to be people who would be at all interested in my writing.

Goal 3. Submit book-length Work to Agents and Editors 

This is way down in my goal list this year. I have the manuscripts done, so I'm not going to forget about them. But they're no longer my big focus.

Objectives:

• Submit to an agent if one catches my attention.
• Submit this month to an agent who has already caught my eye.
• Follow agents on BlueSky. I have not done this since moving to BlueSky. That's how iffy I feel about pursuing this goal.
• Take part in BlueSky pitches. I'll be missing the first one next week while on retreat.
• Pay attention to agents featured in SCBWI's monthly publication.

Goal 4. Play with the 19th Century Novel Idea, Which Does Have a Title, But is Mainly a Fun Think Piece

Objectives:

 

• Continue researching fun stuff.
• Continue using the organizational system of the fun stuff research that I managed to create the end of last year. 
• Focus on creating characters.
• Focus on more plot points.
• Maybe write some bits and pieces.
• Read more historical fiction.

I See a Change

Back when I first started doing this, I had many more goals. Was I doing more back then? I don't think so. I just didn't do some of those goals. I read somewhere recently that it is much better to do less and do it well. I would not say that I do things "well" when I concentrate on fewer goals, but I am sure I do things better when I concentrate on fewer of them.