The Return of the Friday Done List...Which I Hadn't Noticed Was Gone

Done lists and I go back almost ten years. I often see people making jokes about adding something to their to-do list just so they can cross it out. They don't need to laugh about it. That's a very legitimate thing to do. 

Done Lists Serve Four Purposes

• Psychological: Yeah, you feel good about having done something, and there's nothing wrong with feeling good.
• Motivational: Realizing you've done something and are capable of doing something provides motivation to do more.
• Planning: Keeping track of what you've done/completed helps you determine what you still have to do.
• Focus: If, like me, you tie your done list to your goals and objectives, a done list helps you make sure you're spending time on tasks that mean something to you and that you believe, or believed when you made your goals and objectives, anyway, will move you forward professionally. Also, if you are like me, as you get closer to the point when you're going to make a done list, you'll hustle a little bit to at least work on an objective, if not knock it off. Stay on task.

I like done lists so much that I maintained one here at the blog from August 18, 2023 to Feb. 13, 2025. And then, without even realizing it or missing it, I stopped. It just drifted away.

Losing My Done List

I think my done list disappeared because I got distracted by the effort I was making to read and write for the Heritage Month Project, which also involved rewriting some of my Heritage Month posts to submit to Books Are Our Superpower. And, of course, there are always family distractions, the same kind everyone experiences. I'm just not very good at dealing with them. I consciously cut back on blog writing this past year, thinking I was making time for other things, conserving energy. Which sounds  positive, but the done list got cut without me even thinking about it.

I have definitely felt my done list's loss without realizing that the loss was because I no longer had a done list. For many months now, I've felt that I've been hardly working.  Going back to a done list will indicate, why, yes, Gail, it's true. You have hardly been working. Get moving. Or it will indicate that I've done more than I think I have.

Friday Done List for the Week August 24 Through 29 

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

• Began revising a humor piece to turn into a short story.
• Made one submission.
• Received one rejection. 
• Went through Off Campus Writing Workshop's list of workshops for next year and selected the ones I want to take.
• Went through Thurber House Writing Workshop's list of workshops for next year and selected one I want to take.
• Did the weekly short story study that I began doing at the end of February, though it doesn't appear to have been an objective for this goal. I missed doing this for two months this summer.
• Created another reading system for market research, which replaces another system I had as an objective and failed with.

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

• No annotated reading posts, which I eliminated earlier this year, because of the work involved with the Heritage Month Project. That's over. Don't miss those.
• Worked on enlarging followers on BlueSky.
• Did two skeets (don't you love that?) at BlueSky of old blog posts related to my literary tourism.
• Did a skeet at BlueSky of a blog post on the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, since that just finished.
• Did a skeet at BlueSky linking to an article I wrote years ago at The Millions on the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
• Did a couple of skeets of Medium humor pieces I've written in the past.
• Shared two Facebook posts on local writer events.
• Have been reading for the next Heritage Month post coming up in a few weeks.

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

• Received a rejection from one of the two agents I submitted to last week.
• Stumbled upon a few more agents I'll submit to next week.

So, What Does This Tell You, Gail?

• I am doing something.
• However, I'm not generating much new work. Which I knew. But seeing it in a done list is helpful. I don't want to see so little new writing in future done lists.