Getting organized involves more than collecting your tools and managing your time. All of that effort is wasted if you don’t have clear intentions for your work. Ask yourself these questions as you plan your writing career

What are your goals for your writing? Organizations and individuals spend a lot of time developing goals and objectives to make their work more effective. A writer should have the same concern. If you don’t know what your goal is, you have no way to measure success.

Do you want to publish a book? The steps to publication for a published writer will be different from those of an unpublished writer. As you set your goals, be sure they are realistic. Miracles do happen, but it usually takes years, even decades, to see that first book in print. Attend conferences and learn what it takes to reach your goal. Then, set your sub-goals with your time constraints in mind.

For the Christian writer—do the goals you’ve set coincide with what God wants for your writing? The best resource on this topic is a book that is out of print. Published in 1983 and 1988, Mark Porter’s The Time of Your Life: How to Accomplish All That God Wants You to Do is not specifically for writers, but I highly recommend it. Porter outlines a time management method for Christians that includes several chapters on goal-setting. See my review of this book here. Read the rest of this entry »