Schedule Success

If you want to write – or do anything else, really – take control. The idea of writing a novel can be extremely intimidating, but you have the power to do whatever you set your mind to.

More specifically, you have the power to control your schedule.

Now, now. I can hear you protesting that you can’t control school, that you have band practice, tennis, a job, you have to help your mom cook for your seven siblings. I get it. We all have things to do. We’re all busy.

But what about those hours you spend on Tumblr every night? Or the time you spend catching up on Vampire Diaries? The twenty minutes you spent just the other night, lying on your bedroom floor imagining what life would be like if you lived in Paris? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

If you want to accomplish anything, if you want to write that novel or create the perfect bacon-donut, you have to commit. Understand that you’re doing it for yourself, you’re doing it because you really want this. Make it part of your day. Schedule the time.

Because you are busy, go easy on yourself. Set aside an hour to work on your project every day. Every other day, even. Two hours if you can swing it. It’s not a race. The point here is that if you do a little work every day, it will add up. It might not feel like much on a daily basis, but you will be making steady progress toward your goal.

Find what works for you. You might find you work best early in the morning or late at night. You might prefer to set a time limit (90 minutes a day) or a page limit (one page a day). There are so many other things that come down to personal taste – location, music or silence, fuzzy socks or monkey slippers – but the universal rule on the road to success is to schedule it.

Get into a routine. Do it for you. The first step to achieving your goal is to start.

Good luck! Let me know in the comments how you schedule time to work toward your goal.