I have found that the best way to be successful and productive is to do two things:
- Set SMART goals; and
- Challenge myself.
The challenge myself portion is what I want to talk about today. You see, when I set the goal, I am in effect competing with myself. Those types of competitions are what really drive me to be productive. The problem is, unless I have some way to measure that productivity, I sometimes lose sight of my goals and things come to a screeching halt.
That’s why I’m successful at NaNoWriMo. I have that status bar that I continually update so I know exactly where I am at any given time.
When I was at Balticon, I heard several writers talk about the ‘Magic Spreadsheet’. The Magic Spreadsheet, they said, allowed writers to track their progress, get points for writing and level up when they hit certain point values.
That sounded like something I would like to try. So, now I’m using the tool to track my writing. The link I got was from Mur Lafferty’s site for ISBW.
Have a look and let me know what you think. Anything that helps us to write can’t be a bad thing, right?
