An Endless Battle: Fighting Time

You’ve set your goals for the year, month, and week. Now you find yourself struggling to find the time to reach those goals. Now what?

Give up? Adjust your goals? Work harder? Giving up is not an option. Write that on a piece of paper and tape it to your computer monitor. Adjusting your goals is an option, but is it necessary?

Let’s take a quick look at my first week and a half. My week began on the 1st of the year, which was a Saturday. So, I’ve set my weekly goals from Saturday to Saturday.

I made great progress on my first three days. The fourth day, I had to work and developed a major headache. On the fifth day, I wrote for a couple of hours that morning, but found myself unusually tired and ended up sleeping most of the day away. The sixth day, my kitten was scratched in the eye and I had to take him to the vet. On that same day, my radiator developed a major leak and had to be replaced. Since the car couldn’t be moved anywhere, I took on the task myself. On the sixth day, I completed this task. On the seventh day, I made more writing progress. I was able to fit in a little writing each day and complete my goals for this first week, but it was tough.

The first day of the week, being a workday, I decided to take the day off. I made great progress on the next two days after the resting day. The third day, I had to take kittens to the vet to be neutered, and decided it was a good time to clean the house without them under my feet. In the mist of all this, my kitchen faucet decided to break, and yes it was up to me to fix it. Today, the fourth day, I worked and developed a major headache. I pushed through that and I am now fulfilling my blog post goal.

Do I need to adjust my goals? Not necessarily.

Most of the interruptions for the week were unusual. I was able to complete my goals that first week. Will I complete my goals this week? I will try but it’s not looking good. If you’ve had this much trouble with your first weeks in reaching your goal, give yourself a break. And don’t give up. Keep track of why you didn’t write that day. When you look back at the accomplishments also look at the interruptions. Adjust your goals if needed.

If you’ve missed writing because you had a television show on three nights that week and watched instead of writing, you may need to work harder.

But, in case you didn’t notice, look back at the sixth day of my first week. Don’t overdo it, because you’ll just miss out on a whole day's worth of writing.

How are you doing with your goals so far?