Goal Post: Week 2

Today I'm drinking coffee for the first time in about six weeks, and savoring every drop. I'm also working in my office for the first time in about as long, on the theory that I'll be more focused and productive in here than I tend to be when sitting on the couch. We shall see. Either way, the cats keep jumping up and getting in my face, apparently wanting to make out--either that or trying to tell me to get out of their chair. In here, if I don't comply either way, they start knocking crap off of my window sill, trying to kill either me or my computer; whereas on the sofa they would just give up and go away. So the jury's still out whether the office will be more distraction-free.

I also got up this morning at the crack of 8 AM. I'm attempting a new schedule, one where I hunker down and get all of my work done during daylight hours, freeing up the evenings for R&R and guilt-free TV viewing. I tend to be slightly more of a morning person in the winter, in that I tend to want to go to bed earlier when it's cold and has already been dark outside for several hours, which lends itself more to getting up in the morning than does the night-owlishness and insomnia I tend toward during the summer months. I predict that I'll be able to keep up this new schedule until the time change, at which point I'll probably need to spring it forward an hour to adjust to that lost hour of sleep. Again, we shall see.

On to the goals. I guess I just told you my personal goal for this week: get up earlier and get my work--including writing, client assignments, and housework, done before nightfall. I've pretty well got the "getting dressed" down; I'm sure there will still be days when I'm tempted to forgo that part, but I accomplished it enough times last week, and today, to strike it off of my goal list and move on.

The writing/editing goal continues apace. I took the weekend off, but I was back to tackle Chapter 6 edits this morning, and plan to have it done through Chapter 10 by Friday. I'll need to write two or three brand new scenes this week, so that might be more of a challenge than it was last week, to get it done in the time allotted, but I think it can be done.

Last week's business goal, to make some progress on my new business web site, was a total bust. With two client redesigns on my slate, I don't see myself getting around to mine any time soon, so I'm going to back-burner that one and set a new goal: start writing regularly for Demand Studios.

I got hired and wrote a few articles for them last year, but at the time the pay wasn't consistently good enough and the article format they wanted tended to take me too long to make it worth my while. But I checked back recently, and they've upped their pay to $15/article for EVERY article, and re-organized the format so that I can now easily bang out an article in an hour. And $15 an hour is nothing to shake a stick at. I'm not sure why you'd shake a stick at anything, really, except maybe a rabid animal if you didn't have anything else to scare it off with; but you certainly wouldn't shake one at $15/hour. I have a feeling that this will drastically change our situation for the better--much more than getting my web site redo online would.

Okay, I showed you mine, now show me yours. What's on your "must accomplish" plate this week?