After a summer full of conferences, vacations, and fun surprises, I can hardly believe it’s September already! Everyone’s kids are back in school (or almost), fall is in the air, and my schedule is slowly down ever so slightly. How about yours?
After a week-long work trip, I took a day to relax and refresh. Now it’s time to kick my brain into top gear and get going on all these goals and plans I have for the rest of the year. I need to break the big goals down into smaller, more attainable chunks, so I can stay focused and get more accomplished.
One of the big concepts I walked away with from ACFW is allowing for flexibility in all areas of my life. Flexibility for what? For God. I want to walk closer with God, and if I am making all these plans, it has to be WITH Him. I want His plans to be my plans, but I want to be listening for His cues because His plans may not always line up right with mine, right?
But I know there are some things I need to be doing to walk closer with Him and to be able to do what He needs me to do. Hence a few of my goals this month.
September Goals:
- Get back into my early morning routine. You know, I always feel better when I start my day with God, in the Word. It seems to give me more patience for the day, more focus and purpose. I’ll talk more about my routines in a different post, but this is one I’m definitely picking back up and making a priority.
- Get my blood sugar under control. Although weight loss is important, I’m not going to be doing much of anything if my blood sugar numbers don’t come down. This month, I am focusing on portion sizes and eating more veggies.
- Plan a block schedule for my work time. Between writing, editing, and other work commitments, I need to have a clear schedule so I know how much time I have to devote to any project on any given day during any given week. Time management has been a weakness of mine as I have struggled with homeschooling and health. But if I want to do all of this, I need to step up and do what needs doing.
Get Bellanok compiled into one book, revised and polished, and ready to send to my proofreader/formatter by September 20. (October 14, folks . . . be ready!) I have 2 hours, M-F, plus a few hours on Saturdays, to devote to getting this done. If I can focus, might only take me a couple of weeks!- I’m fresh from the Realm Makers planning retreat with a host of projects to work on over the next month. The main 2 projects being our handbook (for the planning committee) and a new website. I’m excited about finishing up both! Realm Makers will be part of my block schedule as well!
So there you have it, folks. I’m ready to tackle September and come out on top. What about you?
What are a couple of your goals for September?
Janeen and Sara, how did you do on your goals from the August post?
If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, now’s the time! There’s lots of fun stuff coming up this fall, including the release of Bellanok and more Confessions posts!
Sounds great, Ralene! My September goals are:
1. finish revising my fantasy novel
2. plan and schedule some book events for Realmscapes
3. finalize everything for my fantasy picture book series, which a friend and I are indie publishing
4. attend an Artists in Residence weekend at Highlights
5. celebrate my granddaughter’s 10th birthday! “I’m gonna be double digits, Grandmom!”
So happy fall is approaching. My favorite season. Warm days and cool nights!
I think that’s enough to keep you busy!
Let’s see….
1. Relocate to Iowa
2. Start my new job
3. Get the OCR text for A Suitable Arrangment settled
4. Do a couple marketing events (Book signing, a couple online things, etc)
5. Get busy on Christmas present crafts
That should either be enough to keep me out of trouble or get me into it. 😉
Relocate to Iowa? How did I miss this? Congrats!
1. Finish my rewrite so I can plot in October for NaNoWriMo.
2. Keep up my morning quiet time.
3. Train for a half marathon the first weekend in November (my second one this year so continued training).
I can’t believe it’s September already, almost as much as I can’t believe how much you have on the go. How do you keep it all together? lol
Here’s my list for this month:
1. Finish polishing book 1 before September 22.
2. Edit “The Lost Chapter”, which I plan to put up for free on my website in either October or November. (I’ve already got my other free chapters on there! That’s at least one August goal done!)
3. Battle that beast of a book 2. It needs a major rewrite.
4. Do all this around my three jobs. It’ll be tricky, but so far getting bits done on the commute to and from work and during lunch seems to be working. Did you know that there’s Scrivener for iPad? It’s been a life saver!