The Four Burner System of New Year Planning

Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash

It’s that time of year when thoughts turn to setting goals for the next year. Even if you’re not a “New Year’s Resolutions” person, you may be thinking about what you accomplished this year, and what you want to accomplish in 2023.  

You may not be feeling it at all this year. I have to say, I’m not. Usually by this time, I’m excited about all my plans and projects for the new year. This year, not so much. Which is fine. You need to first acknowledge where you are. It’s no good trying to force yourself to get excited about goals when you know deep down you’re not that thrilled to work on them. Remember it’s okay to set small, manageable goals. And if it takes you beyond Jan. 1 to figure them out, that’s fine too.

No Resolutions! 

Resolutions, as we all know, have a low rate of success. In fact, 23% of people quit in the first week. Why do people fail?  

• They have not prioritized their goals, and set themselves up for success. They say they want to do something, but it’s more like “well, it would be nice if that happened...”  

• They think the first flush of motivation will carry them through, without making any real changes in their environment to support the goal.  

• They make too many or too ambitious goals, and get overwhelmed and give up.   

So what do you do if you are ready to prioritize writing in 2023?  

First of all, think about your goals from last year. Did you meet them? Why or why not? Did you create a system that works for you? If you didn’t meet them, don’t beat yourself up about it. Maybe your goals changed. Maybe your systems were not optimized. Maybe it wasn’t your priority. Owning your success or failure is crucial so you can make a better plan for next year.  

Then, make sure you don’t have too many competing goals. I once heard advice to think of it as a stove: you have no more than 4 burners to work with. You can move pots from one burner to another, but you can’t add any. That is about how much actual time and energy you habve to spend. The trick is that usually certain burners are spoken for: your job, for example; your family. Those may be your main burners. That leaves two for other major areas of your life. One might be exercise. One might be your writing. This may involve sacrificing other things you’d like to do. So what you need to ask is: Do you want to prioritize your writing this year? Will it take a place on one of your burners?  

You can think about your goal in two ways: a big goal, and the steps you need to get there.  

Example Big Goal: I plan to finish my novel in 2023. 

Example Steps: I will write 2K words per week (or 500 words/day x 4 days per week – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday) 

Think about what is doable for you. It should be easy enough so that you can commit to it without feeling overwhelmed. In other words, you can have a Big Hairy Goal for your main goal, but then you should have manageable goals to keep you going. You can always revisit the weekly goals as needed.  

Optimize your chances of success 

If resolution failures teach us anything, it’s the need to be deliberate about what we want to do to support our goals.  

Optimize your time – What will your writing schedule be? Which days per week? What times during those days? Things that don’t get put in your calendar don’t tend to happen. Also, writing it down makes it more likely your brain will take it seriously and remember it. Think about how much time you can reasonably expect to spend, and also what your optimal creative time is. Although we often think we need big swathes of time to do creative work, we actually do our best work within some constraints. Writing is hard work for your brain, so you may not be able to work for more than an hour at your peak energy. You may try the Pomodoro Technique, where you set a time in 25-minute increments, take a break, then another (if you want to and have the time). The trick is to not let yourself check social media or do anything else online during your break. Stretch, get water or coffee, walk around a little.  

Optimize your space – Do you have a space set aside for your writing? Is it comfortable? Is it attractive to you – a place you will want to spend time? I realize optimizing your space can be challenging but whatever you can do to make your space comfortable and inviting will make it more likely you will actually look forward to your writing time. 

Optimize your progress – Set aside times to review your progress, and re-evaluate and recommit to your goals. You might choose once per month, or every quarter. What doesn’t get tracked, gets forgotten, so do make time for this. It’s not about beating yourself up, but keeping yourself accountable.   

Finally, remember that not all your projects need to be on the front burner all the time. There will be times when writing moves to the back burner. As long as you keep it on slow simmer by writing 15 minutes a day, that will allow you to keep your head in the game (or hand in the kitchen, to push the metaphor a little further).  

And if you don’t feel excitement at this moment, sometimes just creating a plan will spark something in you that will get you excited for your New Year’s Goals. Even if you failed at last year’s goals, this year is a new opportunity to work towards them.  

That said, I’m not sure what my goals are yet! I will be continuing my daily Zoom Writing Hour, Monday-Friday from 8:00-9:00 am ET. If you’d like to join me and other writers committing to getting their writing time in, contact me through the Contact Page or at setyourmuseonfire(at)gmail(dot)com.

What are your goals? Feel free to share them in the comments!