How to write

Success isn’t fickle or unpredictable. In fact, success is the result of careful planning and following through. Anyone can succeed if they create a focused plan, follow the plan and act consistently.

Begin with your long term goals.  Make certain they correspond to your core values and beliefs.  If your core beliefs include ideas like “Money is the root of all evil” and your long term goal is to amass wealth you will falter and fail. You can not succeed if your goals and core values or beliefs  are in conflict; change either your goals or your beliefs.

Once you have a list of long term goals, determine the short term goals which will move you closer to your objective.  For example, your long term goal is to retire in the next ten years.  Your short term goals may include: Pay off debt (begin with highest interest debt and those with smallest balance), save 10% income, invest 12% in 401K or IRA.

For each short term goal, create weekly and daily task lists.

You won’t be able to do everything, all at once. It’s critical  to prioritize your tasks and goals according to urgency and importance.  The following categories were suggested in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

• Not important and not urgent - watching TV, reading gossip magazines or keeping up with office rumors.

• Not important but urgent - mailing party invitations, attending a neighborhood meeting, returning sales calls, confirming reservations.

• Important but not urgent - calling a friend, working on your novel, attending a class to improve your skills, exercise

• Important and urgent - quit smoking, work on projects with upcoming deadlines, file taxes

Your last priority will be items deemed “Not Important and Not Urgent”.  In fact, unimportant, non urgent tasks are time wasters and should be eliminated. However, your first priority is not “Important and Urgent” tasks, although they will demand your time and attention.  Covey recommends you give priority to “Important but Not Urgent” tasks to keep the urgent tasks at bay.  If you spend all your time responding to urgent demands, you won’t have the time or energy to focus on tasks that provide long term pay off.  You spend your time putting out fires instead of installing sprinkler systems.

You can’t ignore the urgent tasks in your life. Instead, you need to manage them before they become urgent issues. To begin, address the “Important and Urgent” tasks and eliminate the time wasters from your day, apply that time to “Important but Not Urgent” tasks.  Gradually, the number of urgent tasks will decline, so you can spend more time on “Important but Not Urgent” items.

Here is an example of how you can apply these steps to your writing