How to Accomplish Your Writing Goals Fast

Note: this post, How to Accomplish Your Writing Goals, was originally published on MetaStellar’s Writing Advice of the Week column.

The first step toward accomplishing your writing goals is to have a goal in mind. Ask yourself: what do you want to get out of your writing? Do you want to finish a draft of a book? Do you want to get this article written by a certain deadline? Now that you know what you want to do, you can now focus on how you’re going to accomplish this task.

But if you have a major project going on, it can be difficult to know where to start. It might also feel overwhelming given how much work you have in front of you. Setting a goal takes a lot of thought, and sticking to one takes work. When you create a writing goal for yourself, there are ways to keep everything in order. Here are three tips to help you accomplish a writing goal.

Start Small

When setting out to accomplish a writing goal, it’s best to start small. Trying to do too much too fast will only overwhelm you, and you very likely won’t accomplish anything. You can’t climb a mountain by trying to start at the top. You need to take things one step at a time.

Personally, I like to write things down. It helps me get all of my thoughts out of my head so I can see them. So when I set a writing goal, I have everything in front of me, and it’s something I can easily adjust if I need to. Here’s an example:

Imagine you have a writing goal of completing a five-thousand-word short story. You want to get it done in the relatively tight timeframe of two weeks. That’s doable! But the key is not to focus on the whole. Start by breaking the goal up into smaller pieces so that it’s easier to get a handle on what you need to do. I created an outline for how to do that below.

1. Start with outlining. Outline what you want your short story to look like from beginning to end. Determine what kind of structure you want as well so you can also develop the action.
2. Write 500 words a day. This is just a small but manageable goal that breaks the story into pieces. You can certainly write more or less each day!
3. Edit a page a day after completing the story. The same goes for editing. When you’re done with your story, edit in increments until you complete this step in the process.

With this goal, I not only have the entire writing process developed, but I also have a large goal broken into small pieces. I can then focus on one at a time to create my story.

Create a Schedule

Don’t expect to reach your goal all in one day (unless it’s a very small, manageable one). Setting a writing goal and keeping it means you need to break larger goals into smaller pieces that you can complete each day. To do this, you need to create a schedule.

With the example I gave, this goal can be placed on a schedule. For example, you could decide to write every morning from eight to nine in the morning. Or you could dedicate some time in the evening to get whatever part of the goal you are working on done. Whatever time works for you. This all depends on what kind of schedule you have. Here’s another example of what you can do with the time you have.

1. Write 250 words in the morning. If you have some time before you need to get to work or school, then take some time to write and get started with your goal early.
2. Write 250 words in the evening. When you get done with everything else, then take the time to sneak some writing in before you go to bed. Even if you only accomplish these two timeframes, that’s 500 words you didn’t have previously.

The idea here is that you put your goal into action. Establishing your goal is the first step. Figuring out how to get it done is just as important.

Discipline Yourself

Lastly, it’s easy to think of a goal and schedule it, but you have to follow through with it. This comes down to disciplining yourself. At first, you’ll need to force yourself to get into a routine, and sometimes it might be difficult to keep going. However, here are a few tips for keeping yourself accountable:

1. Find a time that works best for you. Keep yourself motivated by writing when you enjoy writing. For example, if you like writing in the evening, don’t force yourself to write in the morning. If you are too tired when you get off from work, find a time to work in the morning before you need to clock in for your shift. Lots of writers get up early or stay up late to make things work!
2. Know when to stop. Sometimes you need to stop writing a particular passage because you aren’t getting anywhere with it. Find something else to write or edit for the time being, then come back to that challenging spot later. You don’t need to complete your book in linear order. The words will eventually come to you, so don’t force them!
3. Reward yourself when you complete a task! Lastly, don’t forget to give yourself some positive reinforcement so that you can keep writing every day as much as you can.

Completing a writing goal is incredibly rewarding, but it takes a lot of work to get there. Make things easier for yourself by coming up with small, routine goals. Soon you’ll find that you’re making great strides with your writing.

Happy writing!

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