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I have finally seen the light for quarterly reviews after a long time working with planning in chunks like this. Slowly, I’ve seen my habits change, and not simply the ones that I track weekly. Now, I’m seeing improvement in my yearly planning and ability to shift my perspective and work schedule to fit what I’m capable of instead of pushing past my breaking point, which inevitably ends with a broken limb.

Let’s see if all of my reflection makes sense.

If you’d like to watch me figure this shit out on video, check out my plan with me below!

What I overestimated:

-My editing pace for INFERNO. The writing took forever, why should I assume the editing would go any faster?

-Time to write a day. Camp NaNoWriMo kicked my ass. I didn’t expect a couple hours of writing a day to tap my well so completely.

-Patreon goals. I’ve been in the middle of transitioning this page for months. MONTHS. It keeps getting pushed aside as time runs thin.

 

What I underestimated:

-My story, INFERNO. Man, that beast is the longest book I’ve written, by about 20k words. I’m impressed by it, even if it has obliterated me for the time being.

-My writing goals. I met mine for the year before August. I never thought I’d meet it. Woohoo!

-School wipe out. After teaching four classes and holding an office hour three days a week, shopping after two of those days, coming home to make my husband lunch, and I sit down at my desk between two and three, and well, the day is almost over. I don’t have so much time to get things done like I wish I could. It’s put me behind.

 

My vision:

-Keep it simple. This is where I’ve grown. I have begun to simplify my life, focusing on personal projects one at a time instead of stacking them so immensely high.

-Freelance and work from home more. I’ve loved working on this cookbook with my client, Joyce, and I want to do more projects like this. They don’t eliminate my creative well, and I love creating something beautiful that my clients can be proud of.

-Realistic goals and plans. Rather a repetitive note to my first, but when the new year comes around and my heavy semester is over, I feel invisible and forget the time crunch I’d just gone through. Inevitably, I plan for it, but as things slip loose and I fall behind, those projects stack up again to a too-full plate.

 

There’s more, but this speaks to much of the whole of it. Minus my improved power blocking—it still needs work—increasing my self-care, working towards smaller and longer-term income opportunities, and of course, being more present in my family’s life.

The biggest note to myself after addressing how I’ve felt about my last quarter, and my year, is to trust myself more with my creative experiments. I’ve been struggling with “Tatiana’s Diary” and the story format, but I’m so close to being done that I simply need to push along to the end and finish the experiment before I make my judgements.

So, here’s hoping I learn my lessons by the time I get to my end-of-the-year review.

 

Do you review your goals? Let me know your process in the comments below.