Afraa Articles: [EzineArticles] Achieve Your Writing Goals and End the Year with a Bang

Achieve Your Writing Goals and End the Year with a Bang

Don't Give Up On Your Writing Goals

At the beginning of the year, many of us make resolutions by setting personal and professional goals. These goals may include losing weight and staying in shape. For those of us in the writing field, we may resolve to write X amount of articles before the year is out.

If you've achieved your writing goals and then some, go ahead and skip to the end - we want your feedback. If you haven't achieved your goals and you're guilty of procrastination, then read on - this one is for you.

The Parallels of Exercise and Writing

When you exercise, you benefit by pushing yourself and giving each session an extra 10%. You can't reap the rewards of exercise (e.g., better health, more energy, and a toned body) by merely showing up, nor will you sustain a healthy body if you stop going. You have to put in continuous effort to get results - you're in it for the long haul.

The same is true for writing! You may write an article or even write twenty articles and find brief measures of success in it. However, a year or more down the road you will find you aren't garnering the results you desired. To be truly successful, you have to promise yourself that you're in it for the long haul to reap the benefits of increased credibility, leveraged authority, and amplified exposure.

All you have to do is put forth the effort: Write on a consistent basis and give your articles an extra 10% by increasing quality to attract and maintain an audience. Write 5 articles/week or write 1/week - whatever it is, set a goal and regularly exercise your writing muscles to keep them strong.

All that sounds great, but to a procrastinator or to the perpetually "swamped," this may sound greater in hindsight. Don't give up! You can still end this year with a bang by giving it all you've got.

5 Steps to Reach Your Goals in a Pinch

First, these steps are meant for those in a time crunch or for those who have a fast approaching deadline. It's recommended you develop a structured plan that helps you achieve your goals so you aren't scrambling at the end to meet your goal.

Next, use these steps to prioritize your tasks to make time for writing, budget your time effectively, and go out with a bang!

1. Identify Your Priorities - What tasks hold the greatest value (biggest ROI)? Make a list of everything you do in a given day and rank it starting with 1 as your highest priority. Delegate anything that is low priority. If delegation isn't possible, let it go (deep breath) to make room for tasks that hold the greatest value to you.

2. Break it Down - Break down your tasks into actionable steps. For example, instead of "send tweet," you might be break it down to "brainstorm tweet ideas," "write tweets," and "schedule/post tweet." A more specific writing example would include "brainstorm article topics," "outline article," "draft article," "edit article," and "submit article."

3. Increase Efficiency - Eliminate the following:

Time sinks or activities that take up huge chunks of your time with little to no value
Self-induced or outside distractions that make you lose your focus
Multi-tasking or not giving one task your full attention at any given time

4. Create a Plan - In the amount of time you have before your deadline, calculate how long it will take to perform a given task and schedule it at least a day in advance. To amp up your writing efforts, take a day to write (or two or three - whatever you can). Clear your schedule and dedicate every resource you have to reaching your writing goal on that day.

5. Execute - Spring into action with every fiber of your being! Give every article an extra 10% of quality and originality to increase your ROI and exercise those article writing muscles.

Go now! Make your plan and get everyone (friends, family, and peers) on board. Don't go out of this year with a whimper simply because you didn't make your goal. End it with a bang!

Met your article writing goals for the year? Congratulations! How did you do it? Our readers would love to hear from you in the comments section of this post online.