Accountability and Progress: Week 1

My last post talked a lot about how I'm trying to adapt to a lack of deadlines, now that I'm working on my own projects and not freelancing anymore.

I'd like to begin a series of accountability and progress posts, where I start each week by talking about what I've accomplished the previous week and what I hope to accomplish in the coming week.

My goals for this series of posts is two-fold.  One, I want to start each week out by reviewing what I've gotten done.  It's partly to maintain some positivity and reframe my thinking when I'm feeling like I'm lazy or not good enough.  It's also partly to help me track where I'm at in my projects.

Two, I want to start each week by reviewing what I want to accomplish next.  It'll be a good way to treat the week like a blank slate, and think about what I want to get done.  I already do this a little by planning out my week on Sunday nights in my Google calendar, but I'm hoping blogging about it Monday morning will help me prep mentally for the week's work.

I have a few ongoing projects I'll be tracking each week:

Doll stringing ebook: I haven't worked on it in about three weeks, but I currently have finished most of the sections I wanted to rewrite.  I have one more section and then I need to retake the pictures, as I may be revising the instructions based on the pictures I take.  I have two 2-hour blocks of time reserved for this, but they're both on Friday, at the end of a very busy week, and admittedly the second one isn't very realistic as I have myself working on the ebook late on a Friday night.  I'm going to give myself some grace if I don't get to it this week, although maybe at minimum I can rewrite that final section.

Ruby Ransome: Ruby has been on hiatus since December at this point, and I have a lot else I need to get done right now, so I anticipate it being a little longer before I can pick this up again.  I don't want to leave it too long, though, so I'm going to put a placeholder in my calendar in two weeks to remind me to work on it again.

New novel idea: I spent a fair amount of time a week or so ago plotting out a new novel idea I had.  I had an idea and it started fleshing itself out in my head right away, so I of course took it to Plottr and started writing everything down!  I don't know yet if I want to take a longer break from Ruby to write it, or plan on writing it after I finish my current draft of Ruby, but I do want to polish up the plot a little.  I don't have it on the schedule right now because it's less important.

Blogging and website maintenance: I do want to keep this listed as an active project, because it takes work to maintain a blog and a website, and I do have things I need to do with mine.  This week I need to take a new look at the Amazon affiliate program as it might be worth trying again at some point.  I got a (very small) commission recently from a sale I had apparently made back when my account was still active, and it got me to thinking about whether I could give the program another go.

Other projects: I really debated over whether to include other projects in this list.  I wasn't going to do anything that wasn't writing-related, but then I realized how much of my time right now is spent on other things, and decided I'd better at least make a mention of what else I'm working on.  The main thing taking up my attention right now is a necessary cleaning and reorganizing of my doll spaces in my house.  I really need to work on cleaning up my spaces, organizing my collection, and staking out places to work on dolls, take pictures, etc.  This week I'm also going to be doing (hopefully) a lot of filming and photography for doll-related things.  I'm not going to focus much on these types of projects in these posts, but since I have a lot of non-writing things I am trying to get done, I decided to make a general category for them.

That's where I'm at with all my current projects, and where I'll hopefully be headed this week and onward.  I'll touch base again at the start of next week, and we'll see if this whole accountability thing can help me stay motivated!