How Do I Plan my Goals?

One of the simplest, most basic way to plan goals is with a pen and paper in a spiral notebook. Sometimes a pencil is better, and a smaller, pocket sized spiral notebook is better. The problem with phones is screen size, and the inability to read the font of longer bullets or outlines from page to page–all at once–to compare ideas. Writing things downs activates our brain for much better recall as we slow down the texting movement by scrolling with our stylus or pen or pencil.

My goal, in this example, was to write a book. If you look through my other posts, you’ll see over one hundred chapters in anecdotal essay style book about my life as a bus driver, and what I’ve learned over twenty years. This sounds like an immense task, but it all started with a pencil and a shirt pocket spiral notebook.

Since I can’t have a phone on me when I drive commercially, and I cannot be distracted with pings and emails on my shift, I would write key words about an incident on the bus that was funny or unusual, and add outline details, sometimes in short sentences, when I got to my next terminal, or after the day, when I could still remember them and started writing.

For instance, things that happen at the fare box. – a passenger drops coins like a dump truck -then they twirl and swirl their finger to try and let some of the coins go down -someone drops all their pennies on the floor -someone asks a question –Do you call all the way? –How far down do you go? –You came too quick –I’m not ready – and so forth.

And later I would craft my responses to the various bullets. It looks like you got change. Not usually on my first date. – After I get to know you? It depends how much sleep I got. When did you set your alarm?

Then I start to categorize to form paragraphs – the dump truck – tissue deluxe – the jack knife – the dump and run – the question – and so on. And soon after I have enough content for what looks to be a full chapter, I get to my laptop and start writing out the story.

Later that week, usually on a day off, I reread what I wrote and check for tense, point of view, and spelling. This is where learning takes place, and a writer is born. Traveling or travelling are both okay. Buses and busses are both okay, but one is a large coach carrying people, and the other is a verb to clean off tables in a restaurant. Having wikipedia handy to search on another url makes for easier editing, although, eventually, I need another set of eyes to look at what I wrote. This is in the next phase, rough draft.

Most of the chapters you see here on the Word Press blog, started with a pencil and a shirt pocket notebook. They have been edited up to five or six times, depending on how old they are. The ones you see on my blog suggestion appearing below, were in the pencil notebook stage in 2012. The ones you’ll see next month are from 2015, and eventually we’ll get to 2020.

And it isn’t just editing that needs to take place after you have a manuscript. You’ll need design choice selections, press releases, dates for book signing, and advertising and marketing plans for Facebook, Google, or Instagram–to name a few.

Icing on the cake for book publishing, are the learning of the more esoteric ways in attracting attention and getting clicks, opens, add to carts, and sales. Brian Moran of SamCart, David Edward for Artist Marketing Formula are really good at what they do online, yet my most valuable ideas come from others in the group. It’s where I found out about Fineartamerica as a free website to publish my art and photos. Max Trubitski was awesome for Shopify, and there are many others you can find on YouTube and in Facebook that have already done the pencil work, and the rough draft, and are saving hundreds many hours of trial and error to speed up effectiveness in what we do. That’s what classes are all about.