I know, many of you are thinking…what? Snow?…Yes, but what I see are WINDOWS. And light. And occasionally ducks and geese. But most of all…a long-awaited dream nearly finished.
We’ve lived in our current house for 4 years and when we moved in, we envisioned a completely remodeled home (it was a basic 1969 split level that still had the original cabinets, a pink kitchen, and a space that desperately needed updating).
We spent 2019 gutting the house and rebuilding it (here are a couple shots).
In our excellent remodel, however, there was no place for my office. I was still a nomad—not having a settled place to write, to work, to hold online conferences, anything I needed to do for my job. (you might remember, for a long time, I was in the back hallway)
I dreamed of an office. But it had to wait until the rest of the house was nearly finished. Fine. Whatever.
This past spring, we finally dove into the project. With the help of a local building company, who put up the rough exterior, we ran heating, electrical, sheet-rocked, painted, installed the ceiling, the fixtures…
And last weekend…I moved in. (BTW, we have more furniture in here than will be…we are now tackling the 3 season–soon to be 4 season porch!)
I am pretty amazed that we managed to get to this place, but more than that, OUR CHILDREN were amazed. My daughter confessed this weekend that when we bought the house, she and her husband shook their heads at our plans…
Me too. But here’s our trick…
We envisioned the house.
We created a plan.
And, we SCHEDULED the plan.
It looked, in the final phase, like this.
Working mostly weekends, we established mini goals that got stuff done.
The fact is, vision and dreaming only get you so far. You have to SCHEDULE yourself to DO the things you’ve dreamed about.
I have a personal rule (after a number of disasters), I only agree to read a book, take a class, get together with friends, or even work on a personal project if I can SCHEDULE it into my life. I have to look at my calendar and ask myself if I have time for it. (And if I don’t, I ask, does this task have a high enough value to kick something else off the schedule? BTW, prioritizing by values is an entirely different conversation—we’ll talk about that in the near future).
Our goals are actually just DREAMS until we schedule them. Dreams inspire. Lists bring us down to earth. SCHEDULES get stuff done.
We’re coming up to NaNoWriMo. My best tip for success? SCHEDULE your writing time.
I’ll have a few more tricks in upcoming Monday notes…but for now–write down how many words you want to write in Nov (50K?), then get your calendar out and SCHEDULE your writing sessions to get those words written. (here’s another trick…give yourself a word count goal for each session!)
I have no doubt you’ll knock it out of the park.
And then you’ll have THIS VIEW.
Right?
Your story matters. Go, Write Something Brilliant!
Susie May
P.S Want to get serious about getting stuff done? The 2021 My Story Matters: My Brilliant Writing Planner is out! And it’s available in 4 brilliant sizes, for all the brilliant writers! And–we’ve SIMPLIFIED the planner this year (to the cheer of nearly everyone I’ve talked to. Including my daughter!). if you’ve struggled a little with the amount of planning pages in the past…I think you’ll love it. Simplified, focused and still brilliant. 🙂
Find it here: (or click on the image below!)