Building Confidence As a… Writer (6)

Good Monday morning, readers! Welcome to the sixth week of a series on building confidence as a writer, where many of the tips can be applied to any career or part of your life.

We’ve covered early morning feel good, daily writing, eating for energy, act-as-if, and focusing on others.

This next one can be a bit challenging at times – I do my best, but can’t always avoid working in panic mode.

It’s exhausting and not-at-all beneficial to work and live in hurry up mode all the time.  If you start every day with a rush-rush must-get-everything-done frame of mind without knowing what that ‘everything’ is, you’re setting yourself up to be extremely stressed and on a path to failing to achieve the success you want.

Setting goals and planning out the days can help you focus on what’s important – and make sure the tasks you *must* get done are accomplished.

Having goals and planning days, as well as we can, enables us to move forward and meet deadlines.

I (generally) sit down on Sunday evenings to review the past week and plan for the upcoming week. This lets me see what I accomplished and what I missed. It allows me to decide if missed tasks are important enough to carry forward on the calendar or unimportant enough to remove from my ToDo list.

The review of the past week and planning for the upcoming week gives me control my days… for the most part.

I mean, we can’t control (or plan for) everything, right? Things do happen in our lives: kids get sick, cars get flat tires, trees fall on power lines, Internet gremlins eat important e-mails, calendar reminders fail, the cell phone battery dies, neighbors have loud parties into the wee hours of a work night… the chocolate supply in the house disappears.

But having a plan… having goals… having a map of where we are headed is important so that when something unexpected does come along and interrupts us, we can get back on track sooner rather than later. Without a plan or goals or a map, we’d most likely end up going in circles, retracing our steps, or moving off in a totally unrelated direction – and there isn’t any success there!

So tip #6 is to do the best you can to avoid working in panic mode.

Do you plan out your upcoming week? How do you avoid working in panic mode?

Lisa J. Jackson is an independent writer and editor who enjoys working with businesses of all sizes. She loves researching topics, interviewing experts, and helping companies tell their stories. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.