How to Set Writing Goals

If you're a professional writer, whether you are a novelist or a freelance writer, you will sometimes find yourself struggling to set writing goals and meet them. This is especially true if you work at home. Writers who work at a physical office rarely have this problem as much as stay at home writers because stay at home writers have much more to distract them. If writing is your primary or only source of income, though, it is essential for you to know how to set writing goals and meet them.

Step 1

Determine how much writing you need to accomplish each month to meet your writing goals. For instance, if you know that you have to $600 per month to pay the rent, $300 to buy food, $300 to pay the utilities, etc., then you add together all your expenses to determine the minimum amount of money you need to make a month off of your writing to sustain yourself.

Step 2

Break down your monthly writing goals into weekly and even daily writing goals. Divide how much you need to write per month by 4 to determine how much you need to write per week, and divide how much you need to write per week by 7 to determine how much you need to write per day.

Step 3

Schedule your writing just as if it were a "real job." For instance, set your alarm to wake you up at the time you would like to begin your day. Turn on your computer, avoid your email and social networking websites and make yourself write for a certain amount of time before you can have a break for a snack or lunch. Sometimes just diving into writing is the best way to approach it because if you keep thinking about writing, oftentimes that's all you'll end up doing-just thinking about it.

Tips

Set up an office in your home for yourself if this helps you treat your writing more like a "real job." Get dressed just as if you are going in to work, have a cup of coffee and start working on the dot just as you would in a real office setting. This oftentimes helps motivate some writers.

Warnings

Set realistic writing goals; otherwise, you will never be able to meet your goals. If you know that it takes you one hour to write one article, then setting your writing goal at 20 articles a day is unrealistic because you'll have to work 20 hours a day to meet your goal. You don't want to become over-stressed or over-worked trying to meet unattainable goals.

Beware of procrastinating, for procrastination will greatly reduce your productivity if you let it.

Beware of perfectionism or over-achieving. Don't over-analyze each article that you write. This is not to say you shouldn't proofread your articles. Just don't obsess over them to the point that they cause you stress or reduce your productivity.

Do not sacrifice quality for quantity. When striving to set writing goals and meet them, do not sacrifice the quality of your articles for quantity of articles that you write. Fewer well-written articles fare better than several sloppy, thrown-together ones.