Success Indicators
September 6, 2018

The world makes it hard to be a productive writer. There are so many things that
vie for a writer's time: the siren song of email and internet "research;" the
desire to get up and make a cup of coffee rather than face a half-written page
that seems to be going nowhere; the mundane tasks of cleaning and laundry and
shopping.

And writers are their own bosses in a field where there's no control over
whether or not they'll be paid for the work they've already done. The only thing
we, as writers, can do is set goals for ourselves and stick to them. How then to
make sure we keep on track towards our writing goals?

One possible way is with a "success indicator." I mentioned a couple of posts
back that I'd been reading W. Clement Stone's "The Success System That Never
Fails." Stone owned an insurance company and before that was himself an
insurance salesman. Because a salesman's success, like a writer's, can be
measured in sales, I realized that some of Stone's advice also applied to
writers. Towards the end of the book, he recommends creating a "success
indicator," a concrete, measurable standard by which to judge whether you're
moving towards or away from your goal (whatever that may be). For insurance
salesmen, it was the number of calls and interviews made each day. I decided
that as a writer, the best success indicators are time spent on writing-related
tasks and number of submissions. My logic was simple: write more and submit
more, and you'll be a more successful writer.

So I printed up a couple of index cards with boxes for me to check off each
half-hour actually spent writing/editing/researching, an area to comment on why
I didn't make my goal for the day, and spaces at the bottom to total the hours
worked and number of submissions for the week. My goal is to have all the boxes
checked--meaning I've achieved my writing goal--and to hit my target number of
submissions by the end of each Friday.

If nothing else, I figure using the success indicator method will enable me to
see if I'm moving towards my goals or away from them (and in the case of the
latter, why). So whatever your goals--be they writing or otherwise--coming up
with your own measurable success indicator and then keeping track of it seems
like a good way to help you achieve those goals, and worthy of a trial. Good
luck.

Update: After a month of logging my internet usage, I discovered I averaged 48
minutes a day, exclusive of answering email. Even allowing for a decent fudge
factor and accounting errors, I'd charitably say I was just at or under an hour
per day. The hydra may not be slain, but it's at least staggering a little.

(c) 2018 by Andrew Gudgel 
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com