Welcome to my December 2018 Project Report. My goal with these monthly reports is to help other authors, entrepreneurs, leaders, or anyone else who wants to make an impact through their work. Each month It share how I spent my time as an author and creative entrepreneur and the successes, failures, and lessons I learned along the way.
How I spent My Time in November 2018
I track every minute of time I spend working on projects using an app called Toggl (here is why). Here is a list of the projects I spent the most time on last month:
- 10:00 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 7:40 – Ornament Enlightenment: A Story about the Meaning of Christmas
- 6:34 – The Magic Moneybag Book
- 4:40 – Morning Preview
- 4:00 – Weekly Review
- 3:58 – The Religion Teacher’s Saints Worksheets
- 2:47 – The Religion Teacher Newsletter
- 2:35 – Daily Review
- 2:30 – #1millionwordsforkids Posts
- 1:57 – The Religion Teacher Blog
Total Time Spent: 61:35
Here is what I produced last month:
- Worksheets: 5
- Articles/Blog Posts: 1
- Newsletter Emails: 12
- Videos: 1
- Books: 18,482 words (1,152 words of nonfiction / 17,330 words of fiction)
- Workshops & Webinars: 0
2018 GOAL UPDATE
In the past I tried to focus only on mission and vision and not specific performance goals. I’m trying something different this year and setting some big goals for myself as a entrepreneurial author. You can find my goals here. This is the progress I have made so far:
72% / double the number of members TRTm members (audacious goal)
3,162/5,000 copies sold of Christ in the Classroom (good/great)
1/1 published work of fiction (good)
6/7 paid speaking gigs (expected)
62/50 Read 50 books (good goal)
56% Paid Off / Pay off mortgage in 2020 (good goal)
24:39 PR / Run a 5K under 23:00 (good goal)
Incomplete / Start a support ministry for startup founders. (expected goal)
You can read about the process I used to set these goals along a scale of success here: A Simple Process for Setting Bigger Goals.
November 2018 Highlights and Lessons Learned
A Christmas Story
It was kind of spur of the moment, but I decided to publish a serialized story about the meaning of Christmas to my Formative Fiction email list. It was received very well. My alpha readers (my daughters) liked it and I received many emails from teachers and parents asking for the final part before Christmas break.
To receive emails from people saying A) they read a piece of fiction that I wrote and B) they were excited to read more really blows my mind. One year ago I had not written one word of fiction. By the end of the year I had written nearly 80,000 words.
Which brings me to . . .
Announcing the 1 Million Words for Kids Journey
I still have a lot to learn as a writer of fiction and the only way to learn is through practice.
The most prolific artists I know use a little trick to publish so much work. They set a big goal (a milestone) to motivate themselves to write fast and frequently.
So, I decided to set a moonshot goal of writing one million words for kids by the time I turn forty years old (2021). I thought it would be fun to give myself some public accountability so I’m documenting the journey on Instagram.
Here are a few of the early updates:
Saints Worksheets
I’ve created more than 300 worksheets for members of The Religion Teacher in the last few years focused on various topics. I’ve had requests for more saint resources, so I came up with a simple format to help teach children about the lives of the saints and how it relates to their lives. Each of these worksheets provides a short bio and a few questions to encourage kids to think, meditate, and pray about the lives of the many holy men and women we remember as Catholics throughout the liturgical year.
