Each month I like to assess my time on creative projects and progress on specific goals in my work as a creative entrepreneur and author. Posting that self-assessment here helps me stay accountable to my mission. Here is my report for July 2019.
My 2019 Goals
My One Word: Together
Professional Goals:
76% / Double the number of members of The Religion Teacher (December 2017 to present) (+0%)
3,237/5,000 copies sold of Christ in the Classroom (Last Updated January 2019)
186,574/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+10,150 words)
1/4 new published works of fiction on Amazon.com (+1 published book)
4/7 paid speaking gigs (+0)
Personal Goals:
43/100 books read (+6 books)
12/73 Books: Read the entire Bible from beginning to end. (+3 books read)
52/100 30-minute workouts (+8 workouts)
Incomplete / Play Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” on the harmonica.
How I Spent My Time in July 2019
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 top ten projects I spent the most time on last month:
- 17:52 – Beatitales Launch
- 13:22 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 11:05 – The Angel Academy: Book One
- 7:15 – Daily Review
- 4:23 – Morning Preview
- 4:04 – Weekly Review
- 3:24 – Speaking Event Preparation
- 2:16 – The Religion Teacher Weekly Newsletter
- 2:06 – The Formative Fiction Weekly Newsletter
- 2:05 – The Religion Teacher’s Works of Mercy Worksheets
Total Time: 80:44
July 2019 Highlights & Lessons Learned
Beatitales Launch!
July was a very exciting month. I published my first work of fiction! Beatitales: 80 Fables about the Beatitudes for Children shipped to hundreds of families and teachers.
So many people have reached out to say congratulations. Parents have been reading the fables to their kids. Teachers are planning to use the book in class next year. It’s been a whirlwind launch and I’m excited to continue to get this book into the hands of Christian parents and educators.
I’ve done a lot of book launches over the years. A book launch really has two parts: platform and outreach.
First, you launch a book to the people you can reach through your own platform as an author. For me that meant promoting the book to my email lists and through social media.
Next, you reach out to people who have platforms that include the potential audience for your book and you see if it is something they would be interested in sharing. I reached out to radio producers and booked a number of interviews. The next phase of the outreach is to connect with parent and educator influencers to see if the book is something they would enjoy.
The book got off to a great start:
The Angel Academy
I had such a positive response from a little short story I wrote about guardian angels going to school earlier this year. After some additional encouragement, I finally put together a plan to turn that story into a series of full-length children’s books. I finished the first draft in July, but I’m already on my third rewrite of the story.
In August started sharing it as installments in the Formative Fiction Newsletter.
The Power of Prayer
In all honesty, the time I spent working in July was much more sporadic than normal. We had a lot of time traveling as a family during the week of the Fourth of July and the end of July/early August.
I also spent hours in June and July with my mom at the Cleveland Clinic. In June she was diagnosed with leukemia and weeks later she was in the hospital without a very good prognosis. I’m happy to say, though, that with the help of many prayers, support from family, and her incredible perseverance, she is doing well. The initial chemo treatment was very difficult, but did its job.
She is happy to be alive and so are we. She is preparing for a bone marrow transplant in September. God is good!
