Here is my monthly report on projects, goals, and the lessons I learned along the way.
My 2021 Goals
Professional Goals:
537,953/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+11,278 words)
679/1,000 Resources (Videos/Worksheets) for Members of The Religion Teacher (+4 resources)
Personal Goals:
25/24 Books Read (+4 books)
36/73 Books of the Bible read from beginning to end (+0 books read)
57/100 30-minute workouts (+7 workouts)
How I Spent My Time in July 2021
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:
- 10:48 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 6:39 – Morning Preview
- 6:00 – Daily Review
- 4:55 – Kindle Vella Projects
- 3:37 – Advent Devotional Book for Kids
- 3:25 – Weekly Review
- 3:07 – The Religion Teacher Saint Worksheets
- 2:59 – Social Media
- 1:57 – The Religion Teacher Videos
- 1:54 – The Religion Teacher Newsletter
Total Time: 61:52 Hours
July 2021 Highlights & Lessons Learned
Kindle Vella Projects
Kindle Vella launched in July!
. . . but the response wasn’t as big as I expected. I was hoping to see more organic discovery of the stories I published during the launch. Unfortunately, I only had a few episode reads for the entire month. Bummer!
I didn’t promote the stories until early August and since none of them were faith-based stories, they didn’t fit well with my main audience. I could have done more around the launch, but it was a difficult month.
I’ll continue to see how the stories do as Kindle Vella grows. It was fun to brush off the digital dust and get them out into the world. I’m looking forward to seeing what other authors do with the platform in the meantime.
Here are my three Kindle Vella stories:
- Itsy-Bitsy Quitter: The Three Secrets to Sticking With It
- No More Mess: The Day the Floor Fought Back
- The Sixth Grade CEO: Lessons in Life and Business for Kids
Advent Devotions for Kids
I realized in July that I’m getting very close to an entire year without publishing a single book. The books I worked on this year won’t come out until 2022. So, I brainstormed a few ideas for projects I could write, edit, and publish in the next few months.
I decided to write a daily devotional for kids to use during Advent. I have already written hundreds of daily reflections based on the words of Jesus in the gospels. I thought since I already had many of them written, I could repurpose what I had for Advent.
Well, when I sat down to collect the Advent and Christmas Gospel readings, I came to realization that should have been obvious:
Jesus doesn’t speak during Advent and Christmas. There are no words of the Lord during Advent and Christmas.
I had nothing written. So, I was back to square one. I had to scrap the idea or come up with a different approach.
I’m excited about what I started:
Bible reflections on the Angels during Advent.
I’m loving the writing and looking forward to finishing the first and second drafts in August.
Only 61 Hours? What were you doing?
July 2021 has to be a new record for the least amount of hours worked in a month.
One reasons is a shift in schedules. My wife works for the ACE program at Notre Dame and her summers are very, very busy. I went on dad duty a lot more than usual.
But the biggest reason was lack of sleep and lots of time with doctors. Our son was sick with parainfluenza, which caused croup and pneumonia. We were up all night with him for weeks and he even spent one evening in the hospital.
With Down syndrome he is especially susceptible to these kinds of sicknesses. That is one reason why we have been so strict about quarantine during COVID.
We did, however, receive some good news right before the parainfluenza. He has COVID antibodies! That’s right, because mom got the vaccine, our baby got the antibodies through breast milk. It was such a relief to have this extra protection during this awful pandemic.
