And now it’s time for the Q3 2023 review and the revised Q4 2023 plan. How awful the year is nearly over, but then again, I guess it just gets us closer to a new start next year!
I was fairly sure Q3 was going to fall over, even though I hoped it wouldn’t.
And even though it did, I have a good idea why. Which fills me with hope for Q4
2023 Vision
Q3 2023 Plan
My plan remained the same, though I’d already made some progress.
Rebrand my businesses.Revitalise the websites.Consolidate the online stores.- Finish some of the long-term outstanding items.
- Fix up the bits that fell off when I moved hosts and changed themes
- Publish five new books
- Put my back catalogue for sale in my shop.
And focussing on publishing with the relevant keystone activities.
- Write for at least an hour a day.
- Publish a book a fortnight.
Q3 2023 Review
Construction continued unpredictable, with the same concentration issues as last quarter, though with the contract running out, much louder and more frequently disturbing.
Didn’t manage to write much, and only managed to publish one short story: Alan Ackerman is Still Missing.
Lessons Learned from Q3 2023 Review
Moving on from plan A (for good days), and plan B (for bad days)…
The revelation for this quarter, is it’s been a long while since I was a professional project manager dealing with certainties.
This last quarter especially, I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants, making smart goals, that aren’t really smart because I haven’t been able to estimate or budget my time. Just based on what I think is important at the time.
Which made me wonder what other women writers do, because those of us who can’t rely on wives to take care of everything, squeeze their business in between taking care of their kids and houses, and some of them have paid work too.
Especially when it comes to working out what the hell is wrong with your website (which takes forever)!
I heard about Sarra Cannon’s planning method (HB90) do I decided to give it a go. [Edit 5/12/23: I liked it so much I became an affiliate!]
Her starting point is brainstorming and prioritising what you want to get done over the quarter (based on whether it provides long or short term impact against your vision), then working out how much time you have to get your most important work done.
And it turns out, I’ve been trying to do too much work in too little time!
Once you know how much time you have, you can work out what you can do. And she reminds you to make space for the recurring tasks (like sales, accounts, and doing your taxes) as well.
And then you put it in a kanban board and work your way through it.
Q4 2023 Plan
So the Q4 2023 plan is to :
Rebrand my businesses.Revitalise the websites.Consolidate the online stores.Finish some of the long-term outstanding items.- Publish six new books
- Put the rest of my back catalogue for sale in my shop.
- Fix up tmy website SEO.
And focussing on publishing with the relevant keystone activities.
- Write for at least an hour a day.
- Publish a collection and the five stories contained within it.
- Submit 65 stories to fiction magazines
Looking forward to finding out how the Q4 2023 plan turns out!
How was your Q3?
Photo of my actual kanban board for this quarter (by me!)
For more, see the Project Life Worth Living page.
You can find my monthly reports and other planning related information on the Life Worth Living page.
Planning a Life Worth Living
Let’s face it, life is short. If you don’t stop to think about how you’re going to make it count, at the end of the day, it won’t.
Planning a Life Worth Living applies business techniques to personal concerns. Using these techniques, you’ll get to the end of the year satisfied with what you’ve achieved.
Take a look at how I do my planning.
Discover how to put your life back into your life planning. Buy now:
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