FC 2024; Goals for 2024
Jan. 15th, 2024 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeAnother Further Confusion is in the books. All of us were a lot more chill about what we wanted to do this weekend; there were no concrete plans, so we just went where we felt like, hung out with folks we wanted to see, and went home when we were tired. Maybe it's because all of us are still recovering from 2023, but we knew the level of engagement we wanted and never tried to force more out of it.
I spent a lot of time behind the FurPlanet table, though it felt like I didn't really help that much. Still, it was nice to keep the actual vendors company, talk to folks browsing through the stock, and talk about the state of the business. Z., a very close friend and consummate sales-weasel, is always a great creative muse; with his help I cracked a problem with a previous failed attempt at a serial, laid some more solid foundation for an X-Men fan-fiction story that's been slowly percolating, and made some tiny strides towards an anthology we'd like to go in together. The owner of the publishing company took me out for dinner and invited me on as editorial staff for an ambitious mainstream publishing initiative: he'd like to seek out and publish novellas from marginalized writers to make a play for a Hugo Award. R. immediately thought that Geoff Ryman would be an excellent resource for this, since he's been carrying the torch for African Sci-Fi/Fantasy for years now. Of course, I wholeheartedly agree. :D I signed up right away, and now I have a new goal for 2024: help shepherd this novella initiative.
All in all, quite a motivating weekend. I even bought a small stack of furry books for review. It'd be nice to have a book review every month for the blog, at least. A lot of our furry historians, reviewers, and resource-builders have passed on, and it's not entirely clear who's doing the work in their stead. I'm not ready to take up that mantle, but I do think there's a space in the fandom for someone to take our published works seriously. I'd like to at least help build that niche if I can.
Now that FC is over, there's not much to disrupt the routine until the Super Bowl party in mid-February. I knew that the first two weeks of the year would be a little weird, but I had been hoping to be a little more dedicated to things so that by the time the con rolled around it would be easier to find time for meditation, writing, and reading. As you might imagine, I didn't do any of that.
So today feels like the first *real* start of the plan for 2024, but I'd like to figure out how I'll handle this next time. It's a whole year away, but...now there are 50 weeks in the year to achieve 25 goals, which works out to one goal every two weeks. The first four (the Patreon, 100-day streaks each in meditation, reading, and writing) won't be checked off any time soon; right now, the goal date for the latter three is April 24th, 2024 -- a month into Q2.
That means I should have at least six goals checked off by the end of March to stay on target, but now only five two-week sprints to achieve them. This first quarter is all about setting up good habits and building a foundation for success, but it's...not entirely clear how that translates into SMART goals, you know? I'll have to think about this for a little bit, go back to my big goals and see how I can build six achievable steps towards them by March.
Organizing my working spaces immediately comes to mind. I've been nibbling away at organizing the home office, but spending a morning to go full-Kondo might be just the thing. It would be good to have this sort of thing figured out before Q2, so I'm ready to hit the next season with all cylinders firing; I know what I've done through the first three months of the year, know where the pitfalls might be for the next three, and have a solid idea of where best to build momentum.
First, though, it's just a matter of getting through this week actually delivering on my intention. That's the work in front of me.
I spent a lot of time behind the FurPlanet table, though it felt like I didn't really help that much. Still, it was nice to keep the actual vendors company, talk to folks browsing through the stock, and talk about the state of the business. Z., a very close friend and consummate sales-weasel, is always a great creative muse; with his help I cracked a problem with a previous failed attempt at a serial, laid some more solid foundation for an X-Men fan-fiction story that's been slowly percolating, and made some tiny strides towards an anthology we'd like to go in together. The owner of the publishing company took me out for dinner and invited me on as editorial staff for an ambitious mainstream publishing initiative: he'd like to seek out and publish novellas from marginalized writers to make a play for a Hugo Award. R. immediately thought that Geoff Ryman would be an excellent resource for this, since he's been carrying the torch for African Sci-Fi/Fantasy for years now. Of course, I wholeheartedly agree. :D I signed up right away, and now I have a new goal for 2024: help shepherd this novella initiative.
All in all, quite a motivating weekend. I even bought a small stack of furry books for review. It'd be nice to have a book review every month for the blog, at least. A lot of our furry historians, reviewers, and resource-builders have passed on, and it's not entirely clear who's doing the work in their stead. I'm not ready to take up that mantle, but I do think there's a space in the fandom for someone to take our published works seriously. I'd like to at least help build that niche if I can.
Now that FC is over, there's not much to disrupt the routine until the Super Bowl party in mid-February. I knew that the first two weeks of the year would be a little weird, but I had been hoping to be a little more dedicated to things so that by the time the con rolled around it would be easier to find time for meditation, writing, and reading. As you might imagine, I didn't do any of that.
So today feels like the first *real* start of the plan for 2024, but I'd like to figure out how I'll handle this next time. It's a whole year away, but...now there are 50 weeks in the year to achieve 25 goals, which works out to one goal every two weeks. The first four (the Patreon, 100-day streaks each in meditation, reading, and writing) won't be checked off any time soon; right now, the goal date for the latter three is April 24th, 2024 -- a month into Q2.
That means I should have at least six goals checked off by the end of March to stay on target, but now only five two-week sprints to achieve them. This first quarter is all about setting up good habits and building a foundation for success, but it's...not entirely clear how that translates into SMART goals, you know? I'll have to think about this for a little bit, go back to my big goals and see how I can build six achievable steps towards them by March.
Organizing my working spaces immediately comes to mind. I've been nibbling away at organizing the home office, but spending a morning to go full-Kondo might be just the thing. It would be good to have this sort of thing figured out before Q2, so I'm ready to hit the next season with all cylinders firing; I know what I've done through the first three months of the year, know where the pitfalls might be for the next three, and have a solid idea of where best to build momentum.
First, though, it's just a matter of getting through this week actually delivering on my intention. That's the work in front of me.
