This experiment comes out of the writing of the time management book. I’ve both been surprised at what I already know and what I’m learning.

One of those revelations came while taking a work-based course from Franklin Covey on the 7 Habits. Turns out Habit 2 is on….wait for it…critical voice.

It doesn’t actually say inner critic, so subtle went right over my head. I’ll have to take a second look at the book now! 🙂

Critical voice has reared its ugliness with word count. It started on my first, trunked novel when the book ran too short for traditional publishing. I was horrified when I learned that a novel was 90K, not the 50K like I thought.

Indie allows me to do whatever word count I want, so that barrier was removed. I’ve also had to tell myself that it’s okay to write novellas. But I’ve not been able to track a daily word count because it ignites the critical voice.

I want to break critical voice’s stronghold on that. Moreover, I think I need to.

In turn, that made me look at the Focus Planner. I started with Franklin-Covey but felt like it was too business-focused. After attending a webinar, I thought I could risk a 90 day experiment to see what happens.

The planner is only for 90 days and is fairly expensive. However, there are many, many videos available on how to use each section. The original webinar convinced me because the two instructors said, “Start only with the daily pages” and then work your way into the others.

Forewarning: If this planner interests you, the company will send you many, many, many emails. I had to Sane Blackhole them.

So I’m starting with some basic rules (that may change):

800 words on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Thursday is shifting over to learning and Friday will still remain for Admin.

800 is a good number because it’s pushing me a little out of my comfort zone and not setting such a high standard that I can’t meet it like the more traditional 1,600 words a day does.

The 800 words only applies to books or short stories.

I had to include this rule because otherwise, I’d count tweets and random blog posts. But that means I’m not getting books done.

The 800 words must apply to fiction.

I’m working on two projects concurrently, Time Management for Fiction Writers and GALCOM 5. I was appalled to see that I started GALCOM 5 a month before TMFW and I have a lot more words on the latter. Non-fiction clearly doesn’t have the same critical voice problems as fiction does.

So if I write on TMFW, I have to get 800 words, but I still have to write on GALCOM 5 and get 800 words.

There’s going to be a reward.

The reward (which is part of the goal in the Focus Planner) is coconut ice cream at my favorite restaurant. If I make the weekly goal, I’ll do that for lunchtime so I can get the smaller scoop. Indulge, but not overindulge.

Starting word counts:

  • GALCOM 5: 11,512
  • Time Management for Fiction Writers: 22,981