Every year, I work to write more words than I did in the previous. Every year for the past five, I’ve been able to do so. This year, on the other hand, may prove to be quite difficult. It’s been a rough one, but I still have a shot at hitting my writing goal.

Since the Father’s Day incident, where we almost lost Grandpa and had to move him out of his apartment, it’s been a seemingly endless slog of chaos. Now that the dust is starting to settle, I’ve found myself behind in my writing goals.

Yet, despite the chaos, I’ve still managed to get quite a bit done overall. For instance, I’m still scheduled to be at Read Between the Stars in October. It’s my first book event as an author.

Steps to Break My Writing Record

Although this post is more of a journal to me, I’m hoping that perhaps some of my ideas and plans can help others who may find themselves in a similar predicament.

These are all actionable steps anyone can use if they find themselves behind in their writing. Of course, you’ll want to adjust them slightly to fit your specific situation.

So, how do I plan to break 742,745 words written in 2024?

1. Find and Set Word-per-Day Goal

First, I’ll calculate how many words I have left to break my writing record. Then, I’ll calculate how many days remain in the year. After that, we divide the total of words by the number of days.

This is actually quite easy to do in a spreadsheet. If you subtract today from your target date, most programs will default to show you the number of days between them. So, 1/1/2025 – 9/13/2024 = 110 days.

I have 383,515 words to go to break even. We take 383,515 words and divide it by 110 days to give us 3,487 words per day. That is what I’ll need to hit my record number of words written in a year.

It might sound like a lot to some, but for me, it’s actually a bit more on the low end. But that’s only because I manage so many blogs, clients, books, and YouTube video scripts.

Before you say it, yes, I am a bit of a geek when it comes to playing around with spreadsheets. You should see my time-tracking spreadsheet for everything I do. It’s quite elaborate.

2. Planning Before Writing

After figuring out how many words I need to write in a day, it’s time to plan some projects. Because I have so many blogs and interests, it’s not overly difficult to come up with topics for each one.

I like to have an idea about what I’m writing each day. That way, I’m not staring at a blank screen trying to figure out where to start. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I prefer plotting to pantsing when writing my books.

I don’t have time to waste if I want to get everything done that I want to accomplish each day.

Anyway, the books are already a given. For the most part, they are plotted and ready to go. It’s the blogs that I would like to have laid out beforehand. This means taking about an hour or so for each one and coming up with enough topic ideas to keep the flow going.

As you guessed it, I’m using spreadsheets to manage the content for the blogs. In this case, though, I use Google Sheets. That way, I can easily access it whether I am on my desktop or using my laptop in a hotel.

Usually, I’ll plan content from the keywords and phrases I want to use for search engines to the reference links and stats I want to include. When you get the hang of it, the entire process is not nearly as convoluted as you might think.

In any case, I find having a plan for each day’s content makes the entire process so much smoother.

3. Schedule Daily Blocks of Time for Writing Projects

After coming up with an idea of what needs to be written, it’s time to set up some blocks of time. I use Asana to manage my day, whether it’s as a freelance writer or blogger. It works great for what I need and the free version is perfect for me.

Anyway, I know how long it takes me to write certain pieces of content because I keep track of every minute and word in a spreadsheet. Told you, I’m a bit of a dork. But keeping track of everything gives me a very good estimate of how long each project will take.

Then, I assign those projects blocks of time according to what I have going on in the day.

For me, 3800 words is about four hours of writing. I usually crank out about 2,000 words during the writing sprints on YouTube, and then an 1800-word blog post would put me to where I want to be in terms of word count.

So, I would assign the 2-hour block of time for the writing sprints (which I’m getting back into doing every day next week), and a 2-hour block of time for one of my blogs.

During the weekends, I’ll focus more on the blogs and Substack.

The point here is to assign blocks of time to yourself to help meet your goals. If you don’t know how much you can write during any block of time, keep track of your progress over the next few weeks. It’ll help to give you an idea about how productive you can be when you put in the effort.

4. Fight the Distractions

My biggest problem comes down to the multitudes of distractions that take away from my writing. Lately, it’s been more on a personal level, such as cleaning Grandpa’s basement, helping people move, and dealing with unavoidable elements.

Sometimes, things take priority over writing, especially when you’re caring for friends and/or family. And that’s OK. The people in your life are far more important than anything else.

However, there are distractions that aren’t really necessary and prove to be nothing more than time sucks. Social media is perhaps one of the most prevalent in today’s culture. Aside from YouTube, I try to stay off of social media as much as possible throughout the day.

This morning, I wound up melting 45 minutes just hanging out with my son and drinking coffee. Yes, it’s good for our relationship, but it ate up a lot of time. So, it all comes down to a balance of priorities.

A lot of distractions can be avoided or postponed until after you’ve hit your writing goals for the day. Or, they can be handled before you even start writing. Try to avoid the meaningless distractions to focus on your task.

For example, there is no reason to binge-watch something on Hulu instead of writing. Those shows will be there later. Use them as a reward for accomplishing your goals.

5. Remain Vigilant Over Doubts

Self-doubt is a major hurdle for a lot of writers. Even I will look at a post and have doubts that anyone will like or read it, and I’ve been doing this since 2012. It takes a lot of practice and effort to build confidence, and sometimes it’s just not there.

What I often do is focus on a specific reader. I know I have a few people who’ll read damn near everything I publish. If I feel like something might feel a bit weak, I keep those individuals in mind. So, I’ll write to engage them.

Now, this doesn’t help much in terms of SEO. I’m not intently focused on answering a search query in this instance. Instead, I focused more on helping or entertaining those specific readers.

Don’t assume everyone is going to hate your writing. As I’ve said before, it’s awfully arrogant to think you know what someone else is going to like or hate. That mindset helps me move past a lot of doubts when I write.

And then there’s my favorite saying that you can’t please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Some are going to hate for the sake of hating. That’s when I’ll focus more on my adamant readers.

6. Actually Put In the Effort to Succeed

Lastly, and perhaps the one that mostly affects writers of all kinds, putting in the effort to meet writing goals is the only way you’ll achieve them. Sure, I can say that I plan on writing 3800 words today. But without the action to back it up, I’ll fail.

Without effort, all of your dreams and aspirations will become nothing more than they are right now. Planning is only part of being successful. Now, you gotta put in the work.

The awesome things in life aren’t going to drop out of the sky and land in your lap. From dating to finding a great job, you still need to take certain actions to see those things come to fruition.

It all starts with taking the first step toward your destination. In my case, this post will account for half of the words I need for today’s goal. Then, I have plans to write another for either Substack or WriterSanctuary.

Not to mention the other blogs at my disposal. If it wasn’t for client work and the YouTube channel, I have no doubt that I could easily crank out 10,000 words per day. Well, that is as long as my kids don’t need anything from me.

Like I said, some distractions cannot be avoided.

I Am My Own Worst Distraction

When all is said and done, I know that I am my own worst time suck. I often find other things that I need to do or get sidetracked with other tasks and projects that don’t necessarily help the word count. That’s especially true since moving Grandpa to an upstairs bedroom and rearranging my entire house.

Plus, most of my client work nowadays is more centered on editing and research.

But then there are days when I want to clean the basement and my office area as I tend to perform better in a tidy environment. Then, I’ll think to myself that I should really get the dishes done. Afterward, the dog needs to be taken outside for a run.

The bottom line is that I often hold myself back from reaching some great goals.

For instance, I know that I could easily write one million words per year despite the chaos that revolves around me. Yet, I’ll often sidetrack myself with other tasks that take away from hitting those numbers.

Sure, there are parts of my life that need to be tended to. Nonetheless, I still wind up wasting a lot of time on my own. Do I really need to watch that episode of Philip DeFranco as soon as it drops on YouTube? Nope. It’ll be there when I’m done for the day.

But lately, I still catch myself watching as soon as it goes live – at around 3:30 pm. That means I’ll wind up chewing up 30 minutes of my “work day” just because a new video dropped that will be there at 5:30 pm when I’m done.

Having the spreadsheet keep track of my activities shows all kinds of areas where I waste time. It’s kind of like a timesheet at a job. I “clock out” when I take breaks or go to the bathroom. And it’s amazing just how much time you can waste per day with 10 minutes here, 30 minutes there.

I’m working on it, but a lot of my distractions are habits that need time to break.

Let’s Make it Happen!

Do you want it bad enough to do something about it?

That’s what I ask a lot of people who say they want something but don’t put in the effort to follow through. It’s something I’ve been picking at myself with lately.

Absolutely, a lack of time plays a massive role in how I manage my day. I do have a lot on my plate, after all. But a lot of that has to do with me and not having enough follow-through to get some things done.

So, let’s see if I can stick to my plan and break my record for writing this year. It’s not entirely out of my scope of what I can handle. In fact, I could still get relatively close to the one million mark.

That is as long as I put in the effort to do so.