Setting up daily words written goal is important to move forward in completing your novel and it also gets you in the habit writing every day. My goal is 2,000 words. I don’t make it every day, but it helps having that goal. It’s also important to setup similar goals for your health. As writers we’re on our butt A LOT.
A productive day as a writer isn’t very good on your health if you don’t move around. So just I set a goal for words written, I also set a goal of taking 10,000 steps in a day. It doesn’t matter if it’s walking, doing stuff around the house, or running, but it helps having that 10,000 step goal and that’s why I love my new Up Fitness Bracelet from Jawbone.
It’s a stylish looking bracelet that tracks your steps (it’s like a pedometer on steroids because it does so much more) so now I can track my steps and words goal during the day. It’s waterproof and you just hook it up to your cellphone and you get a bunch of data to crunch (steps, calories burned, etc). It also tracks your sleep so you can make your’re getting quality hours of sleep. I’m lacking in that department, but now that I know how bad I’m at getting enough hours of sleep, I can work on it.
Here is a screen shot from my Android smartphone of my “move summary” screen from my UP Fitness bracelet. That was a good day since exceeded my 10,000 step daily goal. I’ve found the bracelet really motivates me to move. Just the other day I was doing some errands downtown, as I was heading back home, I decided to walk back versus take the subway. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was an awesome three mile walk that I would have missed if I was down in the subway.
It’s changed the way I think, can I just walk there instead of driving or hopping on Muni Subway. It’s pretty cool.
It’s the same exact principle behind setting word count goals. It helps me keep me on track and focused. And now I don’t only track how many words I write in a day, but how many steps I take during that day as well!
I really love the Up Fitness Bracelet from JawBone, I highly recommend you check it out. Being a sedentary writer is not good for your health no matter how successful you are as an author.
My name is Alan Petersen I write mysteries and thrillers. You can check out my Amazon page