Writers and Creators: Have a Monday Meeting… with Yourself
Lessons from ‘The War of Art’
This is a quick strategy I learned after re-reading The War of Art for the 12th time. I get something new with each read and this last one was epic.
Inside the book, Steven Pressfield recommends that creators have a ‘Monday meeting’ with themselves.
When you work alone, you’ve got to self-motivate. Not only must we self-motivate, but we’ve also got to hold ourselves accountable to deadlines.
This simple idea of hold a Monday meeting might keep you on task and focused when you’ve got so many project ideas in front of you.
When we work for ourselves, not only do we have the worst boss ever, but we also have the worst employee.
Sometimes we create pie-in-the-sky, unattainable goals, while the employee inside of us wants to skip work and go to the zoo.
How the Monday meeting works:
- Schedule a Monday meeting with yourself every Monday morning. Or pick some other day that works. Block the time on your calendar.
- Take notes. If you want to be a pro, the pro is accountable to the work assigned — even if you assign it to yourself.
- Track your progress and know your metrics. If you’ve got weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual goals, how are you doing? Are you ahead or behind? Should you ‘stay late.’ Should you be reprimanded? Should you scale-back the goals a little?
- Adjust your work and goals as needed. Goals and plans are suggestions. Without them, we’ve got no mile-markers to work towards, but it’s still important to adjust both your work and your goals to get you where you want to be. There are still many parts of your life outside your control.
- Do not make any judgmental notes — only note the facts. ‘I am 200 subscribers behind my goal this month,’ or ‘I am 12,000 words ahead of plan for where I need to be.’
Today I had my first Monday meeting with myself. I took notes and compared my key metrics with my quarterly goals. I’m ahead on some things and drastically behind on others.
I really like this format, because it’s a weekly check-in.
I don’t just make annual goals in January and look at the list in December. We must re-visit our goals all the time.
We constantly course-correct if we want to hit more of our goals that miss them.
I plan to do this every Monday now.
It only took me seven minutes to have my little meeting. There’s no excuse if goal-setting is something important to your creative work.
I give the Monday meeting five stars!
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August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches these folks who want to make work that sells and sell work they make. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.
