Goal-setting for Creative Projects

When you’re a creative, it’s likely you have many ideas for projects. I’m definitely guilty of keeping a backlog of ideas and projects I want to do in a drawer but have never actually finished or even started. But there are also a number of projects I’ve managed to finish, publish, and get a lot of great feedback on.

I’ve published three books to help creative freelancers combat the day-to-day craziness of freelance life. These books have been featured on Girlboss, 99U, Creative Boom, Design Taxi, and others, and have led to the opportunity to give a TEDx talk.

As you can imagine, publishing a book isn’t something you do overnight. It requires a lot of hard work and dedication. So how did I manage to write these three books — and not manage to finish much smaller projects that are still in that drawer I mentioned? What’s the secret sauce, the framework, for the projects that get realized? What sets them apart from the ones that don’t?

In this article (which you can also watch on Skillshare as a video), I’ve reconstructed the process of the projects I’ve finalized to make it easier for you to make a game plan for the dreams you’d like to realize — whether it’s writing a book, realizing an exhibition, or other things.

And if you’d like to have a worksheet to follow along, here it is.