Jeremy C Kester

The weekend came and went. It wasn’t the worst weekend, but it was also not the best. In either case, it came to my attention that I dropped the ball again in regards to this whole posting everyday thing. I just completely missed it. But you know what? That’s OK.

The point of failure is to learn from it. I hope to do just that.

What caused the blip is the same collection of factors that affect my success on other levels: my inability to effectively prioritize, plan accordingly, and then execute the plan. What does that mean I have to do to get better? Work at the above skills. And that’ll be my focus.

It’s all a part of the learning process. Figuring out weaknesses and then attacking them is the way towards growth. If I continue to ignore these skills, but push forward, I will run into situations like this weekend where it all completely falls apart. That isn’t learning; that’s being stubborn. I don’t want to be stubborn with my craft. At least not in a bad way.

In industry there is a concept pursued in lean manufacturing and six-sigma problem solving strategies called Plan, Do, Check, Act. The idea behind this is that with any process one would continuously revolve on these four points resolving any issues as they arise. Make your plan. Execute your plan. Check to see if the plan is working. Act on any issues. Repeat. It’s meant to operate in that manner so that there is always improvements being made and so that the system remains dynamic.

The same can be done easily with writing.

The problem is that I am constantly in a “Do” situation, always just trying to write no matter the obstacle. While that is good in a manner of speaking, it doesn’t work if life suddenly tells my writing to go F-itself. Sure, I get back up and do, but that never addresses any of the problems that caused the writing to fall on its ugly face.

With the mess of projects that I have just in my writing endeavors alone, it is possible to figure out where some of my issues arise from. Couple that with a lack of outlining or scheduling writing times… easy to see why it all falls apart, right?

Prioritizing my projects. That’ll have to be first.

I’ll let you know in a week or so how that goes. Plus maybe I’ll get a little into planning too. We’ll have to see.