SOFFing is a system that I use to complete my goals. SOFF is an acronym for Starting, Organizing, Focusing, and Finishing a project of any size whether it is a tiny series of tasks to be completed within an hour or as we saw last week, it can be used to complete a huge project spanning a long period. SOFFing can be used on the individual project level, the daily level, and on a weekly level. It can also be done on by the month as well.

Planning the Month Begins With Where I am now 

“To discover how to get where you’re going, you have to first know where you are.”

I start my month by assessing how I did in the previous month. In May I:

*Planted the garden. and so next month I know I will be maintaining, harvesting, and canning. I will be talking more about what I plan to do gardening in my next article on my other blog: The Perpetual Homesteader.

*Research is Done on Two Rivers-in June I want to get the word count of the book up to 80 thousand words. (I currently have written 60 thousand words If I add more dialogue and more scene descriptions, I’l have the 80 thousand).

*I have made Some Progress on Organizing my House-I want to continue with a single project in which my husband and I put two sets of shelves in the master bedroom.

*Made it to the farmer’s market every Saturday in May.

*Did some marketing online with a little luck in views and book sales this is my biggest challenge for June.

“It matters less whether I meet my goals than it is that I made progress toward those goals and that I will make more progress in the immediate future.”

Cygnet Brown

My Biggest Win and My Biggest Fail (or in other words, next month’s challenge)

Biggest Win-The Garden is growing well and producing some crops.

Biggest Challenge: Online book marketing and sales.

June’s Challenge

Since my biggest challenge in May was in the area of online book marketing, I plan to make June the month where this is my primary focus. Marketing is my biggest bottleneck. If I can break through and get consistent high-dollar book sales of the books that I have already written, I will also be able to get more sales from future books as they come out.

 I have learned that some of the comments that I made on other people’s content where people asked me specific questions and I posted a link have received some hits, especially in articles that I wrote online, but not much more than that. I also found that if I used hashtags related to the subject, I get views from Twitter as well. I am thinking that perhaps I need to do more in that area. I found a system that someone else has used and will try it this month. I’ll let you know how it goes at the end of the month. Beginning later today, I am going to use it for all fourteen of my books this month.

I will post one Blog Post Per book (permanent) (every other day) be sure to include a link to the sales page on Amazon. Check out the first ten pages! Also, I will include within each post a link to the related books Locket Saga, Gardening, and Career Enhancement.

I will post two Pinterest Posts per book this month (every other day) I’ll be sure to include a link

I will post four Tweets EACH DAY for a duration of a week to THOUSANDS of followers (focusing on the book focus of that day. (28 total per book) be sure to include a link and related hashtags!

I will post four Tweets promoting each blog twice through the month-(books other than the most recent book blog created). The tweets for the first three blogs will be at the end of the month.be sure to include a link and related hashtags!

I will post to four Facebook READER GROUP Posts each day of June (one per each of the four most recent book blog posts. (Other than my own.) I will be sure to include a link to either the book or to the blog related to the book.

I will post four Facebook page posts sprinkled throughout the month for each book on my own Facebook pages (I have several). I will post on the pages on which the book is related. I will be sure to include a link.

I will save these social media posts in a Word Document so that I can easily access them for future use.

I will use Social Oomph to schedule as many of my posts as possible that way I don’t have to spend all day, every day working on this project, after all, I also have a garden, a home, a husband, a farmers market, and a house to run.

There you have it, my “S” and “O” of my SOFF of June., “the Start and Organization” for June’s goals. What are your plans for the month of June? Feel free to share in the comments section below.

At the end of the month, I’ll show you how it all played out by focusing on the challenge and how much of what I was able to finish.