77 Days

There are 2.5 months, or 77 days specifically, left in 2024, and I've been considering what I would like to achieve for the rest of the year. Work-wise I'm pretty set, I have a number of ongoing projects I am hoping to either complete or make progress on, in amongst conferences, events and other activities.

I’m using this cute little 90 day planner for the rest of 2024, and it has lots of space to plan projects.

In my personal/home life I have a few options, and its fun to consider what to prioritise. The challenge is that I suspect I won't be able to do everything that I'd like to (alongside the usual parenting/working/life commitments), however, I'd like to try? (I'm currently reading Oliver Burkeman's Meditations for Mortals - so very aware I need to embrace my limitations, and yet I still don't want to). Ha.

The couple of things I've already decided on are to a) join the local gym and try it out 3 times per week, to build my strength and fitness (in addition to walking), and b) declutter excess clothing and toys from the house. These are achievable goals, and will make a measurable difference to my physical health and home environment.

What I'm struggling to decide on is more creative projects. I'm trying to decide between these two big potential projects:

1) Develop an online course for an additional income stream in 2025.

For the last few months, I've been doing some private academic tutoring on the side, in a topic I'm qualified in, but not directly related to my day job. I've mostly enjoyed this but find I am teaching the same concepts, and helping students avoid the same pitfalls, over and over again. I had the idea to develop some online course offerings on some of these topics. Because I work full-time and can only do a few hours of additionally tutoring per week, I have to turn away the majority of students who request assistance, and this would be a way to offer support to more students, and also have some side income which would be very welcome. I've already bought the domain name for the side-business and a microphone, I’ve been doing some upskilling on online course creation, and I'm chipping away at creating content on the side, but if I want to have some course offerings ready for the start of the academic calendar next year (February), I would need to ramp this up. I really do want to do this!

photo by Wix

But I have another, longer term project I'd also like to achieve. This is:

2) Create a (short, rough) draft of a novel

I've been fiction writing on and off for the better part of a decade (my preferred genre is urban fantasy - witches, werewolves etc - for those who are interested). I did a short course on writing in 2017 when E was a baby and I was on mat leave, I drafted most of a novel in 2019, and then started re-drafting it in 2021 (but COVID and baby newborn O led to me abandoning the project before I got the second draft finished). I then wrote nothing for a couple of years, but started writing/brainstorming/outlining ideas early in 2024. (By now I was kind of bored of my original novel draft, and wanted to try out a new story line). I'd like to get to the point actually fully finishing drafting and then editing a novel so that I could look to publish, as I am aware that next year it will be 9 years since I first thought to myself- "I think I'd like to write a novel." BUT writing a novel is a massive undertaking with no guarantee of ever really making me money, whereas option 1 has real potential to make me money within a few months. I guess I'm just aware that I've had this dream for so long, and I don't want to blink and another decade has gone past and still don't have much to show.

I would love some thoughts about what I should prioritise here - could I try to do both ? With the kids the ages they are, during the working week I probably have about 1 hour per day "to myself" - preferably in the early morning (I'm writing this right now at 5.52 am), but failing that (the kids often wake early), 1 hour at night seems like a realistic backup. I would then have probably 4-5 hours across the weekend. So lets say around 10 hours per week to work on projects.

NanoWriMo is coming up in November which could be a good idea to kickstart my novel, but I've found it a bit too intense in the past (it requires over an hour a day of writing - and November is a busy month for me with work travel etc). The fiction writing is personally very fulfilling, but I’m enjoying the new challenge of the online course creation too.

Thoughts and ideas welcome!