Yield Days

So I have been working on the novel for 21 days straight, though that is only true because I wrote one word yesterday. Some might call that grade inflation, but they are people who deserve pity for their obsessive need to judge others.

Ahem. Anyway, I thought this might be a good time to talk about what I call “yield days.” I frequently benefit from the strategy of setting daily goals, in which I commit to put in time every day towards the same goal, such as “write every day on my novel,” or sometimes, “go for a walk every day,” or least successfully “cut out sugar.”

I first experienced the power of such daily goals through nanowrimo.org, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, and if you are at all curious, you should check it out. I also found this strategy within college success curriculum, in which it might be called the 32 day commitment, or the 28 day commitment, or the fill-in-the-blank-how-long-you-think-it-will-take commitment, which is based on the premise that if you do the same thing every day for X amount of days, it will become a habit and easier to achieve. Most of my students usually appreciated this strategy, too, especially (of course) if they got to choose what goal to set.

I have found it helpful when I am pursuing a daily commitment to make myself recognize when I am in the middle of a “yield day.” That is, I realize that due to life events, I must yield on my goal. If I get sick, for example, I might not be able to keep up with a daily exercise goal for a few days. If a loved one experiences a crisis, I might not have the time or the focus to write that day. There are many days when small distractions tempt me to back off on my daily commitment, and on those days, I have to push hard or figure out how to make my goal happen, such as a pathetic version of a workout or, um, writing one word on my novel. Because I am pushing myself so much to stay focused on this goal, I sometimes catch myself becoming a (sulky) bear during a crisis or life event until I remind myself, yield. This is not a day when I can stick with this commitment. It is understandable and forgivable to be off track for today. Yielding today does not mean I won’t try again tomorrow.

Sometimes I even draw a yield sign on my calendar for the day, just to remind myself that I did not let myself down that day. I just had other commitments that took priority.