25 writing goals for a daily habit, a word count and a finished draft

Daily writing habit goals

Habit goals count days at the desk, whatever the words are worth. Programmers have a famous version of this, and you can borrow it from coding goals.

• Write 200 words a day for 30 days.
• Write for 20 minutes before you check your phone, for 21 mornings.
• Write on 100 days this year.
• Fill one page of a journal every night for a month.
• Write at the same time and place for 2 weeks.

Word count goals

Word count goals are totals you add to, so a slow day costs you nothing but the day.

• Write 500 words a day for 30 days.
• Write 10,000 words in a month.
• Write 1,000 words in one sitting.
• Write a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days. That is 1,667 words a day.
• Write 100,000 words in a year. That is 274 words a day.

Writing project goals

Project goals are about finishing, which is a different skill from starting.

• Finish the first draft of one short story.
• Finish the first draft of a book by a date you choose today.
• Write 12 short pieces in 12 months.
• Outline a whole book in one week.
• Revise one piece 3 times before you call it done.

Writing craft goals for students and writers

Craft goals are small exercises on one skill, and they work for an essay as well as for a novel.

• Cut every draft by 10 percent for a month.
• Write one essay with a single clear claim in each paragraph.
• Rewrite one opening paragraph 5 different ways.
• Ask 3 readers for feedback on one piece.
• Read one book on writing and try one idea from it each week.

Publishing and sharing goals

Sharing goals count things sent out, not things accepted. Publishing on a schedule is the heart of content creator goals too.

• Publish one blog post a week for 12 weeks.
• Send work to 10 magazines or contests.
• Start a newsletter and send 10 issues.
• Bring one piece a month to a writing group.
• Finish one piece and print it, bound, for yourself.

What is a good writing goal?

A good writing goal is a number of words or days, not a feeling about the quality. A review of 35 years of goal research found that specific, hard goals lead to higher performance than being told to do your best. "Write more" is neither. "500 words a day for 30 days" is both.

Count what you send out, not what comes back. You control how many stories you submit. You do not control how many are accepted. The same goes for posts published and readers gained.

A well known piece of advice for writers is to mark each day you write on a calendar. That method is called don't break the chain, and it has a strange history. A running total of days does the same job without making one missed day feel like the end.

How to track writing goals

Write the day's word count down when you stop. A review of 138 studies found that people who monitored their progress reached their goals more often, and that recording it beat keeping it in your head.

Words are an amount that adds up to a total. Writing days are a day count. Most creative challenge ideas pick one of those two.

A draft looks the same on day 40 as on day 39. A picture that fills up with every 500 words shows that it is not.

Frequently asked questions

What are examples of writing goals?

Write 200 words a day for 30 days. Write 10,000 words in a month. Finish the first draft of one short story. Publish one post a week for 12 weeks. Send work to 10 magazines.

What are good writing goals for students?

Write for 20 minutes a day before anything else, cut every draft by 10 percent, and make each paragraph carry one clear claim. Each one is small enough to do on a school night.

How many words a day should I write?

As many as you can repeat tomorrow. 274 words a day is 100,000 words in a year. 1,667 a day is a 50,000 word draft in a month. Pick the pace that fits your year, not your best day.