Happy New Year to you as we leave 2021 and welcome 2022!
I hope you had a healthy and safe Christmas despite Covid-19. I am not going to discuss Covid here because there is enough of it in the news and social media! This blog is a “Covid-free zone” and promotes indexing & proofreading!
This month I am concentrating on goal setting as now is the ideal time to make some changes and New Year resolutions!
What is/are your goal/goals for this year?
This year my goal is to improve my efficiency . I use a software program to create indexes, but I do not know many of the shortcuts and its capabilities to help me work efficiently.
Setting and achieving goals can be difficult but using the SMART criteria makes them easier to evaluate.
A goal must be specific. Is my goal of improving my efficiency specific? I don’t think it is. Am I efficient in using my indexing software program (SKY) or proofreading PDFs/MS Word? To make my goal more specific I can change it to: I want to improve my efficiency in SKY and PDFs/Word.
Goals should be measurable. You should be able to measure your progress towards achieving your goal. Currently, I only know a couple of keyboard shortcuts in SKY, I use comment tool in the PDFs, and I am familiar with Track Changes in Word, but I do not know all the shortcuts/macros which can help improve efficiency. I can measure my goal by noting how many shortcuts I can learn.
Is your goal achievable? You are more likely to reach your goal if it is achievable. My goal of improving my efficiency is achievable. I can try one new shortcut every day and by the end of a couple of months I should have learned a lot of them.
R stands for realistic or relevant. Is this the right time for you to try to achieve your goal? It is the right time for me to improve my efficiency. The SKY program has cheat sheets for shortcuts and a good email discussion group. I can do training courses for marking up PDFs and to learn MS Word.
Timely goals are ones which have a start date and a finish date. So, for me, when I have an indexing job, I will learn one new shortcut/program feature every day, keep a record of it and by the end of the job (1–3 weeks) I will be more familiar with the programs.
To improve my efficiency in proofreading, I will enrol on a course on PDF markup and/or editing in Word. CIEP has a course called Word for Practical Editing which sounds very useful to me. Denise Cowle has a PDF markup course.
So, what is my goal now, according to the SMART criteria?
My goal is to improve my efficiency by learning more about my indexing software, marking up PDFs and using Word.
My plan is to keep a record of the software features I learn and use them every day I am working on an index/proofread. I will enrol on the marking up PDFs course first and then the Word course. I will write down my goal and try to maintain the momentum of learning and revising all the shortcuts I learn. Writing down your goals will help you achieve them.
What is/are your goal(s) for 2022? Does the SMART criteria help you?
For anyone writing a book which needs a proofread or an index, hire a professional from AFEPI (Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders & Indexers of Ireland) , the Society of Indexers, or CIEP (Charter Institute of Editing and Proofreading) to lighten your load!
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