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It\u2019s that time of year when everyone is working on their annual business plans, intentions, resolutions, habits\u2014or even big, hairy, audacious goals, those BHAGS. Or \u201cstretch\u201d goals.\n\nA lot of writers are thinking through their goals for the year ahead.\n\nYou may be measuring and drawing out calendar grids in your bullet journal or shopping for a bright, new, fresh yearly planner. You\u2019re organizing and reorganizing Evernote tags and Notebooks. You\u2019re trying out productivity apps. You\u2019re going to test run a new social media platform. Maybe you decided this is the year to write your first book, so you set up a Word document or Scrivener file with the working title, as a promise to make progress.\n\nYou can imagine that as a coach, I love all of that dreaming, all that energy, all that desire and hope. I\u2019m so happy you\u2019re making plans and experimenting\u2014maybe setting out to launch a new project.\n\nGo for it.\n\nMake those plans. Set those goals. Write out your intentions and resolutions. Stretch and get a little audacious.\n\nAnd then, before you lock everything in, may I make a suggestion?\n\nRun it through one more grid. Because I\u2019d hate for you to get deep into the second quarter and realize you can't possibly keep up with the pace you set for yourself. You can\u2019t turn out the daily word count you set up, or you were unrealistic about how fast you could land a byline in a national publication.\n\nI encourage you to look ahead with the idea of sustainability.\n\nThe word \u201csustainable\u201d traces back to ideas of being able to last or continue over the long haul. But its root word, \u201csustain," means to give support or relief to, or to supply with sustenance or nourish. I find that to be a satisfying way of looking at our work. So with those ideas of sustenance and nourishment in mind, let\u2019s consider four ways our writing can be sustainable:\n1. You can sustain your writing plan if you have enough ideas to keep going\nThis first idea is obvious. Your writing plan is sustainable only if you have enough ideas. If you set out to publish a blog post five times a week or three times a week, you need enough content to keep that up.\n\nIn episode 76, I did some math for you\u2014and believe me, I\u2019m really invested in you to do math for you. In that post, I figured out that to publish twice a week for three years, you\u2019ll need 312 ideas. I was suggesting you brainstorm and see if you can generate a big number in one or two sessions\xa0because that would confirm you have plenty of content to keep writing in your niche.\n\nWell, it\u2019s the same principle as you move ahead with your writing plan for the year ahead. You want to be sure you have plenty of content to supply and support the plan. If you have 312 ideas, you\u2019ll have no problem continuing\u2014you\u2019ll be able\xa0to move ahead with two articles per week. If you have only 75, perhaps you should reduce your frequency to once a week or broaden your niche so you can generate more ideas.\n\nIn any case, the concept here is that if you\u2019ve set up a goal that requires a steady supply of content, make sure you have enough on deck to sustain it.\n2. You can sustain your writing plan if the schedule isn\u2019t brutal\nThis is closely related to the first sustainability challenge, except that you could have 700 ideas ready to go, but if writing still comes a bit slow for you, or if you\u2019re working full time and writing is still a side gig, or if you face other complicated scheduling challenges, those ideas are just going to sit there.\n\nEven efficient writers need time to write and prep content for a blog or freelance submissions or as pieces of a bigger project like chapters for a book. If you don\u2019t have much writing time available, you can have all the ideas in the world and it doesn\u2019t matter if you can\u2019t get them written. Be realistic about what you can produce in your current schedule.\n\nNow that\u2019s not to say we shouldn\u2019t push ourselves at times to meet those BHAGs and stretch goals.