Image: 2023 Quarter 1 vision board. Background: Asexual flag. Top left to bottom right: (1) A person writing in a journal with their laptop in front of them, (2) upside-down picture of a hand heart against a sunset, (3) a person relaxing with a cup of coffee, (4) a piece of paper torn away to reveal the word “plot,” (5) Q1 Focus!, (6) A book with light and letters coming out from between the pages, (7) a book with two pages curved over to make a heart, (8) a mysterious shadowed figure against a greenish light, (9) a girl in a white shirt with red stripes standing back-to-back with a girl in a black-and-white striped shirt.
You can read this article on Substack!
Hello, all!
So, recently I decided to take a one week intensive course called the HB90 Bootcamp, which is run by Sarra Cannon of HeartBreathings. I’ve followed Sarra on YouTube for a few years now; she’s a very successful indie author, and someone I look up to. This bootcamp teaches her HB90 system, and a lot of other authors have sworn this has been extremely helpful for them, for a variety of reasons.
So what is the HB90 system? It’s a system of goal setting and planning. It uses Sarra’s planner system, which has been developed over years of her own experimentation, combined with a kanban board for visual representation of the things you’re working on. You then set your goals for the upcoming quarter (no more than three), break the goals down into projects needed to accomplish them, and break the projects down into individual tasks.
The class itself teaches you how to do these things, and also how to set up the planner (like how to map your available time and estimate how much you think you’ll need to complete a task and/or project, so you can estimate how long you’ll need for the goal), and how to set up your kanban board.
Was this class useful to me? I feel like it was. It definitely forced me to take my lofty writing and authorial goals and make them into something concrete. I had to state what I wanted, and make an actual plan to accomplish it—something more solid than “write a book, find an editor and cover artist, hit publish.” In fact, I set three goals—one for my future as an author, one for my fanfiction (because I need to write that, it helps me decompress and it’s fun), and a personal life goal. Most of my time is going into the first goal, but having the other two let me schedule in time for mental health and personal improvement as well.
Do I think it would be helpful for other people? Overall, yes. A lot of the material is geared towards authors and writing, because Sarra is an author, but I think it would also be helpful for everyone else. A word of caution, though, when it comes to scheduling time—it asks you to be brutally honest about your available time, and you make a chart of every activity you do. This can be overwhelming if you’re not prepared. I have anxiety, and for me, once I saw the visual representation of my schedule, I almost had a shut down at how packed it looked. Mostly because of work hours.
That said, my schedule is based off my current work schedule, and once holidays are over my work hours should drop back some. It’s also an “idealized” schedule—my work days change week-to-week, so (for example) I probably won’t have two days off in a row, but that’s how I blocked it out. I’ll have to adjust the actual plan on a weekly basis. These realizations are honestly what kept me from shutting down and deciding I can’t do what the class asks. If thinking about the sheer amount of work you have to causes any kind of similar reaction, this may not be the class for you. At the very least, you’ll need to make some adjustments to it.
Is the class effective? It definitely has been for making the actual plan, but when it comes to the execution…I guess I won’t be able to tell until the end of the quarter. I’ll definitely do a follow-up post then, let you all know how the overall plan went, and some updates throughout Q1 to let you all know how things are progressing!
