NaNo Happiness Comes In Small Packages

I know I'm probably the last person on the planet to figure this out. But I learned something this year for NaNoWriMo that's helped me a lot.

This is my first year using Scrivener for NaNo, and it has this cool tool called "Project Targets."

I set it for the 50K word goal, and it keeps track of my progress for me. Also, and more importantly, is the session target.

I set the project to calculate exactly how many words I need to write per day (not including Sunday, because that's my writing day off) and it adjusts automatically if I write more or less than the session goal. I have it set so that each day is one session, and the calculator resets everyday at midnight.

The best part is the little bar that changes color as you get closer to your goal. It sounds silly, but it motivates me. I want to see that bar turn green! I can't go to sleep until it does. I pretty much can't focus on anything until that bar is GREEN!

I love it! Why didn't I know about this sooner?!