Check out that shorter list! Almost all the goals are done, and the others are close to being done. I'm liking the shorter list idea. This format seems to work better for me. Shorter is more manageable, and by removing the items each week, I'm only left with the unfinished goals to focus on. I tried doing it with the 101 goals as well, but the list that was left after removing the finished goals was still really long and intimidating. By the end of it, I wasn't motivated to get anything done since I knew I wasn't going to complete them in full. What was the point of trying? But with the short list, it's so much easier to imagine accomplishing it.
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week (Poor showing this week, only 1 day met my criteria. I think I need to re-jig this goal for next month, maybe start with a larger time window, and gradually reduce it. I am the worst at getting up in the morning)
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x
per week (Accomplished for this past week; I did my 2 regular
activities as well as 2 others. Look at me go - I'm exceeding my goals!)
Health
3. book juice cleanse (DONE!)
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time (Done both!)
Condo
9. move more
stuff to storage locker (DONE)
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket (DONE)
13. start working on red sweater (I finished my current knitting project today, so next time I pick up needles it is going to be the sweater! But I haven't actually done anything on it yet, so I can't mark this goal as done. )
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow (I've been thinking about it, and thinking about colours to use, but have not settled on anything yet. Some internet research might be needed before I make a final decision.)
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment
(I decided to wait on this until I got an RRSP cheque I was expecting from work. I got the cheque last week, now I can book an appointment. My plan is to book it tomorrow.)
16. figure out a new budget (I have no excuse - I've just been lazy!)
Next blog post I'm going to try to come up with my November goals. I'm going to have to try to keep the list short. I find that I have a tendency to keep adding!
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Mid-month update
We're already halfway through October! Man, time is going by fast this month. I've had two very busy weekends in a row, both with lots of driving. Next weekend I'm staying home and don't have much planned. I'm looking forward to it!
Here's where I am on my goals:
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week (Accomplished for this week! I am giving myself a small 5min window as well. Meaning, before 9:05 counts as 'on time'.)
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x per week (Accomplished for this past week; I have 2 regular activities for the rest of October, so I only need to come up with one other activity each week. I'm obviously hoping to do more, but 3 will be my minimum.)
Health
3. book juice cleanse (I know, I'm procrastinating! Even groupon is nagging me, telling me to go use my groupons.)
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time (Done one, working on the second)
7. book laser appointment again (DONE - and the appointment is done too already)
8. find a vet, and take cat to vet for checkup (DONE - took him yesterday. Kitty does NOT enjoy going into his carrier, and he disliked his overall vet experience. Loves the dental food the vet gave me though.)
Condo
9. move more stuff to storage locker (I need to go through my fabric stash, which is why I've been putting this one off. I have a pile of fabric that I want to move to the storage locker, but in order to get it into the locker with the other fabric I need to pull everything out and repackage it. Daunting.)
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket (Almost - need to finish binding the sides. I'm 1/3 of the way done hand sewing it closed. I'm very pleased with how it looks so far, but it is painstakingly slow.)
13. start working on red sweater (not until green blanket is done)
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow (not until green blanket is done)
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment (I have put this in my phone as a reminder. If I listen to my phone, it's very effective at telling me to do things. But I have a bad habit of ignoring the reminders, or moving them to later days. Like booking the juice cleanse . . . )
16. figure out a new budget (I get paid tomorrow at my higher rate, so I'm waiting until that happens to do this one)
I haven't really been thinking about my goals much. This isn't really helping me get anywhere with getting them done. At least by blogging about them I'm getting a (kinda) weekly reminder about them. By putting things in my phone I find that I'm still getting things done, they're just not getting connected to accomplished goals in my brain. But the whole point is to get things done. So it doesn't matter whether they connect - I just have to do them!
Here's where I am on my goals:
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week (Accomplished for this week! I am giving myself a small 5min window as well. Meaning, before 9:05 counts as 'on time'.)
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x per week (Accomplished for this past week; I have 2 regular activities for the rest of October, so I only need to come up with one other activity each week. I'm obviously hoping to do more, but 3 will be my minimum.)
Health
3. book juice cleanse (I know, I'm procrastinating! Even groupon is nagging me, telling me to go use my groupons.)
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time (Done one, working on the second)
7. book laser appointment again (DONE - and the appointment is done too already)
8. find a vet, and take cat to vet for checkup (DONE - took him yesterday. Kitty does NOT enjoy going into his carrier, and he disliked his overall vet experience. Loves the dental food the vet gave me though.)
Condo
9. move more stuff to storage locker (I need to go through my fabric stash, which is why I've been putting this one off. I have a pile of fabric that I want to move to the storage locker, but in order to get it into the locker with the other fabric I need to pull everything out and repackage it. Daunting.)
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket (Almost - need to finish binding the sides. I'm 1/3 of the way done hand sewing it closed. I'm very pleased with how it looks so far, but it is painstakingly slow.)
13. start working on red sweater (not until green blanket is done)
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow (not until green blanket is done)
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment (I have put this in my phone as a reminder. If I listen to my phone, it's very effective at telling me to do things. But I have a bad habit of ignoring the reminders, or moving them to later days. Like booking the juice cleanse . . . )
16. figure out a new budget (I get paid tomorrow at my higher rate, so I'm waiting until that happens to do this one)
I haven't really been thinking about my goals much. This isn't really helping me get anywhere with getting them done. At least by blogging about them I'm getting a (kinda) weekly reminder about them. By putting things in my phone I find that I'm still getting things done, they're just not getting connected to accomplished goals in my brain. But the whole point is to get things done. So it doesn't matter whether they connect - I just have to do them!
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Full speed ahead
A few days after writing out my October goals, I thought I was being a bit lofty in my ambitions. But now, 9 days in, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I've done better than I thought I would. I realized that most of my goals, even though I've broken them down into lots of categories below, fit into 2 bigger categories. The obvious one is health, the fitness and health goals are to help me get back to a healthy weight. And stop me from gaining anymore weight.
The second grouping is organization, in a broad sense. I want my life to feel more organized. I don't want to feel like I'm always rushing to get somewhere (like work) or like I have so much on my to do list that it's paralyzing. With that also goes all of the storage/cleaning goals - if my environment is organized, I'll feel more organized. Which will lead to a better feeling overall. At lease I certainly hope so. If it doesn't, at least my to do list will be significantly smaller.
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week (My work is really flexible - if I show up late, I stay late. But I just got promoted, so I'm trying to break my bad habit of being late all the time. This goal is going to reoccur each month, until I'm getting there on time more often than not)
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x per week (Working on this - I'm already regularly active once a week, I'm trying to increase that to be healthier, and help me on my overall goal of losing weight and inches)
Health
3. book juice cleanse
4. figure out a healthy calorie consumption level for losing weight DONE
5. start tracking calories and eating healthier DONE
(I joined www.sparkpeople.com, once you put in your weight loss goal and timeframe, the site calculates a healthy daily calorie range for you, and there is a feature that allows you to track your meals. There's also a lot more to the site too! So far I've been doing fairly well at keeping within the calorie ranges. I exceeded on Thanksgiving, but I was expecting that and compensate by eating healthy earlier that day. I'm still struggling with getting enough protein, but since the site also tells me whether I've met my protein goals for the day, I think I'll be able to get a bit better.)
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time (Done one, working on the second)
7. book laser appointment again
8. find a vet, and take cat to vet for checkup
Condo
9. move more stuff to storage locker, get rid of stuff in storage locker (Done second half of goal)
10. get roommate to deal with some stuff in the hallway (DONE)
11. start going through jewellery (DONE - I spent a good chunk of this weekend cleaning and organizing my jewellery, as well as purging a fair bit of it. It all looks so great now, I can't wait to wear it. There was so much jewelery I was forgetting about)
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket (Almost - need to finish binding the sides. I'm still deciding between doing it by hand and making it look pretty, or doing it with the sewing machine and sacrificing looks for sturdiness. I'm leaning towards hand sewing right now, and might try to do this tomorrow night or on the weekend. I'm so close I just want to finish it!)
13. start working on red sweater (not until green blanket is done)
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow (not until green blanket is done)
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment
16. figure out a new budget
Next post I'll take out the goals I finished for this one, and so on for each post, until there are no goals left! Now I have to get on the remaining goals. Otherwise, my list won't get smaller.
The second grouping is organization, in a broad sense. I want my life to feel more organized. I don't want to feel like I'm always rushing to get somewhere (like work) or like I have so much on my to do list that it's paralyzing. With that also goes all of the storage/cleaning goals - if my environment is organized, I'll feel more organized. Which will lead to a better feeling overall. At lease I certainly hope so. If it doesn't, at least my to do list will be significantly smaller.
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week (My work is really flexible - if I show up late, I stay late. But I just got promoted, so I'm trying to break my bad habit of being late all the time. This goal is going to reoccur each month, until I'm getting there on time more often than not)
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x per week (Working on this - I'm already regularly active once a week, I'm trying to increase that to be healthier, and help me on my overall goal of losing weight and inches)
Health
3. book juice cleanse
4. figure out a healthy calorie consumption level for losing weight DONE
5. start tracking calories and eating healthier DONE
(I joined www.sparkpeople.com, once you put in your weight loss goal and timeframe, the site calculates a healthy daily calorie range for you, and there is a feature that allows you to track your meals. There's also a lot more to the site too! So far I've been doing fairly well at keeping within the calorie ranges. I exceeded on Thanksgiving, but I was expecting that and compensate by eating healthy earlier that day. I'm still struggling with getting enough protein, but since the site also tells me whether I've met my protein goals for the day, I think I'll be able to get a bit better.)
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time (Done one, working on the second)
7. book laser appointment again
8. find a vet, and take cat to vet for checkup
Condo
9. move more stuff to storage locker, get rid of stuff in storage locker (Done second half of goal)
10. get roommate to deal with some stuff in the hallway (DONE)
11. start going through jewellery (DONE - I spent a good chunk of this weekend cleaning and organizing my jewellery, as well as purging a fair bit of it. It all looks so great now, I can't wait to wear it. There was so much jewelery I was forgetting about)
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket (Almost - need to finish binding the sides. I'm still deciding between doing it by hand and making it look pretty, or doing it with the sewing machine and sacrificing looks for sturdiness. I'm leaning towards hand sewing right now, and might try to do this tomorrow night or on the weekend. I'm so close I just want to finish it!)
13. start working on red sweater (not until green blanket is done)
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow (not until green blanket is done)
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment
16. figure out a new budget
Next post I'll take out the goals I finished for this one, and so on for each post, until there are no goals left! Now I have to get on the remaining goals. Otherwise, my list won't get smaller.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Game on!
I decided to take September off, and not worry about goals or doing anything. This turned out to be a really good idea, because it gave me time to think about where I want to place my focus. I decided against doing a set number of goals or following a specific goal oriented program. Even if I made one up for myself. This month I realized that there are certain areas of my life where I want to make improvements. Maybe improvements is a bad word. There are areas of my life where I feel like there are things I need to do or should do, but they keep getting passed over for other things or forgotten. If I set things out here as goals to get done, hopefully it will help me out a bit. Then I will have fewer things hanging over my head making me feel guilty. The goals are going to be my big picture to do list for the month. I tend to keep running to do lists that never seem to get shorter. The main idea here is to start shrinking those lists.
October will be my test month, to see how it goes. I'm going to try to keep my individual goals small and manageable. And the categories I've come up with so far are just areas that I think I need to improve/get stuff done. I'm not going to commit to only these categories, or always having goals in each category. Flexibility was lacking in the 101 goals project, so being able to make changes after a month is important to me. The goals need to be relevant if I'm going to be motivated to complete them. Here we go:
OCTOBER GOALS!
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x per week
Health
3. book juice cleanse
4. figure out a healthy calorie consumption level for losing weight
5. start tracking calories and eating healthier
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time
7. book laser appointment again
8. find a vet, and take cat to vet for checkup
Condo
9. move more stuff to storage locker, get rid of stuff in storage locker
10. get roommate to deal with some stuff in the hallway
11. start going through jewellery
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket
13. start working on red sweater
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment
16. figure out a new budget
Wish me luck!
October will be my test month, to see how it goes. I'm going to try to keep my individual goals small and manageable. And the categories I've come up with so far are just areas that I think I need to improve/get stuff done. I'm not going to commit to only these categories, or always having goals in each category. Flexibility was lacking in the 101 goals project, so being able to make changes after a month is important to me. The goals need to be relevant if I'm going to be motivated to complete them. Here we go:
OCTOBER GOALS!
Work
1. get to work on time 2x per week
Fitness
2. be active at least 3x per week
Health
3. book juice cleanse
4. figure out a healthy calorie consumption level for losing weight
5. start tracking calories and eating healthier
Personal
6. make plans with 2 friends I haven't seen in a long time
7. book laser appointment again
8. find a vet, and take cat to vet for checkup
Condo
9. move more stuff to storage locker, get rid of stuff in storage locker
10. get roommate to deal with some stuff in the hallway
11. start going through jewellery
Craft
12. finish green tiger blanket
13. start working on red sweater
14. figure out pattern for frog pillow
Financial
15. make RRSP appointment
16. figure out a new budget
Wish me luck!
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
That's all, folks
Since I'm going on vacation tomorrow (yay!) today is the last day for goals. There isn't going to be any time to squeeze in any more goals after I head out. I am glad to report that I managed to finish all the free rice donations yesterday, so that is one goal that gets completed. Overall, I completed 76 of my goals. That's a pass, right?
Short post today - I need to go to bed! While I'm on vacation, I'm going to try to figure out where I want to go from here with the goals. Whether to keep doing them (probably) and more importantly, what format do I want to follow. And while I'm at it, I figure I should probably come up with some goals for the first round of whatever I'm doing!
Short post today - I need to go to bed! While I'm on vacation, I'm going to try to figure out where I want to go from here with the goals. Whether to keep doing them (probably) and more importantly, what format do I want to follow. And while I'm at it, I figure I should probably come up with some goals for the first round of whatever I'm doing!
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Tick tock
Almost there! So close on my free rice, only 9,000 to go. I've been good for the past little while, and have been remembering to do it. Now that I'm so close, I'm confident that I will get that goal done. The rest of them, not so much. When the buzzer finally goes, I think I will have 76 goals completed. Unless something miraculous happens and I somehow get another one done. But I'm not counting on that.
Instead of thinking about the goals I'm supposed to be doing, I've been thinking about what I'm going to do next. This has not been helping me get anything done, of course. But since I realized a long time ago that I'd checked out on a lot of my goals, I'm not overly concerned with getting them done. There are a few that I really want to do, like the free rice goal, but the rest don't really matter to me.
I'm toying with the idea of doing monthly goals. Mainly because I think it would be easier to keep track of. It's pretty hard to forget the last day of the month, but if I was doing 100 day goals or something, I'd have to keep track of an arbitrary day. Normally, I'm all over the abitrariness,just not this time. This time, laziness is winning the battle. My thinking was that I could set 5 goals at the beginning of each month. The goals can be pretty much anything, even silly things like "get a massage". Basically, I'm going to use the goals as a to do list. Getting 5 things done each month seems to be a pretty reasonable target, to me. And since they are my goals and it's my plan, I'm the only one that matters!
Instead of thinking about the goals I'm supposed to be doing, I've been thinking about what I'm going to do next. This has not been helping me get anything done, of course. But since I realized a long time ago that I'd checked out on a lot of my goals, I'm not overly concerned with getting them done. There are a few that I really want to do, like the free rice goal, but the rest don't really matter to me.
I'm toying with the idea of doing monthly goals. Mainly because I think it would be easier to keep track of. It's pretty hard to forget the last day of the month, but if I was doing 100 day goals or something, I'd have to keep track of an arbitrary day. Normally, I'm all over the abitrariness,just not this time. This time, laziness is winning the battle. My thinking was that I could set 5 goals at the beginning of each month. The goals can be pretty much anything, even silly things like "get a massage". Basically, I'm going to use the goals as a to do list. Getting 5 things done each month seems to be a pretty reasonable target, to me. And since they are my goals and it's my plan, I'm the only one that matters!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Knit knit knit
I have been on a knitting kick lately. Maybe it's because it finally rained, so it's a lot cooler out and that makes me feel like knitting again? Whatever it is, I don't mind it. I actually finished a square the other day, and I've started on another one. I also took some time one afternoon and sewed in all the ends on the squares that were done. Then I blocked them all. They are now ready and waiting for more to be done, so they can go into a blanket.
Even though I'm not going to be bound by the goals after August 31, I'm going to keep knitting the squares. I have way too much yarn not to keep going! Hopefully I can convince some other knitters that I know to help me out too. If I'm left on my own, it may be years before I have enough to make a blanket. Right now I have 28 squares done. 20 more to go to make a blanket.
No new goals done this week, just more slow progress on the goals that take a lot of time.
Even though I'm not going to be bound by the goals after August 31, I'm going to keep knitting the squares. I have way too much yarn not to keep going! Hopefully I can convince some other knitters that I know to help me out too. If I'm left on my own, it may be years before I have enough to make a blanket. Right now I have 28 squares done. 20 more to go to make a blanket.
No new goals done this week, just more slow progress on the goals that take a lot of time.
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