[January, February, March] Quarterly Goals for 2016.

Monday, January 11, 2016

I'm not one for resolutions. I never have been. All of the ones I've made in the past, you know, the "trendy ones" of losing weight and whatnot, I've broken in the first week or month of the year. So this year, I don't plan to make any.

In 2014, I had a word that I tried to live by : balance. And in 2015, I admitted that I didn't achieve that for 2014 and even though I didn't officially choose a word for 2015, I opted to try for balance again.

And now? Now it's 2016. And I hate to admit... I'm gonna try again. I'm not going to say that balance is my word of the year, but instead I'm going to try to set some goals for myself each month to try to achieve it instead.


After seeing Whitney's post the other day, I decided that I would do quarterly goals for myself instead of monthly mainly because I feel like that is more attainable goal for me. I have a bunch of things I want to get done and to say I'll get them done by February 1st is just not going to happen.


FAMILY
- Try a new recipe once a month.
- Have one family date a month.
- Have one Seth and I date a month.


All pretty self explanatory.


HOME
- Hire someone to come clean once a month. I've tried and tried and thought I could do it all, but I can't. I definitely have priorities and deep cleaning is not one of them. I try to tidy up at least once every other day (keeping it real) and sweep at least once a week (again, keeping it real), but actual vacuuming and deep cleaning the bathrooms and such... hasn't happened in a while. I think we have someone lined up to do this and I'm excited to know that at least once a month, the house will really get a good cleaning.
- Organize. Clean. Get rid of clutter. I say this all the time, but it's getting bad. The piles of things I need to file away and the mail that needs to be sorted through is piling up. We have a mini fridge that died (a LONG time ago) and needs to be properly disposed of and then I want to move our small filing cabinet downstairs. With it more accessible (than it is now in our closet upstairs), I'm hoping that that will give me the motivation to put things where they belong.
- Spring clean. I know it's not technically the spring yet, but I need to do some spring cleaning. I ordered a bag from thredUP FOREVER ago and need to fill it and send it in. I need to go through my closest and Mason's closet and get rid of some things that don't fit or that he/I don't wear anymore. It's beyond time.
- Find a better storage system for all of Mason's toys. Our place is small. Like we barely have that many closets let alone places to store all of Mason's stuff. We have an Expedit bookshelf from IKEA that houses most of this toys but I think we either need more buckets/things to store toys in or we need another Expedit. I want to explore the options to better organize and get more of his big toys off the floor.


ME
- Walk at least one day a week. I want to start small and then increase as time goes on.
- Take more pictures. You'd think as a blogger, I wouldn't need a goal like this, but as a working mom, I feel like I only take pictures on the weekends. And while that might be when all the "big events" happen, there's tons of little things that happen during the week that I want to remember as well! The Picture Perfect Project should help me with this!
- Drink more water. I bring a blender bottle size water bottle to work everyday and some days I don't even finish that. I REALLY want to make sure I start drinking more water.
- Try to make healthier food choices. You guys. I've been SO bad about eating sweets lately! SO BAD. It's not good. I made these amazing cookies with Mason for Santa back before Christmas and then again for New Year's Eve. Then we bought some ice cream. Then my boss bought candy. And the list goes on. I pretty much crave something sweet each day now and am not proud to say, I always give in. I need to stop! #cantstopwontstop #needtostop


BLOG
- Pre-schedule at least one, hopefully more, posts for the week on Sunday. I did this last week and it made life infinitely better. Sometimes it's hard though because the things I like to share happen in real time and can't really be pre-scheduled, which is why I'm going to shoot for at least one.
- If I host a link up, make sure I click on every link and visit their post. I feel like it's the least I can do. I'm thankful that people link up with me when I host/co-host a link up and I'd like to show my appreciation by reading and commenting on their post.
- Schedule certain posts for the month that I know I want to do (in my planner). This may sound funny, but currently posts are some of my favorite posts to do and to read. I always tentatively plan to do one a month, but then other things come up and I push them back and back. In order to make sure I do goal check-ins, I just scheduled these updates in my planner right now. If things are scheduled, I'm 1) so much more likely to follow through and 2) SO much more likely to not forget!
- Determine the right amount of posts per week to maintain the mom/wife/employee/blogger balance. Cut back if necessary. Schedule certain days if necessary.
- Finish recapping our Disney cruise (which is WAY overdue).



And there you have it. That's what I hope to get accomplished in the next few months. Is it a lot? Maybe. Probably. But a few of them have been a long time coming. I feel like if I can tackle some of these in the early months, it will make the whole year go a lot more smoothly.

How do I plan to accomplish my goals? I plan to print them out so I have easy access to them. Hitting publish on a post can be easy, but remembering to come back and check on my goals can be hard. If I print them and keep them with me in my planner, I am much more likely to check on them than I am to refer back to my post. I feel like that has been part of the problem in the past. I hit publish and never come back again.

Here's to successful goal accomplishing next few months!



17 comments:

  1. Great goals!! You can totally achieve those. I admit that I too tend to forget my goals and never accomplish them but I think you've got this.

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  2. Great goals! And definitely a great idea to print out and keep with you. I easily forget things too! If I don't plot out all my posts on the calendar I would forget so many posts!!!

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  3. I love your goals and how you broke them up to quarterly. I need to do that because it's more attainable that way. We had a cleaning service come in for a couple years, and I have to admit, there were many benefits to it!

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  4. These are awesome goals. I can't wait to hear about your Disney cruise! We're thinking about taking Toddles on one this year.

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  5. Great goals, friend! I am also doing the quarterly goals this year. There just isn't enough time for monthly goals. :) Great idea about printing them. I need to do that as well. Drinking more water is one of my goals this year and it's one goal that I am already crushing! I got a 30oz Yeti cup and it makes drinking water so much better. It keeps ice for days and I just love it. I drank over 120oz of water yesterday alone. And I am a big time diet soda addict! Big props to the Yeti ramblers!!

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  6. You have great goals! Quarterly is a nice idea. I might try that next year. I totally wish I could hire someone to clean!

    Becky
    bybmg

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  7. Slow and steady wins the race. It's a good idea to start out slower and smaller goals and then gain momentum as time goes on.

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  8. I love these goals! We have a cleaning lady Coke every other week and it has been the best investment ever!

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  9. I just wrote Crystal this same thing but Jess and I are planning on being accountability partners, if you want in! Not sure what it looks like yet but some kind of progress check in and some cheerleading :)
    When you find a better toy storage system please share! Im thinking of just getting a huge bin and throwing everything in lol.

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  10. Very good goals! Especially the blog posting, I try to do that, but like you I like writing in real time. This year I got a planner specifically for blogging and another one for my daily life things, hopefully if I write down a schedule I'll actually keep to it, I like checking things off a list! :)

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  11. Oh man. Yes to ALL OF THIS. Especially getting someone to clean your house. its just one less thing- and feels SO GOOD. Never mind taking more pictures AND scheduling posts ;)

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  12. Ooooh if you end up trying one new recipe a month, I want to know about it! I definitely need some new ideas to mix up our boring dinner routine. Love all your goals!

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  13. Great goals! I have sticky notes reminding me of my goals...otherwise, the day ends, and I didn't drink enough water, move a little, etc...life is hectic!! You got this!! (PS We hire someone to come clean every few months. It's so nice to have a fully clean bathroom and dust-free floorboards!)

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  14. Love these quarterly goals such a goo way to keep track of what is going on. I'd totally come clean your place once a month but I don't think you could afford me lololol! I have a few random jobs that I do like that but they seem to be a bit more local.

    Finding balance is hard isn't it? I know I struggle, I think we all do.

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  15. All are great goals.
    I was nodding my head through your entire house list. We desperately need someone to come and give our place a good cleaning. We vacuum almost every night, and wipe down the kitchen counters daily. But the rest of the house? Yikes. It's begging for a thorough clean.

    I'm with you on pre-scheduling blogs. For a while I was doing pretty good, but now I can't seem to get it together.

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  16. All of your goals are so similar to things I want to accomplish! Especially the organizing/cleaning one. I just can't seem to keep up lately and it's kinda driving me nuts!

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  17. I like the idea of quarterly goals too! Seems more manageable. I like how you quantified balance in your goals by making goals that will help you achieve balance.

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