Goals Update - Second Quarter of 2018
Tuesday, July 03, 2018
2018 is going by so fast! In this post, I review my goal progress from the last three months and adjust my goals for the next three. This post includes a lot of personal stuff that I don’t normally talk about on this blog.
However, this is the last update for several categories. I am only keeping the ones that I need the accountability in, and/or that I think you might enjoy reading about. Writing and reading updates are at the bottom of the post.
For more on my goal categories and tips for setting goals, check out the first part of Goals, Failures, and Achievements - Looking Back on 2017 and Ahead to 2018 where I share a bunch of links.
Three Month Goals Update
Family/Romantic:
I’m still going on dates with my husband on Sunday afternoons and/or Saturdays. Our five-year wedding anniversary was in June. In lieu of going on vacation, we have decided to go hiking several times this summer. We’ve been on a couple already, but we need to hike in national forests at least seven different days to make our annual Northwest Forest Pass worth it. The goal is to do that before it expires next year, and state parks don’t count because they have a separate fee system. I felt kind of stupid when I figured that out after I bought the pass.
Social:
I still get together with my girlfriends to do something 1x/month. I asked them what they wanted to do other than tea parties, and they all had ideas, so now we have our events planned out for the rest of the year. Yes, the whole year. It's starting to feel like I'm an events coordinator for a small social club, but I'm okay with that.This last time we went to a ramen place and next time we’re going hiking.
Megan and I still write together one day each week. We’re starting to get some work done instead of just talking. Doing pomodoros helps a lot. She finished the first draft of her third book last week, so that's exciting.
Financial:
Since last quarter, my husband got full-time at his job, and now I feel less like we’re about to die. We're also about to hit our savings goal. After we hit it, we’ll need to talk about what to do next and plan accordingly. I am eliminating this category from future goal updates because the accountability with my husband is more than enough to keep me on track and I can't share details here anyway.Music:
I didn't make much progress with The Beginner Method for Soprano and Alto Recorder. I’ve done maybe 3-4 pages since the beginning of April, which was enough to finish Book I and start Book II, but that’s about it. I’ve been so focused on reading, writing, relationships, and health stuff that I haven’t cared about this at all. I’m just going to take this off the roster for future goal updates.Crochet:
I just realized that this isn’t a real goal category either. It’s more like “Look at what I made!” That being said, look at what I made! In the last three months, I’ve completed a new messy bun beanie, matching boot cuffs, and a matching earwarmer.
Spiritual & Esperanto:
I am still reading the New Testament in Esperanto aloud to myself. Just yesterday I finished 1 Corinthians, which puts me 57% through, right on track. I thought that the transition from the gospels to the epistles would be awful but, aside from Paul’s affinity for lists of attributes, it hasn’t been too bad. There’s plenty of new vocabulary and I have to pay closer attention to what connecting words mean, but the text is so familiar that I can usually figure it out before opening up my ESV. Occasionally I do still have to look words up online.In The Hymn Fake Book I’ve reached page 298 out of 494, which is about 60% of the way through the whole thing. It's less inspiring than it was initially, but that's probably because of the sheer number of hymns I've read. After a while, most hymn lyrics start to sound the same.
I still attend church services, but not ladies’ Bible study. Since my husband got full-time, I now need that day to do my laundry.
I also finally finished Ryan Reeves's Historical Theology for Everone videos. I found the Reformation & Modern Church History playlist especially helpful.
While I had a sore throat last week, I took a break from the New Testament in Esperanto and instead finished The Book of Common Prayer. The last section, Articles of Religion, was especially fascinating, though if I hadn't just listened to the Historical Theology videos, I probably wouldn't have understood the significance of a lot of it.
I plan to keep this category in my goal updates, at least until I complete my 2018 projects.
Physical:
My weight has stabilized. I still want to lose another 10-15 lbs, but I'm undecided about whether that's realistic and sustainable for me. If I can maintain what I have without going crazy, I will count that as a success.
Right now I'm more focused on correcting some nutrient deficiencies that have come up in the last couple of months since I quit green smoothies. I was too lazy about finding a new way to consume flax seeds every day, so now my nails, skin, etc. are starting to show signs of Omega 3 deficiency. Until I get that fixed, I'm basically traveling with a jar of flax meal and sprinkling some on all of my food.
Partway into the quarter, I switched from Pilates every day to riding my exercise bike. Then with the early light in May and June, I went on a lot of morning walks instead.
And then I fell out of exercise altogether. This is what happens when I try to add variety to my workout routine! So now I'm back to Pilates every morning and my back feels great. I also plan to continue hiking with my husband and anyone else I can sucker into it.
Since taking updated photos for this blog and my social media profiles, I haven’t done much with cosmetics and stuff aside from trying to keep my nails looking decent (which has been basically impossible with the Omega 3 deficiency). My day job is rough on my hands and fingernail polish chips after a couple of days, so I mostly use clear on my fingers and save fun stuff like black and red for my toes.
I’ve also experimented with my sleep schedule a little bit. When the days started getting longer, I found it harder and harder to go to bed at 9. We also hadn't reinstalled our A/C for the summer and sometimes it was miserably hot in the evening, so that didn't help anything. I tried a 6 a.m. wake-up time and 10 p.m. bedtime for about a month, but that didn't go so well; my husband would come to bed 30-60 minutes after me, and I'd wake up again. It sucks. Now that we have our A/C back, I'm going to try to go back to my 5 a.m. wake-up and 9 p.m. bedtime routine. Wish me luck.
After I made this progress chart my productivity went up a lot. Essentially, I’ve just gamified my writing goals. I have a list of tasks for the month and some things are scheduled by the week or day, but there's a lot of flexibility. Every day I write down what I did to work toward those goals and give myself a star sticker. If I do nothing, I get a red X instead. I only missed two days in May and four in June (mostly at the end when I was sick).
Because there's such a small box for writing the day's accomplishments, I've also started writing short entries in a daily productivity journal. This keeps me encouraged when I don't accomplish everything I set out to do in a day. I can write down all of the other little things that also needed to be done, but may not have made it on my to-do list. Thus far, this approach seems to be working better for me than Write-Chain did.
A lot of life happened in June, however, and I'm still working on both blog static pages and my novel outline. Between deciding that I actually need about 3x as many static pages and getting sick toward the end, it's been slow going. For July Camp NaNoWriMo I plan to focus on the outline. I can't guarantee that I'll finish it, but I want to spend at least 30 hours of working on it while keeping up with my blog post production schedule. Other blog pages will have to wait until I've put in my outlining hours for the week.
Thus far, I have read 28 books this year. At first, I thought I would review them all, but because I’ve read them faster than necessary for my review production schedule, I’ve opted to only review ones related to reading or writing and to prioritize fiction over nonfiction. For now, my Goodreads Challenge is still set to 50 books, but if I hit it early, I'll raise it. You can follow me on Goodreads to see what I might review...eventually.
A four-week buffer of pre-written posts has helped me adjust to weekly blogging, especially on a mental level. It’s a bit like having an emergency fund to cover your back when the unexpected happens. I just feel more peaceful knowing that it's there. Some things have to be up-to-date because they involve my life, like this post, or the progress section of the Eclectic Writing Class posts, but reviews are pretty easy to schedule.
Post topic-wise, I plan to continue reading and reviewing most of the time, but every four weeks there will be a Writing Roundup post. I also plan to continue doing the homework for those. Every three months, the usual programming will be interrupted by another one of these goal update posts.
Partway into the quarter, I switched from Pilates every day to riding my exercise bike. Then with the early light in May and June, I went on a lot of morning walks instead.
And then I fell out of exercise altogether. This is what happens when I try to add variety to my workout routine! So now I'm back to Pilates every morning and my back feels great. I also plan to continue hiking with my husband and anyone else I can sucker into it.
Since taking updated photos for this blog and my social media profiles, I haven’t done much with cosmetics and stuff aside from trying to keep my nails looking decent (which has been basically impossible with the Omega 3 deficiency). My day job is rough on my hands and fingernail polish chips after a couple of days, so I mostly use clear on my fingers and save fun stuff like black and red for my toes.
I’ve also experimented with my sleep schedule a little bit. When the days started getting longer, I found it harder and harder to go to bed at 9. We also hadn't reinstalled our A/C for the summer and sometimes it was miserably hot in the evening, so that didn't help anything. I tried a 6 a.m. wake-up time and 10 p.m. bedtime for about a month, but that didn't go so well; my husband would come to bed 30-60 minutes after me, and I'd wake up again. It sucks. Now that we have our A/C back, I'm going to try to go back to my 5 a.m. wake-up and 9 p.m. bedtime routine. Wish me luck.
Writing & Reading:
Writing at the same time every morning didn't work for me, partially from the sleep thing. Now I write in other pockets of time all throughout the day. Pretty much anytime I have the opportunity, I'm doing something novel or blog-related.After I made this progress chart my productivity went up a lot. Essentially, I’ve just gamified my writing goals. I have a list of tasks for the month and some things are scheduled by the week or day, but there's a lot of flexibility. Every day I write down what I did to work toward those goals and give myself a star sticker. If I do nothing, I get a red X instead. I only missed two days in May and four in June (mostly at the end when I was sick).
Because there's such a small box for writing the day's accomplishments, I've also started writing short entries in a daily productivity journal. This keeps me encouraged when I don't accomplish everything I set out to do in a day. I can write down all of the other little things that also needed to be done, but may not have made it on my to-do list. Thus far, this approach seems to be working better for me than Write-Chain did.
A lot of life happened in June, however, and I'm still working on both blog static pages and my novel outline. Between deciding that I actually need about 3x as many static pages and getting sick toward the end, it's been slow going. For July Camp NaNoWriMo I plan to focus on the outline. I can't guarantee that I'll finish it, but I want to spend at least 30 hours of working on it while keeping up with my blog post production schedule. Other blog pages will have to wait until I've put in my outlining hours for the week.
Thus far, I have read 28 books this year. At first, I thought I would review them all, but because I’ve read them faster than necessary for my review production schedule, I’ve opted to only review ones related to reading or writing and to prioritize fiction over nonfiction. For now, my Goodreads Challenge is still set to 50 books, but if I hit it early, I'll raise it. You can follow me on Goodreads to see what I might review...eventually.
A four-week buffer of pre-written posts has helped me adjust to weekly blogging, especially on a mental level. It’s a bit like having an emergency fund to cover your back when the unexpected happens. I just feel more peaceful knowing that it's there. Some things have to be up-to-date because they involve my life, like this post, or the progress section of the Eclectic Writing Class posts, but reviews are pretty easy to schedule.
Post topic-wise, I plan to continue reading and reviewing most of the time, but every four weeks there will be a Writing Roundup post. I also plan to continue doing the homework for those. Every three months, the usual programming will be interrupted by another one of these goal update posts.
How have your 2018 goals progressed? Have they changed? Leave a comment below or my hairless ghost lemur will haunt your dreams.
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