I started this series of posts at the end of October 2018, when I cut back my hours from full time to 90%. At the time I was dealing with overwork and atrophy of my personal life; I worried that I would waste the extra time I was buying myself with my pay cut.
I started with 10 Steps to Future Me. In mid-February 2019, I reviewed my goals from October, and came up with some new ones. In May of 2019 my father’s illness derailed my regular life, and I was pretty forgiving about missing most of my goals in the mid-June update. The work load over the summer was hefty, and again my September 2019 update had many missed marks.
I had planned to follow up at the end of the year, so it’s time to revisit September’s goals and see how I stand with them.
On the one hand, it seems every update has way more misses than wins. Other the other hand, I know that by posting my goals, I do get a little more done than I would without putting them on the blog.
The goals and the results
This fall was a good deal better than the spring and summer: no family emergencies, a more reasonable work load. However, I still didn’t meet all my goals. I had a few medical issues, nothing major, but they took some time to address.
- Exercise.
- My goal continued at 150 minutes a week of exercise, with plans to add 60 minutes a week of strength training.
- The strength training fell through after I was asked to abstain from lifting weights in November. As for the general exercise goal, I managed to meet my goal 12 out of 15 weeks. I am pretty happy about this.
- My goal continued at 150 minutes a week of exercise, with plans to add 60 minutes a week of strength training.
- Creative Stuff.
- The goal was to make progress on knitting a baby blanket.
- I got to it, and did pretty well until I dropped a few stitches. Suddenly there was a huge gap in that baby blanket, and I lost momentum. Fixing the dropped stitches is a lot harder for a beginner knitter than just going forward.
- The plan also included finishing a photo book for 2018, so as to take advantage of the discounts that usually show up at the holidays.
- This was a total fail. I think I was intimidated by all the photos we took in Greece.
- The goal was to make progress on knitting a baby blanket.
- Reading.
- My goal was to finish The Scarlet Letter, and at least one more book from my to be read (TBR) pile.
- This was also a total bust. However, I did purchase, and read, 3 new books in this period. I enjoyed each one of them. As I noted previously, I finally reversed my reading slump this year, getting through 50% more books than I did in 2018.
- My goal was to finish The Scarlet Letter, and at least one more book from my to be read (TBR) pile.
- Clear the Clutter.
- Goal 1: to finish my office bookshelf once and for all! With plans to clear it from the room.
- This did not happen. I did clear an entire shelf (out of 6), but there are still a few books and many tchotchkes to rehome before I can declare victory.
- Goal 2: to start clearing my closet(s), where many things hide forever. The period goal was to clear 12 items.
- I did find a new home for my ice skates (which I outgrew by a crucial 1/2 size a number of years ago). That’s about it for my office closet; however, I did clear out a downstairs closet last week. Most of the items cleared went elsewhere in the house, so I’m not sure how to count this: victory for clearing a closet? or failure for not removing items from the house?
- Goal 1: to finish my office bookshelf once and for all! With plans to clear it from the room.
- Community.
- Go to one week day religious service.
- Still struggling with this. I keep putting it on the list, and I keep not making any progress.
- Find an opportunity to volunteer.
- This was a vague goal, without much planning put into it. Not surprisingly, it did not happen.
- Go to one week day religious service.
- Connecting with friends and family.
- Goal: to mail out holiday cards, preferably before December 21.
- I definitely mailed holiday cards this year, though I suspect I still managed to leave a few people off the list. I even got them all out by the 21st.
- Goal: to spend time with friends and family at least 13 times (stretch goal of 18 times) and to get out of the house for at least 6 events. I did very well on this count:
- We had the neighbors over for dessert.
- Old college friends hosted us for dinner at their house.
- The kid came over twice to watch the debates, and again at Christmas (he stayed several days, but I will count his visit just once).
- We celebrated my father-in-law’s birthday at his home; also Christmas.
- We hosted my sister-in-law for dinner twice when she came into town.
- Two of my husband’s (much younger) cousins came into town and wanted to try out a diner. We treated them to brunch and took them on a tour of the neighborhood.
- We traveled to my hometown for Thanksgiving, and visited with (my) family.
- We were invited to, and attended, 4 parties (mostly around the holidays).
- We hosted our own party for New Year’s Day.
- In addition to all the socializing above, I also got out of the house for 2 concerts, 2 museum visits, cheered on a road race and explored a different neighborhood.
- Overall, I am counting 16 social occasions and 6 outings.
- Goal: to mail out holiday cards, preferably before December 21.
New goals
In reflection, I can see that what made me happiest was spending time with friends and family, going out on little adventures, and reading more. I also felt much better when I exercised. Instead of torturing myself with goals I am not really sure about, I would like to focus on these.
However, I would still like to push myself to do more. Some of the goals might be less pleasant to work on in the moment, but I think the end result will make me happier. Others are a way for me to try out different activities to see if I might want to do more of them when I cut back further from work (or maybe even now!).
- Exercise.
- My goal continues at 150 minutes a week of exercise. Now that I am working with a trainer, I expect to work up to 60 minutes a week of strength training, hopefully before the end of May.
- Connecting with friends and family.
- There are 21 weekends between New Year’s and Memorial Day. If I feel better averaging 1 social visit per week, I guess that means my goal is 21 visits with local and faraway friends (and/or family).
- Adventures. Much though I love staying inside on a winter weekend, I think it is better for me to get out every once in a while. Or maybe more often than that.
- I suspect that getting out to do something (explore a neighborhood, see a museum, go to a street festival) will be more challenging, both because of the season and because of travel plans.
- I think a goal of 10 outings will be a stretch goal, unless I count travel adventures. I would consider 8 events at home a win.
- Reading. I hope to keep up with my pace of reading. I don’t want to put a goal number out here, because that will probably take away some of the fun. I do want to work on reading something different.
- I am dropping (for now) my goal of reading 1 classic novel.
- My goal will be to read 2 books that might be a bit more challenging. This could mean trying The Scarlet Letter again, or it might mean going through the pile of books that my family has gifted me over the years.
- If I just can’t get through a book, I will count it as half a book (so I will have to try 4 books if I can’t manage to finish any of them).
- I will give myself permission to off-load books I can’t finish, which will help with my next goal.
- Clear the Clutter. I am still working on clearing out my office.
- I had some success with using my local Buy Nothing group to find a home for a few items this holiday season. I would like to challenge myself to post one item a week. Not counting travel weeks, posting (and hopefully getting rid of) 16 items should be feasible. Just for the record, my official goal only involves the posting.
- I would really like to finish clearing that bookshelf once and for all. I still have 14 books left to get rid of; now the bigger issue is clearing the remaining things (photo frames, vases, jars of buttons) that have taken over.
- I may consider listing a few items to sell (these might be on the bookshelf, or pulled out of the closet). Not because I need the money, but because I suspect that–for some items–this might boost the likelihood that the item will be used, rather than end up in a trash heap. This should be considered a stretch goal.
- Creative Stuff. To be honest, blogging is using a lot of my creativity these days. I think having something more material to show for my efforts would also be nice, so I would like to make progress on other hobbies.
- The baby blanket project needs some help to get back on track. The original recipient will be born (and possibly crawling) before I can possibly finish. But a little more progress would be nice. I think just getting the dropped stitches taken care of and finishing a few new rows would be a victory at this point.
- I would like to work on my photo books. Maybe finishing 2019 would be an easier goal. With a finished book for 2018 comprising a stretch goal.
- I have been writing more about a possible piano, with several reasons why it’s not happening now. I don’t want to commit to anything, but maybe looking into lessons would be a good goal. Like, just figuring out if I could arrange them (and where I could practice). We’ll see.
- Connecting with a larger community.
- I keep posting about going to (religious) services, but never do. It sort of feels like my weight-training. If only there were personal trainers for religion!
- I also don’t really have a plan for volunteering. I suppose my real goal is to be open to any opportunities that might open up, and see if something speaks to me if/when I do it.
This list is starting to look very long, though some of the goals have become less ambitious (more achievable?). We will see how I do–my tentative wrap up date is the end of May (Memorial Day Weekend).
How about you? Any goals (stretch or otherwise) for 2020?