Monday, January 28, 2013

2013 Goals

I love setting goals. And I make a lot of them. I make one for each month, a few for the entire year, and recently have started making goals that span the year starting on my birthday. It seem like a lot of goals, and I don't usually complete all of them. But that's not the point. The point is this:



It's good for me to have goals. They give me something to work on mentally, spiritually or physically. They help me re-examine how I spend my time. And not all of them are serious and mature. Some are fun and frivolous.

At the moment I have several "in progress" goals. January's goal is to spend a few minutes each week in planning. I'm a big fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done principles, and one component of the system is a weekly planning session. I have been doing this for many years, but was only planning certain things, like menus, so I wanted to be more focused on reviewing all of my projects and scheduling time to focus on the steps needed to complete them. So this month, I have taken a few minutes each week, reviewing my goals, projects and tasks, and fitting these things into my week. I have already seen a boost in my productivity. Simply reviewing my goals weekly helps me focus on those things that matter most to me.





For example, one of my yearly goals for 2013 is to exercise for 3 hours each week. Which is 180 minutes per week. As in 9,360 minutes in one year. So, I set up a spread sheet to track this - I enter the date, the exercise and the minutes, and the Excel spread sheet keeps my running total (pun intended) and shows me how many minutes left to reach my goal. By reviewing all my weekly obligations, I know exactly which days I will be able to spend some time exercising, then can plan accordingly (take my gym bag to work, etc.). So far this month, I'm a bit below what I need to average each week, but I'm making progress. And that's the object of goals - to work toward something, not necessarily achieve perfection.

February is right around the corner. I think I'll keep the weekly planning sessions. My goal for February is to spend 10 minutes, 3 times per week, stretching. I mean, I can hardly touch my toes. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

What goals are you working on this month/year?

Cheers!




Tuesday, January 1, 2013

2012 Wrap Up


Happy New Year! Before moving on to 2013, let's see how 2012 finished  up:

Mark's birthday was awesome. He received many letters from his family and friends wishing him a happy birthday and sharing some sweet memories.



For my goal of doing "something epic" for Mark's 60th birthday, I surprised him with a Caribbean cruise over the Christmas holiday. I disguised the gift as packing in a box with a gift certificate. It took him a minute to figure out what the surprise was, but once he did, he was thrilled! He has always wanted to take a trip for Christmas and I was so happy all the planning and arranging worked out!


We started remodeling our condo in early December. To make the process more tolerable, we moved out of the condo and into my parent's house (thanks, Mom and Dad!). It's been fun being back "home" for the holidays. The remodel is going well, and hopefully will be done in the next three weeks or so. 







And finally, our cruise! We sailed from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St. Maarten/St. Martin and to St. Kitts. It was beautiful, relaxing, and I highly recommend it!




I hope your 2012 was awesome. Here's to a wonderful 2013!

Cheers!