For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

It's a new year and I have a new format for my goals/check-ins. It's much more visually based, which I'm hoping will make it easier to track and see any gaps/issues. I'm going to continue with my after action review and mini-goals, like before. I'll only comment on things that need a change or are having an issue, going from top to bottom.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
As you can see by all of the green above this week went super well, except that everything was a bit later than scheduled. I adjusted the schedule for the coming week to reflect this, so hopefully everything aligns pretty nicely. Overall I'm really enjoying not having a ton of specific hard set deadlines. Being able to look over this graphic and choose what to work on next is a lovely freedom, and allows me to choose what I'm most ready for at the time. Often this means that I get more out of research or instead of doing one review a week I'll do three in one sitting. 

Exercise - There were a lot of days this week when I was close to my goals but didn't quite make it all the way there. Since I was training people at work, which is particularly draining and physically more demanding. (Lots of standing and presenting.) I decided to not worry about it as much. This week I'll refocus and try again! (Starting with some shoveling.) 

Random Updates - For movie night I watched "Shape of Water" which was absolutely amazing. I loved it and have been thinking about it since. For the Masterclass I had finished listening to the Aaron Sorkin class (which was solid but not much new) so I went through at double speed to take some notes and now consider this complete for this month. There are a lot of options, both writing related and otherwise, so I don't know which one to take next. 

I finished my Amazon reviews in one go as I'm still in a bit of a review mode from doing all of those Google Map updates. The next one will be a bit more time consuming, as it's Wikipedia updates which involve some research. I finally got to posting a blog post that wasn't a ROW80 post! I think that's the first time in about a year and I'm excited to end that streak. Hopefully now that there's one done the rest will get easier and easier.

I did post about an artist for CC in another location. I've gotten one response but I didn't think that their art style would work well for the story. I read four short stories and made plans for editing. I'm going to look over the other short stories I have in the works before starting to actually implement any edits. (Plus I already have my SS out for Jan and Feb, so there's no rush.)

Lastly I DID do the research on narrating audiobooks. It's mostly understandable and doable, so I did another test run and was able to record one whole story. With the proper microphone it recorded well and I didn't mind listening to myself back on the recording, which is good since there is going to be quite a bit of editing. 

MINIGOALS
Do one wikipedia update.

Post in one new location about artist for CC.

Edit the SS I recorded this weekend.

Record one more SS. 

​For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

It's a new year and I have a new format for my goals/check-ins. It's much more visually based, which I'm hoping will make it easier to track and see any gaps/issues. I'm going to continue with my after action review and mini-goals, like before. I'll only comment on things that need a change or are having an issue, going from top to bottom.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Generally a good week, though everything is running about a day later than planned. I think that's more about my scheduling, and trying to fit too much into Tuesdays. I'll move the online work back to Wednesday next week as see how that goes. 

Those with a keen eye will see that the Feb short story was completed. It's actually a super bonus achieve because instead of editing an old short story to send out I wrote a completely new one and sent it out 20 minutes before the deadline. 

I also finished all of the Google Reviews for my Japan trip. The last ones didn't end up being as many since they were misattributed locations by Google. Or I wasn't at the location long enough to give an 
accurate review. Still, that was a much bigger goal than I originally intended for it to be and I'm happy, and a little personally pleased, to get the Google Map reviews and specific Japan reviews, completed. 

Overall improvement wise I think a little more focus on the Jan goals would be nice, but I should be able to make more progress on that this weekend. Mostly they need a little followup, not oodles of time/effort on my part. That being said all of the minigoals from last checkin were completed! Small steps for the win!

MINIGOALS
Finish next major steps of upcycling project I'm working on and post some progress pictures. 

Read over 1 to 3 short stories and put together plans for editing.

Post in 1 to 2 more locations looking for artist. 

Major focus on audiobook requirements and doability, 

Start writing up Amazon reviews. 

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

It's a new year and I have a new format for my goals/check-ins. It's much more visually based, which I'm hoping will make it easier to track and see any gaps/issues. I'm going to continue with my after action review and mini-goals, like before. I'll only comment on things that need a change or are having an issue, going from top to bottom.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Exercise still isn’t going stellar. Not sure that there’s a ton to do about that other than to keep at it. I’m still getting used to the new goals so perhaps another week or so will make everything get into the groove.
 
Movie night worked out well on Wednesday since I was too brain fuzzy after work to do much of anything else. Perhaps I’ll be keeping it there?
 
Blog post I think I just need to sit down and do a jam session for it. Perhaps instead of having it be a weekly thing I think about it needs to be one of the things that I do a 13 count of….. actually that’s a great idea. I’ll move it around for the next check in!
 
I posted about an artist for CC and got no interest at all. I did randomly find a tweet from someone I follow about a FB group that does something similar, so I’ll post there this week and keep at it. I took 30minutes to do a full writeup, so posting at any new places will be much faster/easier.
 
Investing I did some research in, which mostly led to more questions. That's ok, profess has been started!
 
 
MINIGOALS
Finish the Japan Google Map reviews. (At least this time I'm writing down the goal.)

Post in at least one, up to three, places about getting an artist for CC.

 20 more minutes of research in investing.

Send out additional short story during the open time frame.
​
Send four emails about workshops and author reading setups. 

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

It's a new year and I have a new format for my goals/check-ins. It's much more visually based, which I'm hoping will make it easier to track and see any gaps/issues. I'm going to continue with my after action review and mini-goals, like before. I'll only comment on things that need a change or are having an issue, going from top to bottom.

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Exercise - Moving exercise before changing for the day definitely helped on Tuesday. Monday I got to into the thing flings and didn't have enough time to exercise afterwords. Today was really busy at work and I'm rewarding myself by not exercising. I'll keep at it with the current setup for now and see if things even out.

Thing Flinging - Massive overachieve here, particularly in the basement. Kinda makes up for last week, which shows that having this on Monday was probably a good move.

New No Meat Recipe - Tried squash onion soup from squash I got at the farmers market and an onion I already had in the house. It needed some additional spices varied from the recipe, but was otherwise pretty delish.

Movie Night - Should be making up for it tonight, a little later than scheduled but should still be successful. 

Short Story - Completed a read through, edits, and putting the edits into the computer document. Found a place to send it to which opens for submissions next week so this is on track. 

Google Map Reviews - Sooooooo, about this. I had a kinda unwritten internal goal to write a review for all of the places we went to while vacationing in Japan. I had a separate goal that I did admit to and wrote down to help the community by writing online reviews. I know that I wanted the physical goal to be 52 reviews for the year, so that would be one a week. It seemed particularly reasonable to me. I did not realize how many places we went to while in Japan and how unreasonable that unstated goal might be. So, I'm not sure if I want to try to finish the Japan locations goal, or simply stop at 52 reviews since that was my goal for the year. We'll see what the next week brings.

Artist for CC - Found the note about places to post. 

Phone + Loan - Followup emails sent.

Audiobook - Did a test run for recording. Did not do research or take notes on undid research.


MINIGOALS for Monthly Goals
Artist for CC - Make posts at the locations.

Investing - Do 2-20minute sessions of research. 

Short Stories - Read another one and make plans. Stretch goal for two. Super stretch of three. 

Audiobook - Research best practices and take notes with the intention of a class later on. 

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

The type of goals that I'm working on this year have changed as much as which goals I'm working on. As such I'll be changing how to checkin too! It's one of the reasons I'm doing a pre-checkin. I basically used this week as a test run of the new setup to see what's working and what's not. There are already a couple changes and places that'll need some improvement. Overall though the goal is to have one graphic, and a less time on the writeup. 

​Without further ado, the check-in:

 
​I'm going to continue with my after action review and mini-goals, like before. I'll only comment on things that need a change or are having an issue. I'll go from top to bottom.

​
AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Exercise - Making the time for this has been an issue. I think that some of that has to do with when I try to exercise, later in the day. For this upcoming week I'm going to try and see if exercising before changing into my hang out around the house clothes helps motivate. Bonus if I can start dinner cooking and then do this. 

7 Thing Flings - By the end of the week I ended up flinging some stuff, but mostly I think that the timing didn't work. I've rescheduled these to Monday, since that's my no computer day. I think that'll be better. 

Everything that didn't get done on Friday - Well, my SO asked me to declog the sink with the new sink snake. I tried with that, but it wasn't changing a thing. Ended up taking an hour to take apart the drain pipe from the sink to the floor and cleaning it out. Saying it was nasty is an understatement. By the time the pipes were clean, the bathtub was cleaned, and everything put back together, well I didn't even have the energy to watch a movie. I lounged and went to bed wicked early. I don't think that this is going to be an issue long term, although I'll be traveling next weekend so I should probably reschedule those to Thursday for next week anyways. 

Recycling/Being environmentally friendly - First off I forgot to add this to the graphic, so I've fixed that now. Secondly I did A LOT of running around and getting recyclables to their respective places. To do that I did a lot of research into where the best places are to recycle and what they'll take. There's a lot of material to read here, which I'm kinda excited about! I also returned five different things which means stuff out of my house and money back in the wallet, plus they'll all get fixed/reused/recycled. Win/win/win! Furthermore I went to the farmers market for my groceries this week. That means much less plastic, more local produce, and helping small businesses! Again a win/win/win. 


MINIGOALS
This will primarily look at the monthly goals, since the rest of them are fairly self explanatory. 

Artist for CC - Find the note I had about places to post. Stretch goal to start reading up on other posts similar to my own. Stretchiest goal to make my actual post.

Phone bill - Send followup email.

Student loan - Send followup email.

Read short stories and make plan - Read at least one and write up changes. Stretch goal to make changes. Stretchiest goal to submit it to a market. (Actually I should be writing a new short story. If I do that instead that's good too.)

​Audiobook - Do a test recording and do research on best practices. Take notes for a class later. 

Hello everyone,

2019 was an amazing success and a lot of that was because of this amazing group of people! I want to start this post by saying thank you for being here, following my journey, and supporting me.
 
This year is going to be a bit different for me (to be fair most years are different than each other, that's life). Last year was focusing on finishing out a couple really big projects; a degree, student loans, Japan trip. This year there isn't any huge goal that I need to focus on in my home life. I could choose a couple big goals and start running for them. Instead I'm going to take some time to breath, look around, try some new things, enjoy where I am. When a proper big goal comes to me I'm sure I'll go after it with my normal vigor. Until then I want to spend some time on activities that resonate with me.
 
With that being said, here's the Round 1 list!
 
Health - Exercise with the adventure ring for 20 minutes or get 8k 5/7 days each week. Pack lunch 5/5 days each week. A general goal to eat more fruits/veggies/natural fiber. 1 new no meat recipe per week.

Time with SO - Weekly movie night to go with our already weekly DnD night.

Hearth and Home - Desk upgrade. See about computer upgrade (time and money budgeting). Roof arrangements.

Organize/Declutter - 7 items from the living quarters go to a new purpose each week. 7 items from the basement/garage to be removed or find a permanent home that isn't a random bag or floor each week. If the items are used in a new upcycling project that counts!

Social Media - Blog post each Friday about new recipes or my upcycling project or science paper writeup. ROW post and interact with others posts on Wed and Sun each week. Interact on Quora and Goodreads once per checkin.

L&D - Read one scientific paper per week. Try out one Masterclass per month.

Writing - Get artists for Cookies to Crumbles webcomic. Finish needed edits for said book. Review all of my short stories and make a game plan to polish and send out one a month. Send out three short stories this round.

Reading - 13 books within the following categories with a minimum of one in each; nominated for the Stokers, Paris Travel, anthologies I own, indie book/publishers in need of online reviews, finances.

Local Community Involvement - Read the newspaper. Go to the town meeting at least once. Interact with the town services on social media.

Helping the internet community - give away something each week to help someone. (Item/time/software) 13 of each of the following; Google Map Reviews, Amazon Reviews, Wiki Updates, items related to activism.

Helping Local Writers - Setup 3 library workshops and 1 author reading for the year. Put together information and outline for author reading best practices.

Finances - Learn about investing in the stockmarket. Start long term plan for retirement. Look over phone bill and see about options. Make arrangements for Student Loan of mine that ended up under my dad's name. Check on finances monthly and keep within $200 of budget (already wrote up the budget over the break).

Environment - Better recycling and less garbage. This will probably composting and getting better information on what can be recycled/reused for each checkin. Ask for items instead of buying them. Buy food from local farms in the summer. Consider a CSA again.

Upcycling - The goal is not just to upcycle but to make something that is intrinsically useful/cool enough that it won't need to get upcycled again. The amount of time that this is going to take depends on which project it is and how long it takes to get the supplies, particularly since I refuse to buy non-expireable items. (IE If I have to buy glue because mine went bad that's ok but I'm not buying a block of wood.) That's a lot of qualifiers on this goal, but that's what I feel like I need to do. With these qualifiers in mind I'll try for three projects this round, and hope that I end up with more.
                 
You know I thought I was taking it easy before I started to write out all of the actions on my mind, but it looks like I'm still aiming to be crazy productive. Ah well, I'm not one to back down from a challenge. These are the actions I think are worth my time, and I'll do my best to do them all!

Reporting them will be a bit different as well, since I'd like to go for a more visual style, but that's for a different post. Thanks for reading!
​
Shannon
 

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

I had high aspirations but they were shot down by a head cold. I was up but wasn't able to concentrate on much of anything. (Or able to breath.) So this is a minor checkin. I think mostly this is my body saying that I really actually need to dedicate myself to relaxing and recovering before starting to get into any more goals. I think with my Japan trip and me trying to finish so many of my goals before then added a lot of extra stress. The traveling itself was a ton of fun, but also a bit stressful. Then dealing with the time zone changes, that took a lot longer than I had given myself to actually get used to. 


Which is to say, I need the time to relax. Thus this is my last checkin for the year. I'll see about getting a couple more things done before Friday to clear my mental space, but otherwise everything that didn't get done is forgiven, a Christmas present to myself, and it's time to enjoy the season. 


AFTER ACTION REVIEW
1) I had the outline and then started to write but realized I didn't know enough about the characters and that put a damper on things quite quick. After some more thinking and maybe a character interview I'll come back to this. 

2) Posted on FB with some pictures. Joined a couple upcycling groups to post in as well.

3) Nothing, as planned, thus a success. I used the reading time to catch up on my webcomics. 

4) Nothing. Sleeping makes me sore with this cold, I wasn't going to do more.

Bonus) Still thinking about them and nothing particularly new came up. I'll probably post my Round 1 goals soonish and modify them if needed after the holidays. 

​
Are you ready for the holidays? What are you doing to celebrate what's happened this year?

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 


Another great checkin here.  Keeping the goals smaller and allowing more time to relax is absolutely helping me, particularly with the end of the year rolling around. 



AFTER ACTION REVIEW
1) Reasonable success. Got an outline for the short story which I'll be turning into a first draft at writers group later today. Not sure if this is even the story I want to submit to the anthology, but it certainly seems like fun and worth writing either way!


2) Sidways success. I wrote up the project needs and action plan. Then I went into the basement to find out if I had the items that would be needed for the project. I found a reasonable amount and am still missing two bits which I will be asking for online at some point this week. But in the process of doing this I started to drastically clean the basement. As much as I've been happy having less stuff in the living areas of the house there's still plenty in the basement to go through/needs to find a home. So taking about two hours to sort through things and setting the stage for the upcoming year/crafting projects. Despite not that much leaving the basement it's significantly better organized. Plus I vacuumed, which it really really needed. 


3) Stretch goal completed! I finished reading the whole book and that clears my queue for the year! That doesn't mean that I won't be reading of course, just that all books read during vacation are completely of my choice with no guilt or 'should have's' about it. 


4) Reasonable success by playing adventure ring two times out of four and got 8k at least one day this week. Simply not feeling it today, and with the basement cleaning I'm not sure it's needed either. 


Bonus) Major success! I did a full writeup of my ROW goals for next year and printed it out. I already started writing all lover it with some updates and details that didn't get written down on the first draft. Absolutely the right thing to do! In fact I also thought of a fun visual way to track my progress during next ins next year that I'll be trying for a bit. Hopefully it's motivating!



INTENTIONS/MINIGOALS
1) Write first draft of short story. Transfer to computer. Print off. Review/edit. See about getting a beta reader.


2) Put out the request for items for this and the next project. Stretch goal to start a small project while I wait for items to come in. (I found four while cleaning the basement.) 


3) Nothing. This is complete! (Isn't that a nice thing to say?) 


4) Play adventure ring for 20 minutes 2/3 days. 


Bonus) Keep thinking about goals and updating as ideas come up. 


How about you, do you get distracted by cleaning or cooking when working on other goals? How do you remind yourself that there was a primary goal to work on? 

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 

​This turned into a really great checkin. I think I choose the right amount of items to work on, but I also didn't have a ton planned outside of these goals so I could do them and take time to relax which I really needed at this point in the year. 

AFTER ACTION REVIEW
1) Major success! The new hard drive came in, I did a backup of the original drive onto the new one, then restored the drive. It ended up taking 20 hours due to all of the stuff that I have on it, but it's all back and accessible. I also have an extra hard drive that I can use to backup my computer or just move files around, a nicety for sure. (So thankful, my files are safe and I didn't have to pay for a one time use software to recover them!) 

2) I mean, it was a success, but mostly it's was taking the time to do some research. Two major options stood out. The first is to take a two tier table that I got from a neighbor who was throwing it out and turn it into Lego play area. The second is to take an old knife holder, which I have from my last knife set but don't use, and turn it into a kit area for my sewing machine. Of the two the second would require the least amount of supplies up front, so I'll be doing that one first. 

3) Major success! Completely finished reading one of the books and am up to 30% on the other, up from 12%. 

4) Success! I did play the adventure ring every day. Two of those days was 20 minutes, yesterday was 10 because I was tired, sore, and wanted to get to bed a little earlier. 

Bonus) Surprise surprise, major success here too! I found out that Aaron Sorkin has a Masterclass and was instantly sold on the yearlong subscription. I had already been thinking it over because Neil Gaiman also has a class on their, but I've read a lot of his online material and wasn't sure that the class would have new tools for me. 


INTENTIONS/MINIGOALS
1) Realized that I have a short story that's due by the end of the year so I need to get working on that instead of my previous goals. An outline would be reasonable, stretch goal of first draft by next checkin. 

2) Determine project needs and write a little action plan. Put out request for any items that I might be missing. Stretch goal to start to work on project.

3) Minor goal to make progress on book. Stretch goal to finish reading the book.

4) Play adventure ring every day for 20 minutes. 

Bonus) I think I'm ready for a whole goals writeup. I have an outline currently. I need to review it, think about how I want to divide the goals throughout the year, and then it'll be good. I'd like to print it out and then look it over occasionally for the rest of the year, to see if it continues to resonate.


How about you, are you prepared for the holidays?

For those tuning into this round my master goals list is here. The list of everyone participating in this round is here. 


AFTER ACTION REVIEW
1) This was annoyingly delayed. The hard drive issue that I had earlier has not been fixed after multiple different attempts. I can see the data on it still, which is the main reason that I'm not really in a tizzy. I just got in a backup external hard drive and additional cord. Fingers crossed I can rescue the information that's on it. Once I do I plan to work on the short stories again. If I can't I'll start to find out where the last backup is and get them downloaded from there. All in all, I took care of some top priority items to try to facilitate this goal and it didn't end up happening. 


2) Major success! Actually this one was a little easier since my hard drive was down. I didn't have 40gb of pictures to go through to find something old and fun. Instead I took all of the pictures my family sent me and the ones I had uploaded from previous years to Shutterfly and went from there. Overall it took the usual four hours but with less headache and the SO and I were playing a fun new game called 'For the King' at the same time. 


3) Success! Read a good chunk of each book. It's nice to really see/feel the progress in both. For the one I think it helps that I've allowed myself to skim over some of the more boring descriptive paragraphs. (It's just not my thing and probably never will be. I'm a reader because I wanna know how people think. If I wanted to know what it looked like I'd watch a movie.) For the other I have to be in the right mindset to pay attention to it, since it's much crunchier than other comedy books.


4) C+. I got around 6k for two days and maybe 2k today. But I did get my adventure ring out again and did four rounds of that, equaling 20minutes of solid exercise. I know I should be doing more, but with the weather and the snow, well, I did get the adventure ring for a reason so I need to focus on that more! I did do pretty well with making meals/packing lunches, thus the + on the C. Gotta have both!


Bonus) It's amazing how talking to the right person at the right time can put yourself in a whole different mindset. Feeling much more optimistic about my goals for next year and really trying to keep in mind that the goals are things that I care about, and I'm only measuring them against myself, no one else. With that in mind I'm thinking of some more fun/important to me goals such as leaving online reviews (contributing to society), recycling properly/upcycling (helping the environment), and more movies (some special dedicated time with the SO). Still considering writing goals and more personal development sections, that'll be for the next couple weeks.



INTENTIONS/MINIGOALS
1) Have a lovely time hosting the TGIO party tonight. Finish fixing the hard drive issue. I'm sure that'll take a lot of time, and I'd rather work on the short stories when I have time over the weekend anyways, this these will be the focus. 


2) Go searching through the internet and my stuff in the basement for the next crafting/upcycling project. Starting next years helping the environment goals by not buying anything new! 


3) Read another chunck of each of the two books that I'm the middle of.


4) Adventure ring every day for 20minutes. (Unless I hit 8k, which hasn't happened recently.) Continue to prep meals/bring meals to work. I was going to get that meat CSA, but really I don't have room in the freezer currently for either the meat or the meals that I would make out of the meat. Therefore I'm going to eat the stores down some more, then all the new meat will be locally sourced. 


Bonus) More consideration on goals for next year. Possible focus on writing and personal development goals. 


How about you, have you planned your goals for next year? What do you do to make sure they align with your visions? When do you check in with your visions to make sure that they're still what you want? #askingthetoughquesitons