​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
It was honestly an excellent week. I felt like the last four weeks my brain had shut off and I didn't have the focus or drive to work on anything complicated. Luckily a lot of my weekly goals were already subdivided into bite sized tasks. (By design, they should be easy to complete but still bring me closer to my end goals.) So I didn't completely stagnate out during those weeks. This week though my brain and drive were back and I got a lot done!

Importantly the outline got completed! It's still a bit rough in some places, but probably still the most complete outline I'd had before writing to date. For now I'm ready to put it on the side and have some fun with other projects. 

Book wise I ended up finishing another two books since Wednesday. Honestly if I didn't have the other goals to complete I might have read the entire time, my brain is CRAVING it right now. 

On the reoccurring monthly goal front I went over my finances which looked great. I used to spent a lot of money on eating out, so staying inside has been saving me on food and gas! That meant that I could reward myself with a mixer and blender. After a bit of searching I realized that mixer tech had not advanced that much in the many years since my mixer was created. (1937) What I would really like is a bread hood and official wisk attachment, but I could not find one for my old mixer. I've tabled the idea for now and hope that a good solution will fall into my lap when the right time comes up. On the other hand I did get a new blender. I'm more excited than I originally thought I would be about this. I'm really a texture eater so having a blender that can make a really smooth smoothie is, I think, going to make all of the difference. 

On the one time monthly goals list there are two new/old goals. My phone is dying, it won't save anything new. I'm lucky that what is already on there is still working. Therefore we're bringing back up the new phone bill and arrangements for student loan payment. The extra motivation from my phone dying should make them get completed that much faster, I hope!


MINIGOALS
Take care of some 518 emails that should get responded to.
​
Work on the 'masterclass' for this month. It's still a class, but not through the official sight, but I'm putting it into the same goal since it's fulfilling the same education goal. I intend to listen to all of the classes and do the homework to get at least one new or revised short story done.

​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:
So far so good! Actually in the middle of watching 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' right now and really enjoying it! (I stopped it to laugh and got sidetracked.) The outlining isn't completed yet, because I know that when I sit down to do it it's all getting done. Sometimes that makes an activity more intimidating because I know that I have to section off a large chunk of time to work on it. Luckily this has a deadline to it of tomorrow, so it's going to get done in the next 24 hours. 

I've been getting major progress on the weeding this week, after less so last week. I think I was overwhelmed with all of the vines that have been detangled from my trees and are now taking over a chunk of my yard. I've decided that I need to ignore them a while longer, and just got back to taking down the rest. Right now they're quite fresh so, after another week of detangling, I'll start cutting the vines into pieces to get them ready for some kind of disposal. (Fire or otherwise) 

The reading has also been going on the up and up! I finished one book and got a good chunk through another, plus looking forward to getting back to the third. In keeping with the reading goals one of those is horror. The other is for fun, and I have the intention of reading another self-improvement book that I eborrowed from the library. 

The new recipe was a super bonus accomplishment! I made mustard, which I was running out of after not going to the grocery store for two months now. (Keeping to my farm pickup options!) I used the recipe from one of the cookbooks that's been on my shelf but I've never used before, and I had all of the ingredients in the house!!! Win/win/win! 

MINIGOALS
Finish that outline
Read
Do budget review this weekend; see if I can reward myself with a new blender and mixer

​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
I skipped the last checkin. This week in particular it felt like every time I logged into FB or the internet as a whole I head about someone else who had COVID or had a loved one die from it. It was a lot to handle so I huddled down and played Animal Crossing. It was what I needed at the time, and am generally feeling better now and ready to soldier on! 

The weeding didn't get done as much primarily due to the weather. It was cold, there was even some snow on the ground for a couple days there. Even today it was raining a lot so the weeding was about three quick grabs while bringing in the dog. (But it did get done, so it's green!) The book also didn't get finished, I simply haven't been focusing on it as much. As before I'm not worried about it since I'm well ahead in that goal anyways. 

I did get the composter and installed it! It took an afternoon to dig the hole. My dog helped a bit, which he enjoyed! So far it hasn't attracted any pests nor created an odor with the two loads of food scraps I put in it after emptying the fridge. That's a good start. We'll see how well the food disappears after a month or two! The  composter is designed for a four person household, so it should be able to keep up with ours without a problem. 

On a similar food related note, the CSA meat I ordered two weeks ago arrived! Just had the chicken today, which was reasonable. Not as good as another local farm, however I didn't realize how quickly it would cook and ended up leaving it in the oven a little too long. Next up, sausages in the morning! 

MINIGOALS
Respond to 2 emails that need responding to
Progress on basement project 2
​Read more

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

My anxiety was pretty high by the end of the week due to having high expectations and not succeeding in those results, particularly at work. Also getting pulled in many different directions while trying to get some new routine stuff off the ground, again at work. Saturday was supposed to be completely off time to relax, but I ended up getting everything done expect for the weeding anyways. I think that's a side effect of my anxiety being high. Sometimes it seems like the natural thing to take a break, but the brain only sees the end of the light as getting stuff done.


AFTER ACTION REVIEW
Other than my anxiety being high I got a lot done including all of my minigoals. The basement project got the next step done, and if I keep at it will certainly be done by the end of the month. I read three books about writing and advertising. It felt like Goldilocks with the first book being not worthwhile, the second being ok, and the third being excellent and full of useful information. Next up is a physical TBR pile book. 

Lastly, some might notice that at home composting is yellow. I've been coming to a standstill on recycling research/actions. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I can't leave my house to take actions, so it's all research and there isn't a ton that has new information after researching twice a week for three months. (Short of me looking at recycling research papers or some of the more advanced work.) So I decided to research on composting, and that ended up with me purchasing a specific composing item that specializes in taking all food waste and degrading it into nothing. This seemed ideal since I don't have a place to put soil (I'm simply not a farmer, I've tried.) and it doesn't take any maintenance. I just put things in they disappear. The order will take a while to arrive, but it'll certainly get installed by May, so no rush.


MINIGOALS
First off is keep up with Masterclass listening and basement project work. I don't want to add it to the weekly schedule, but at least one session of each before the next checkin.

Second, I'd like to get all of the Amazon reviews done this week. I haven't bought anything new from them lately, but I certainly have a backlog that I'm willing to workthrough.

Lastly, keep up the reading momentum! ​

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

Hello everyone, what are you doing to adapt to the many life changes that have been affecting us lately?

My goals are similar to last rounds with a couple canceled due to lack of interest, and others were canceled due to lack of ability to do them with the current circumstance. I decided to limit my predictions of what monthly goals 'should' be done this quarter since there's new life changing information every week, if not every day. I'm keeping it loose and giving myself as much flexibility as I can, while still getting things done!

Over the break I played a lot of Animal Crossing and watched Tiger King with the SO. Both were fun in completely different ways. I also made major progress already on the weeding and other hometending fronts that I don't normally list here. (Such as my yearly washing of the windows half of which are already done for the year months earlier than usual.) 


AFTER ACTION REVIEW
You'll notice that exercise is all green. I lowered my goal for quarantine to 4k a day which is the same as one long dog walk. I was trying for two walks a day, but going out an extra time per day was stressing me out, which is exactly what I don't need right now. So I listened to myself and changed it. I think getting out of the house and getting some exercise is important for both me and the puppers so I have been making it more of a priority than I sometimes do. 

Weeding and outlining are my monthly goals. I decided that I would pace them out by making them daily goals. For the weeding I'm being flexible, what gets done depends on the weather or what makes sense for me to do next. I took the chainsaw to some bushes yesterday until the chain became unseated. Tomorrow will be rain, so my 'weeding' might be fixing the chainsaw instead. That's ok, it's progress on that front which is the point! 

Posting FB posts is a lot easier and faster now that I have a backlog of about 100 pictures ready to post. I've considered posting/scheduling more of them, but I don't want to extend the goalpost just because I found a better way to do something. Particularly when it's not something I enjoy doing.

Lastly I had put the CSA on here as a longer term goal that I've been considering for a while. But I looked in our freezer this weekend and there's finally enough room (I haven't been grocery shopping in over a month now) so I made the decision and put in an order for a local farm that has completely grass fed everything, and it's delivered! For now it's a one time order, but if we like what we get then do a monthly subscription. Veggie wise I know a local farm that's doing preorder with pickup close by (ok the farm is also close by, I could probably go straight there!) so I'm going to do that. We aren't the best at finding new recipes for untried veg, so going with mostly stuff we know and trying one new item a week is best, and less wasteful, for us. 


MINIGOALS
First is finishing any of the books that I've been in the middle of for a while now. I've been enjoying all of them but have been playing more Animal Crossing or simply don't want to sit more when I'm doing so much sitting while working from home. 

Second is finishing editing a piece of flash fiction and send it out. It's due Friday and I already have a draft written. Considering how short the piece is this should be doable. 

Third is working on the basement projects. I have two what I would consider full projects brought upstairs to the crafting table to work on for now. I also have two half projects which are things that are either almost done, or don't have an item when completed. (For example I found a bag of old paperwork that needs to get gone through in the basement. That's not a crafting project, but it's something that should get done.) 

Lastly, I have two blog posts that I have outlined in my head but haven't written out yet which I'd like to work on soon. They've been in my queue for months now and they need to go!

If everything was perfect then everyone would be able to do everything that they said they were going to when they said it would get done. The world isn't perfect so there's always an be and flow from the different parts of our lives and how much time they take up. 

This is the key, noticing when one part of one's life is taking up too many resources and scaling back in other areas. 

What is the best way to do that?

Listening to yourself. Meditate for a couple minutes at the end of the day and ask yourself what's been taking most of your time and energy. Is there a way that you can have it take less energy or a way to make sure you have more energy to put towards it if it comes up again the day after?
 
As someone who really thinks best through writing I also highly recommend journaling. Perhaps something more structured such as an after-action review, which I do every ROW80 checkin on my blog. I do it because it works. If there's been no progress on a goal for one or two checkins then something needs to change, I need to try something new. Perhaps I need to lessen the goal. Perhaps I need to focus on a different goal that's easier for me to do when under the circumstances that are in front of me. 

When you set your goals you can't predict what's going to be in the way, but you can predict that something else will be coming up. pace yourself to finish early, so that you have the space if you can't do much of any writing for a week or such. 

The key is to budget in a 20% buffer into your goal/plan to finish said goal. 

For example, your original goal is to read 52 books, or one book a week for a year. You can adjust the goal by 20%, or 10 books. Therefore your new goal is 42 books, which allows for a couple weeks where the goal doesn't get accomplished. Alternatively you could adjust the due date by 20%. In the first case the end date was the end of the year. 20% of that would be 72 days, which I would personally round to two months. Therefore the goal would be to finish 52 books by November 1st, and if you end up needing some extra time then you have it. 

Having this extra time built into goals can really help you stay on track, even when a major world changing event such as COVID-19 changes everything. Also remember it's ok to stop and reassess your goals at any time. Life is for living, not being stressed about not succeeding in self-imposed goals! (That's just as much for future me as for you!)

Welcome to round 2 of round of words 2020! This time staring these goals:

The weekly goals are almost completely the same.

The monthly goals are reordered to be in the order I expect to complete them. The hope is that more green will encourage more green on the chart! I did change the upcycling projects to general basement projects. I found the previous title to be quite limiting. Yet, there are a lot of crafting materials in the basement that need to get used, so a project that uses any of them and doesn't involve buying something new is a win. This will also help make this goal more reasonable in this time of quarantining, when I really shouldn't be asking people for spare materials.

For the out of 13 section I took off Google Map Reviews. For one I've already doubled the amount I intended for the year. For two I'm not going anywhere new with the quarantine in place. I might add it back in for round 3, we'll see. I also took out the Wiki updates. I did a few but found them to be unfulfilling. I think I was hoping to find pages that needed work throughout my natural use of the internet, but that didn't happen. Instead it felt like an unrewarding chore that wasn't helping anyone. So I took it off and it won't be coming back.

To the right of that is a little counter for which kinds of books I read this round. I read a lot of books last round, more than I've done in many years actually, but few were in the categories that I intended. (I mean, I was having fun with it which is totally fine. But now some more visibility/accountability!) I've gotten much better about not finishing books I don't like, so I think it shouldn't be too hard to at least try reading three from each of those categories. 

Lastly the new monthly goals. Because of how the world is right now I've left May and June open to allow for change. April is about home tending, since I know most of it will be at home, and prepping for writing in November. A number of the previous month goals have been postponed for the foreseeable future. We'll see how everything works out, they might end up back on this list later.

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

END OF THE ROUND REVIEW
I like a lot of my new daily goals, but by the end of the three months I was really missing having more intense short term comparable goals. Still, the theme was to align with myself and how I feel about these new habits and that has been accomplished.

The other part of this was to take a cooling off period of up to a year to unfocus, and look at the bigger picture, to see what opportunities I would like to pursue next. This has also been up to a good start. There are absolutely items that I thought I would be more interested in, that didn't work out that way once I was able to focus on them. And some others that I enjoyed but either wasn't able to focus on, or didn't have the correct resources to do yet. 

As such, I'll be taking some of these goals off for the next quarter, and I'll be limiting the monthly goals to three per month, since that's what seems to be reasonably achievable. 

MINIGOALS
Mostly I need the time off! Probably it'll end up with me playing a lot of Animal Crossing and maybe crafting, or reading those books I've had out of the library for weeks now. I'm playing it by ear, and listening to what feels right!

​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:
The rest of the week was focused on a report out for a major project for work. The report out went well, but it was definitely stressful. As such, when I got home on Friday I started to play Animal Crossing and didn't stop playing until a couple hours ago! It was exactly the low brain power no stress game I needed this weekend. 

Today I was feeling more up to other tasks. So I did laundry, loaded/started the dishwasher, then vacuumed the whole house twice before cleaning the vacuum itself. I also cleaned the air filter fan for good measure. The air quality in this house will be so good after this! Once I got around to starting my computer for the first time this weekend I ended up finishing up a lot of the rest of my online tasks. 

Last notes; I've been enjoying the Masterclass I'm currently listening to by R L Stine, though I'm not sure if I'll finish it in time or not. (This one I'm sure I'll finish eventually!) No new books got finished this week, but I'm well ahead of the goal on this one so I'm not at all worried about it. I also just started the third book in a series I quite like, so I'm sure that'll get done in the next few days too.

MINIGOALS:
Finish out what I can, and mentally prepare to forgive myself for not finishing the rest. My job is essential so I'm still working a full 40 hours, though some is from home. Thus I'm not sure what time I'll have to dedicate to finishing these goals. My main focus is not burning myself out, and after that to do what I can when I can. 

​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
This week was a bit rough so far. I tried working form home for the first time and it didn't go well. By that I mean I didn't get as much done as I as hoping. I should have tapered my expectations ahead of time. A lesson the universe has tried to teach me before, but I didn't. Instead I overworked myself a bit and got a massive migraine on Wednesday. That did give me time to recover and reset with lots of resting, so now I'm doing alright and generally on the up and up. 

Overall I'm pretty happy with what I did get done, and take the big action to forgive myself for what I didn't get done. No catching up, just a fresh slate to work from!

MINIGOALS
Recover. Listen to the next Masterclass. Edit and submit flashfiction. Do a simple upcycling project. 

How have all of the changes been affecting  you?