New Year, New Goals

At the beginning of 2012 I set 12 goals to achieve. However, succeeding in my unwritten goal of getting pregnant kind of derailed my progress on most of them. It also prevented me from setting any new goals for 2013 since a year ago I knew I could have a baby at any moment. It was difficult to focus on any other plans at that point. However, I never completely lost sight of my 2012 goals.


Here's a look at what I've achieved over the past 2 years:

Financial Goal (a.k.a. the BHAG)

1. Pay off half the student loans   We've now paid off about 85%.

Business/Career Goals

2. Update my physical portfolio This hasn't happened, but it hasn't really been needed. This was a goal when I wasn't sure if I'd be seeking a new job or going full-time freelance.

3. Create an online portfolio It's not perfect, but it does exist. As with #2, this was more of a focus for job seeking.

4. Decide on a freelance business name and create a business website Core Spring Design is very much a business now! 

5. Complete at least one paid freelance job I had 4 clients in 2013 and am working on a retainer for one of them.

Homemaking Goals

6. Bake with yeast I made homemade pizza. It wasn't great. I'd like to try bread.

7. Switch to using homemade or natural cleaning supplies This has mostly happened, but I'm not sure I like the baking soda and vinegar route. I need to look into other options.

8. Decorate our bedroom This never happened in the two years we lived at our last house, and we moved to a new place at the end of 2013! Maybe this bedroom will look more put together.

Personal Goals

9. Complete a 5K race I ran a race 11/16/2013 in 42:43.

10. Figure out my blog purpose I basically decided to not take blogging too seriously. I still want to write about life, but my focus is more on my design work.

11. Make something with a sewing machine I haven't decided on anything I want to make that's really beginner level. I did use a needle and thread though.

12. Visit a place I've never been before (new state or new part of a state) I haven't been to any new states in the last two years. In fact, other than visiting Nathan's parents just across the border, I haven't even left the state.

For 2014, I want to set goals that more closely relate to my priorities. Making homemade pizza doesn't really help me get where I want to go in life. 

This is what I want to achieve this year:

Marriage
1. Go on one child free date with Nathan each month.

Parenting
2. Get out of the house with Evan at least once a week.
3. Read to Evan daily.

Personal
4. Get out of bed by 7:00 each morning.
5. Walk (preferably run!) Adyn every morning.
6. Read the entire Bible.

Homemaking
7. Create a weekly cleaning schedule and follow it.

Financial
8. Become completely debt free while maintaining an emergency fund of at least 3 months' expenses.

Business/Career
9. Make double the income I did in 2012.
10. Design 3 portfolio-worthy logos. 

A New Trek

One of the 12 things I want to tackle in 2012 is figure out my blog purpose. As you may have guessed by my recent lack of posts, I've been thinking a lot about that one. Here's my state of the blog address. I'll keep it short.

Wedding Trek
I started Wedding Trek not long after getting engaged as a way to document my wedding preparations. To be honest, my main motivation for starting my blog was to have something to submit to become a wedding blogger for Weddingbee. It soon became evident that there was no way I could write 3 good posts a week, so I kind of gave up on that. But I had a few friends and relatives reading by that point, so I kept writing.

Newlywed Trek
When I got married I kept on writing, but I never have had a true purpose for Newlywed Trek. I wrote some about learning to live together, dealing with our differences, and figuring out my role as a wife. While we're still learning and always will be, that initial adjustment is pretty much behind us. Does that mean we're no longer newlyweds? Possibly. But either way, I think it's time for a new name and new direction for the blog.

The new name? Our Trek
The purpose? Writing about our lives

Sometimes I skip writing about things Nathan and I do because I worry they aren't "blog worthy." This blog should be what I want to write. Although it's been fun to experiment with ways to grow my blog, my focus shouldn't be on my stats. After all, I don't make any money from this blog. I know it's possible to earn a living from blogging, but since I would rather continue to earn a living as a designer, it makes more sense for me to spend my free time building my freelance business rather than building this blog.

In short, all that's really going to change around here is the name of the blog and the way I approach it. Thanks for reading.

12 to Tackle in 2012

For 2011, the goals I set were really habits that I wanted to develop and sustain. This year, my goals are much more measurable. They're "bucket list" type items that I can check off (although some I hope to do more than once).  I started making a list a couple months ago, and I've finally decided on the 12 things I most want to accomplish.

Financial Goal (a.k.a. the BHAG)

1. Pay off half the student loans

This is by far the most ambitious goal, but we're now at the point where this is our only focus financially. A financial adviser Nathan met with even said we shouldn't worry about investing now since we can pay off the loans so quickly.

Business/Career Goals

2. Update my physical portfolio (I haven't touched it since I started my job 2.5 years ago.)

3. Create an online portfolio

4. Decide on a freelance business name and create a business website

5. Complete at least one paid freelance job (That extra money has to come from somewhere!)

Homemaking Goals

6. Bake with yeast

7. Switch to using homemade or natural cleaning supplies

8. Decorate our bedroom (Mainly putting something above our headboard)

Personal Goals

9. Complete a 5K race

10. Figure out my blog purpose (I started this as a wedding blog. What is it now?)

11. Make something with a sewing machine (I haven't used one since 8th grade)

12. Visit a place I've never been before (if not a new state, at least a new part of a state)

What do you hope to achieve this year?

5 Goals for 2011: How I Did

One important thing I learned through setting goals for this past year was that goals need to be measurable. I can't just say I want to "improve" something. How will I really know if I've improved enough? What will prove that? After setting my initial goals for the year, I revised them in September. Did I achieve them? Well...sort of...some of the time. My goal setting clearly still needs work.


1. Exercise for 30 minutes 3 times a week. 

In October, we started Couch to 5K, and I loved it. Had we stuck with the program consistently, we would have finished December 9. However, we didn't make it to week 9 of the plan until December 15, and we haven't tun since then. The trip to California, Christmas, sick husband, and moving kind of threw me off. I really am serious about becoming a runner though, and I hope to finish out the program and continue to run 30 minutes at a time. I had never run more than a mile prior to last year, so I'm still really happy with my progress.

2. Go to bed at 10:00 each night and wake up at 6:00 each morning.

I kind of revised this one to 10:30 and 6:30 after I gave up on running in the morning. Sometimes I achieved this, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes we went to bed on time but talked for a half hour or more. This year Nathan's the one with the long commute, so I'm not sure what bedtime is anymore.

3. Complete my daily chores and leave no dishes in the sink at the end of the day. 

I did terrible on this one for December with all we had going on. I just didn't care about my apartment anymore since I knew we'd be moving. But for the most part, I did develop good habits in this area. Thanks to my new shorter commute and the six-quart programmable crockpot Nathan got me for Christmas, I should have much more time in the evenings to focus on cleaning this year.

4. Spend less than $200 a budget period on food (groceries and eating out). 

We actually achieved this one in December, but of course we also spent money on vacation and Christmas. This isn't a goal I plan on keeping in 2012, but it's good to know that we can cut back when necessary.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

Had I achieved this one, I would have published 104 blog posts. I only made it to 88, or about 1.7 posts a week. At least there weren't any huge gaps between posts. Blogging is a funny thing. I thought maybe I was spending too much time on each post and that I should try just writing without a lot of editing. When I wrote a post that way, it became my first post in months with no comments. I guess I still have a lot too learn.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to achieve in 2012. We moved everything into our new rental house on January 2, so I'm just taking it one goal at a time for now

How did you do with your goals for 2011?

5 Goals for 2011: November

1. Exercise for 30 minutes 3 times a week. 

The last four weeks we accomplished this, even when we were out of town for Thanksgiving. This week we'll probably only make it two days. Our first attempt this week, during a snow storm after dark, went fine until I stepped in a puddle of icy cold water.

2. Go to bed at 10:00 each night and wake up at 6:00 each morning.

This hasn't gone well lately. I'm shooting for 10:30 and 6:30 now that we're not running in the morning, but the holiday weekend threw me off.

3. Complete my daily chores and leave no dishes in the sink at the end of the day. 

I haven't focused as much on this one this month, but things have at least been mostly presentable.

4. Spend less than $200 a budget period on food (groceries and eating out). 

I set and achieved this goal the month we were living on just my income but haven't had success with it since then. As much as I try to avoid lifestyle inflation, having nearly three times as much income makes it difficult not to spend a little extra.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

Due to one of our computers being down, Nathan and I have been sharing my computer for the entire month. In other words, I haven't had a computer this month. He's working on an online graduate certificate in accounting (he will most likely be in school forever, in case anyone was wondering), so it's more important that he has the computer. We should have the part to get the other one back up and running by the end of the week. I have ideas for a dozen posts that I can't wait to write.



One more month to go! How have you done with your goals for the year?

5 Goals for 2011: 2 Months to Go!

1. Exercise for 30 minutes 3 times a week. 

We were going about this one all wrong. Nathan and I were trying to get up before 6:00 so we could exercise before work. Now we're working out as soon as we get home from work (working opposite shifts didn't last long after all). We started Couch to 5K this month and I'm loving it. After completing the the first day of week 3, I feel like there's actually a chance I could turn into a runner.

2. Go to bed at 10:00 each night and wake up at 6:00 each morning.

Now that I'm exercising after work instead of before, this isn't as important. I'm still aiming for at least getting ready for bed at 10:00 though.

3. Complete my daily chores and leave no dishes in the sink at the end of the day. 

I've actually done away with my daily chore schedule in favor of a new method I might blog about later. It's working so far. I've also done well with the dishes, thanks to a lot of help from Nathan.

4. Spend less than $200 a budget period on food (groceries and eating out). 

That didn't happen. I knew it was a lofty goal when I set it; the point was to spend much less than the $300 we had been spending, which we have done.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

I almost made it, but other activities took priority last week and I only published one post.  I'm hoping to up this slightly over the next two months so I can make 100 posts for the year (this is #79). 

I'm actually starting to feel like I have some balance in my life! Who thinks I should have a baby now to throw off everything? :-)

Some Things Never Change

The 10 year anniversary of the September 11 attacks got me thinking about what I was doing 10 years ago. I looked at the journal I kept at the time, but it turns out I had stopped writing for awhile in 2001 and didn't write anything on September 11. I did, however, find something that left me stunned and a little depressed...

These were my first two goals for 2001. Look familiar? Replace writing in my journal with writing on my blog, and you have two of my exact goals for 2011! I'm still trying to do the same things 10 years later with similar results. Wow.

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So, how did I do over the past month with my new revised goals? The theme for most of them is "I was doing great, but then..." I got sick. Nathan was unemployed and then started second shift and things were weird. Life happened. But life has been happening for 10 years and isn't going to slow down any time soon. No excuses!

1. Exercise for 30 minutes 3 times a week. 

I manged to walk/jog in the morning 4 times. I guess that's something like a 20% success, which is still failure.

2. Go to bed at 10:00 each night and wake up at 6:00 each morning.

This is the best example of starting out great but failing. Maybe next month? Going to bed without Nathan is going to be rough, but I can't stay up until midnight.

3. Complete my daily chores and leave no dishes in the sink at the end of the day. 

I'm getting better on this one. The daily chore schedule needs revised though.

4. Spend less than $200 a budget period on food (groceries and eating out). 

This one was totally crazy. For the four-week period that ended September 10, we spent $200.27. So close! We've already spent over $200 this period, but we'll still be well under the $300 we had been spending.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

I had two weeks of two posts followed by two weeks with none. One positive thing about having evenings to myself now is that I'll be writing a lot more. I've always done my best writing late in the evening when it's totally quiet.

Have you ever seen history repeat itself in your life in a weird way?

5 Goals for 2011: Revising & Refocusing

I haven't written about my progress on my goals since February, partly because hardly anyone read the first two posts and partly because I didn't feel like I was making much progress. I've realized that I wasn't making progress because my goals were too vague for there to be any way to measure my success. It's time to revise my goals and then refocus on them for these last four months of the year.

1. Exercise on a regular basis

That one hasn't happened at all. Nathan and I will say we're finally going to start exercising, but we never do. It's hard to be motivated when neither of us ever gain weight either. (I still weigh about what I did when I stopped growing. I guess it's no wonder people think I look 15.) I don't know that putting a number on this one will help, but I'm going to try anyway.

Revised goal: Exercise for 30 minutes 3 times a week. Any exercise! Just doing yoga again would at least help me get back into a healthier routine. 

2. Wake up earlier.

I was doing a little better at this one for a while, but we've been staying up later now that Nathan doesn't have to get up early. Lately I haven't been stumbling out of bed until almost 7:00, and I have to leave by 7:30 to make it to work on time. I think my original hope of waking up at 5:30 was a little unrealistic though.

Revised goal: Go to bed at 10:00 each night and wake up at 6:00 each morning.

3. Keep Our Apartment Clean
I think I've done a pretty good job with this one, but it needs to be a more measurable goal.

Revised goal: Complete my daily chores and leave no dishes in the sink at the end of the day. Obviously there will be days when nothing gets done, but I still want this to be the goal.

4. Continue to find ways to decrease our expenses and increase income.
I've found small ways to decrease expenses in certain categories. As for increasing income, I was mainly thinking of freelance work, but I don't think that's going to happen this year. If someone wants me to do design work for them I'll do it, but I'm not going to try to seek out any work when I hardly have any free time as it is. Hopefully next year. I'm just going to try to focus on one area of our expenses.

Revised goal: Spend less than $200 a budget period on food (groceries and eating out). We've been consistently spending around $300. Yikes! Just cutting that by a third would save us $1,300 a year! (We track our budget in thirteen four-week periods.)

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

That one doesn't need to change. I tried writing every other day for a while and even every day for a few days, but two is what I can manage during this season of life.

If you set goals for yourself this year, how are you doing with them?

Using Your Other 8 Hours

 
Eight hours at work. Eight hours sleeping. What about the other 8 hours? My biggest struggle with achieving my goals has been finding the time to fit it all in. Reading The Other 8 Hours by Robert Pagliarini has really helped me think about how much time I really have and how I can make better use of it through setting priorities, setting a schedule, and setting limits.

Setting Priorities
My goals are to exercise on a regular basis, wake up earlier, keep our apartment clean, increase income and decrease expenses, and write at least 2 blog posts a week. If I'm spending time on something that won't help me achieve one of my goals or benefit the well-being of myself or others, why am I doing it? If a book on my reading list will not help me reach my goals or at least be a good read, why on earth is it on there? Obviously, my husband has to come before all of these things. As I've learned, being a good wife for him has very little to do with cleaning. If he needs me to look over something he's written or just wants to talk to me, I'm not too worried about how much blogging I get done that day.

Setting a Schedule
I've resisted making a daily schedule for myself since I prefer to have spontaneity during my free time. But since making a chore chart and a menu plan have helped me stay on track, I decided having at least a general guideline couldn't hurt. If I really want to keep our apartment clean, I need to plan time to do chores each evening. If I want to write two or more blog posts each week, I need to schedule writing time. And when it's time to go to bed, I need to go to bed. That way, I can actually wake up on time and get 30 minutes of exercise that's a little more strenuous than hitting the snooze bar.

Setting Limits
You know those things that just suck away your time and suck the life out of you? Robert Pagliarini calls those Life Leeches. You want to get rid of those. He suggests eliminating activities from your life for three weeks and then deciding whether you want to resume it. While I haven't identified anything I want to eliminate from my life, I have set limits on some things. To help combat wasting time online, I've set limits on the amount of time I spend online each evening and have also set limits on the number of sites I follow with Google Reader (25) and Twitter (60). I only follow with Reader if I absolutely don't want to miss a post on that blog, and the rest I follow on Twitter. I've also removed a few nonessential Facebook friends, but I'm still at 200. That one's a lot harder.

Needless to say, I got a lot out of The Other 8 Hours. This is only the second book I've read this year that I'm considering buying for future reference. As the title implies, it's more applicable to those working full-time, but others could easily skip around to sections that interest them. I skipped through the parts about starting a big business venture involving investors but read the sections on blogging and freelance in detail. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to "get more time, get more money, and get a life," or any of the above.

Do you struggle with using time in a meaningful way? If not, what are your secrets?  :-)

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Other Books Read in 2011

• Eat, Pray, Love
• Healthy Meals for Less (Review)
• Half-Price Living (Review)
• Linchpin (Review) 
• To Buy or Not to Buy Organic (Review) 
• Mosaic
• Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half (Review) 
• Unplanned
• The Millionaire Next Door
• Committed

5 Goals for 2011: February Progress

I think I took some steps back with my 5 goals this month. I don't feel like I've made much progress at all.
 

1. Exercise on a regular basis 

This one has been terrible. I'm not sure what it will take to motivate me to exercise. Gaining 10 pounds? Developing health problems? The idea was to start exercising to prevent these things from happening. Maybe I just need a workout partner.

2. Wake up earlier.

I also did worse on this during February. I don't think I got up in time to eat breakfast at home on a weekday even once the entire month.

 

3. Keep our apartment clean.

I wouldn't say I've improved in this area, but I haven't slacked off either. Nathan has been helping a lot more, which is great. I think vacuuming once a week is starting to become a habit for him.

4. Continue to find ways to decrease our expenses and increase income.

I'm improving on my grocery spending. We actually raised our budget for these last four weeks since I had been having trouble staying within the limit I had set for myself, but then I ended up spending much less than that. I've also learned not to buy anything online before checking to see if I can earn cash back or other rewards first. We've earned $7.78 so far this year just buy going through Ebates to buy Nathan's textbooks.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

I had one calendar week with just one post, but I had written 4 posts the previous week. I'm trying to get better at scheduling posts to publish in the future to spread things out more.

5 Goals for 2011: Month 1 Checkup

I've now been working towards my 5 goals for one month. I've made progress in some areas but still have a long way to go. I suppose they wouldn't be very high goals if I mastered everything the first month though.

1. Exercise on a regular basis 

I haven't been doing too well on this one. Since our laundry room for our apartments doubles as the exercise room, it's a good use of my time to use the elliptical while my laundry is in the washer, which I did three of the four times I did laundry this month. But that's it. Other than a couple longish walks with Nenya and burning a few calories on the Wii Fit, I really haven't exercised at all this month. Part of my problem is working it into my schedule, part of it is the weather, but mainly it's just a lack of motivation.

2. Wake up earlier.

This is also an area of slow progress. I have been able to get myself out of bed early enough to eat breakfast at the table, but obviously I haven't been getting up early enough to exercise. Going to bed earlier isn't happening yet either most nights.

 

3. Keep our apartment clean.

This has been my biggest victory! I made a chore list of what needs to be done on which day, and Nathan made my list into a check list and put it on the bulletin board. It's amazing what a difference it makes just seeing it all planned out for me and getting to put a check in those boxes. I hate leaving any box unchecked. I guess chore charts aren't just for kids! While I had a general cleaning plan before, my new list is broken down into smaller and more manageable tasks. Before, I hated the day I had to clean the bathroom because spending that much time in a small, windowless room for that long and cleaning the entire time is just torture for me. Now, I mop the floor Sunday, clean the bathtub Tuesday, the sink Wednesday, and the toilet Friday. I need to make some adjustments, but I'm still cleaning a lot more often than I ever have. 

4. Continue to find ways to decrease our expenses and increase income.

Now that I'm more aware of what good grocery deals are, how often they happen, and how much we consume, I've gotten a little better at stocking up on items when they go on sale. But due to limited cabinet space, I can't really stockpile too much. (I mentioned to Nathan the other day that I sometimes put soup cans and cereal in my dresser, a fact that he found somewhat disturbing.) I still feel like we're spending a lot in other areas, but we're at least spending less than we're making and putting nearly half of our take home pay towards paying off debt. I haven't made any major progress on increasing our income but did sign up MyPoints, which will eventually get us a little money.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

This one I've managed to accomplish. I wrote 12 posts last month, with at least 2 every week. This is further proof that not exercising is due to lack of motivation, not lack of time.

Any tips on how to improve? How are you doing with your goals?

5 Goals for 2011

I decided putting my goals out here for everyone to see might make me feel a little more committed to achieving them. I plan to write monthly updates on my progress to motivate me to actually make progress.

1. Exercise on a regular basis

I want to work my way up to exercising 6 days a week. Nathan set up a great fitness program for me while I was in college, but I haven't exercised much at all these last few months. The problem is that before we were married, I worked out as soon as I got home from work and then made myself a quick dinner. But now that my commute is 25 minutes longer and I'm making meals that require more preparation, that doesn't work anymore. Thus goal #2.

2. Wake up earlier.

Ideally, I would like to wake up at 5:30. Right now, I'm lucky if I'm out of bed by 6:40, and I have to leave the house no later than 7:30 to make it to work on time. I eat breakfast while I'm driving! I want to be able to exercise, shower, eat breakfast with Nathan, and pack my lunch without feeling rushed. The most difficult part will be going to bed earlier no matter how late Nathan stays up.
 

3. Keep our apartment clean.

This is one Nathan and I will be working on together. We never let things get too bad, but sometimes we end up with dishes left in the sink or miscellaneous papers all over our desks. I want to be able to have people come over with little or no notice without worrying about our place being a mess.

4. Continue to find ways to decrease our expenses and increase income.

I don't want to put any numbers on this one. I want to increase my couponing skills and look for other areas where we could cut back. I manage to make a little money by taking surveys and using Swagbucks, and I'd like to find other similar ways to make money with little time involved. I would also like to do some freelance graphic design if I can get the rest of my life organized enough to have time for it.

5. Write at least 2 blog posts a week.

I'm hoping it will be at least 3, but since I only managed to write 60 posts in 2010, I don't want to set too high of a goal. The majority of my most popular posts so far have been about my wedding, so I now have the challenge of making my daily life and thoughts interesting enough for others to read.


And a couple footnotes I need to remember to help me with the above:

I am imperfect and I will make mistakes.
This is something Nathan really needs me to do. I need to realize that it's not the end of the world when I forget to use a coupon or cook a meal that isn't that great, or even when I lose the key fob we need to get into the laundry room and we have to pay $50 to replace it. 

Time is money.

I enjoy couponing and finding good deals, but sometimes I go a little overboard. Spending an hour trying to decide which items on our grocery list to buy from which stores in order to save $2 is a little ridiculous. I need to remember what's truly important.


What are your goals for this year?