September Goals Update

Original 2019 Goals. January February March April June July August

Okay, so as I've mentioned for the last couple of months, I'm now going to shelve the annual goals, and switch to using quarterly ones instead, the idea being that there'll be a mixture of ongoing maintenance type stuff that I try to do every quarter, and a list of "growth" targets that will be smaller and more focused than I could manage if I were looking at a whole year. I would expect that some of the "growth" targets will be one-off projects, and some will be about developing new habits or strengthening old ones, and will eventually end up on the maintenance pile. I've got a huge longlist of these, and will pick a handful of them each quarter.

I'm going to start with a review of my original 2019 goals and how they went, and then make another post with the 2019 Q4 goals in. ( Read more... )

So of 23 I count eight completely or mostly successful, eight partial successes, six complete failures, and one where the jury is still out. That's less than I would have hoped for, but doubtless better than I would have done if I hadn't had any such goals at all. It'll be interesting to look back in another year and see how things compare when I'm setting them quarterly.

2019 Q4 Goals

Okay, so here are the new goals for the next quarter. I've really struggled to keep the list as short as it is, and having deleted several things from it, only to find others that I felt I really had to add, there's definitely still a part of my brain saying "but you're not achieving aaaaanything, you should add more." Silly brain. Anyway, onwards:

Maintenance Goals

• Review spending vs budget every month


• Quarterly spending in dicretionary categories below £X


• Run at least 195 km each quarter (equivalent to ~75 minutes/week, or the minimum amount of cardio recommended by the NHS)


• Do at least one session (at least 20 min) of core strengthening exercise each week


• Keep up my duolingo streak

This feels like an amount of stuff that I should be able to manage fairly easily.

Additional goals

• Review first three quarters spending vs last year, decide on a reasonable value for £X above.
  (I have in fact already done this, but hadn't when I first put it on the list, so I'm counting it)


• Private goal


• Private goal


• Quit Facebook
  (Again, I've already done this, but am only a couple of weeks in, so perhaps it's more accurately represented as 'Stay quit from Facebook')


• Quit twitter


• Make a plan for St John's singers for the next year, and prepare adequately for all sessions this quarter


• Thronescamp scripts (including additional material scripts when chosen)


• Engage architect to start planning rebuild of extension


• Practice intervals, sightsinging and picking out non-tune lines when listening to choral music for at least half an hour on at least 65 days (approx 5 days/week)
  (I suspect this is going to be the difficult one)