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Overall I feel as though January has been quite a good month in terms of progress against goals. February is going to be a bit tricky, because I'm (probably) going away on silent retreat for ten days which is going to have a fairly significant impact on how much progress I can make, and I will need to give some thought as to whether I should make any adjustments.
Maintenance goals
Review spending vs budget every month - done. I think I can take this off the list, because it's happening consistently, and is sort of implied by the next goal.
Quarterly spending below £X (3% lower than last quarter's target) - I spent quite a large pile of money this month booking ten singing lessons, which will cover this quarter as well as part of next (I have them fortnightly rather than weekly), and then divided my remaining budget for the quarter in three. My actual spending was comfortably lower than the resulting budget, so although it's a little higher than 1/3 of the total, I'm feeling quite confident about hitting the target. This is one goal that will be made rather easier by being on retreat, as there are very few opportunities for spending. However, the cost of the retreat itself comes out of a separate holiday budget (because it's spiky enough that it makes much more sense to consider annually rather than quarterly), and I think that when I consider the other holidays I've got planned this year I am in danger of going over that, so it might be good if I can maintain an underspend on my general discretionary spending and redesignate it towards holidays.
Run at least 195 km (same as last quarter) - 81.5 km so far, well ahead of target (and about to go out for my first February run shortly)
Do at least one session (at least 10 min) of core strengthening exercise each week (easier than last quarter) - this started badly, with the first session not happening until the 23rd, and being very challenging after a two month gap, but the second session did happen a week later, and was significantly easier. I think I'm more likely to achieve this if I make a plan for the next session immediately after finishing one. Ideally slightly less than a week away so there's some scope for things going wrong.
Additional goals (in rough order of priority)
Start therapy, codify what I'm hoping to achieve with it, and make a plan for getting there - I had the first session. I'm hoping to use the next one to make something resembling a concrete plan.
Organise Thronescamp - I feel like we're reasonably on top of this, although I should probably reserve some time in the next few days, as there is stuff that I'm supposed to be getting on with, and just waiting until I feel like doing it has meant it sitting on the back burner for the last couple of weeks.
Practice french for at least half an hour 6 days/week. Include at least 13 sessions of speaking - This is going really well. I've practiced every single day this month, most days for far longer than half an hour, and including 6 hour-long conversation classes. I've been trying to make most of the practice listening, writing, and talking, because I'm weaker in all of those than reading, but I'll try to find something suitable to read whilst on retreat so I can keep up the habit.
Invoice at least £Y - This might be a stretch. I invoiced about 85% of £Y/3 in January, despite quite a few half-days off, but I'm missing a big chunk of work time in February because of being on retreat, so I'll have to really knuckle down if I want to make up for that in March.
Start singing lessons, and work out with the teacher what's the minimal practice regime that will mean I'm not wasting my time and money, then stick to that - this is going fairly well so far. I've had my first couple of lessons with Olivia, and she recommends doing the workout that she gives me at least every other day. I'm not quite managing the regularity, but I'm making up for any skipped sessions by doing them on consecutive days, which I think is probably only slightly suboptimal. And I'm also trying to apply the things that I'm learning in choir rehearsals. I'm not sure whether this will have to go on hold whilst I'm on retreat. I think the silence is more about conversation than sound - certainly last time they were happy for me to play the piano. I would worry about disturbing the other retreatants doing them in or around the house, but if I'm going for a walk then I might do them there.
Private goal - this is not going at all well and I've basically given up on it for now. I suspect I need either a better strategy or for it to be a higher priority or both, so I think I'm going to decide deliberately to discard it and perhaps come back to it another quarter.
Host at least three dinner parties - I haven't actually hosted any yet, but there's one in the diary and I'm going to try and get invitations out for a second in the next day or so.
Finish writing up honeymoon - was going nowhere until I started drafting this, but since then I've made a start on the next installment. Like the Thronescamp stuff, it's more likely to happen if I actually earmark time for it, so I've put a daily "spend ten minutes on this" reminder in my to-do list.
Maintenance goals
Review spending vs budget every month - done. I think I can take this off the list, because it's happening consistently, and is sort of implied by the next goal.
Quarterly spending below £X (3% lower than last quarter's target) - I spent quite a large pile of money this month booking ten singing lessons, which will cover this quarter as well as part of next (I have them fortnightly rather than weekly), and then divided my remaining budget for the quarter in three. My actual spending was comfortably lower than the resulting budget, so although it's a little higher than 1/3 of the total, I'm feeling quite confident about hitting the target. This is one goal that will be made rather easier by being on retreat, as there are very few opportunities for spending. However, the cost of the retreat itself comes out of a separate holiday budget (because it's spiky enough that it makes much more sense to consider annually rather than quarterly), and I think that when I consider the other holidays I've got planned this year I am in danger of going over that, so it might be good if I can maintain an underspend on my general discretionary spending and redesignate it towards holidays.
Run at least 195 km (same as last quarter) - 81.5 km so far, well ahead of target (and about to go out for my first February run shortly)
Do at least one session (at least 10 min) of core strengthening exercise each week (easier than last quarter) - this started badly, with the first session not happening until the 23rd, and being very challenging after a two month gap, but the second session did happen a week later, and was significantly easier. I think I'm more likely to achieve this if I make a plan for the next session immediately after finishing one. Ideally slightly less than a week away so there's some scope for things going wrong.
Additional goals (in rough order of priority)
Start therapy, codify what I'm hoping to achieve with it, and make a plan for getting there - I had the first session. I'm hoping to use the next one to make something resembling a concrete plan.
Organise Thronescamp - I feel like we're reasonably on top of this, although I should probably reserve some time in the next few days, as there is stuff that I'm supposed to be getting on with, and just waiting until I feel like doing it has meant it sitting on the back burner for the last couple of weeks.
Practice french for at least half an hour 6 days/week. Include at least 13 sessions of speaking - This is going really well. I've practiced every single day this month, most days for far longer than half an hour, and including 6 hour-long conversation classes. I've been trying to make most of the practice listening, writing, and talking, because I'm weaker in all of those than reading, but I'll try to find something suitable to read whilst on retreat so I can keep up the habit.
Invoice at least £Y - This might be a stretch. I invoiced about 85% of £Y/3 in January, despite quite a few half-days off, but I'm missing a big chunk of work time in February because of being on retreat, so I'll have to really knuckle down if I want to make up for that in March.
Start singing lessons, and work out with the teacher what's the minimal practice regime that will mean I'm not wasting my time and money, then stick to that - this is going fairly well so far. I've had my first couple of lessons with Olivia, and she recommends doing the workout that she gives me at least every other day. I'm not quite managing the regularity, but I'm making up for any skipped sessions by doing them on consecutive days, which I think is probably only slightly suboptimal. And I'm also trying to apply the things that I'm learning in choir rehearsals. I'm not sure whether this will have to go on hold whilst I'm on retreat. I think the silence is more about conversation than sound - certainly last time they were happy for me to play the piano. I would worry about disturbing the other retreatants doing them in or around the house, but if I'm going for a walk then I might do them there.
Private goal - this is not going at all well and I've basically given up on it for now. I suspect I need either a better strategy or for it to be a higher priority or both, so I think I'm going to decide deliberately to discard it and perhaps come back to it another quarter.
Host at least three dinner parties - I haven't actually hosted any yet, but there's one in the diary and I'm going to try and get invitations out for a second in the next day or so.
Finish writing up honeymoon - was going nowhere until I started drafting this, but since then I've made a start on the next installment. Like the Thronescamp stuff, it's more likely to happen if I actually earmark time for it, so I've put a daily "spend ten minutes on this" reminder in my to-do list.
