Okay friends. Here's what I've got lined up for this coming year and I'm so, so excited to get started on each of these things.
Goals //
Complete a "Year of Creative Habits" project. I had so much fun with my 100 day project this year, that I'm planning to extend it in 2018. I will be a bit less stringent about the rules than I was for the 100 day project, because a year is a long time and I will inevitably be met with unexpected time constraints or other variables. The collages themselves will also be slightly different from those I shared this year. My goal is to post a collage to Instagram each day of the year, but I'm not going to be strict about making each collage on the day it is posted. I imagine there will be some days when I complete two or three collages and others where I just spend a bit of time working on the project.
Complete 5 sewing projects. I have hopes that once I get going, I will enjoy it and complete many more than 5. But 5 feels like a nice solid goal.
Read 52 books. This feels like just the right number for 2018. More than I've read this year, but not a ton more. A book a week. A challenge for sure, but still doable as long as I just keep reading.
Complete weekly Project Life layouts for our family PL album. This has been pretty well on autopilot for the last few years, but I'm switching things up in 2018 by planning to use the Project Life App (versus physical paper and photos). I'm crossing my fingers that it will be a fairly seamless transition.
Complete 4 devotion "books." I had (and met) this same goal in 2016, but didn't make a similar goal in 2017 and I need the accountability. Books is in quotations because I like to vary my Bible studying a lot. Sometimes I complete actual devotion boos and other times I just like to take notes about a bible passage I've read or sermon I've heard. In those cases, I write out my thoughts on one of my devotional notepads and count the completion of a notepad (50 sheets) as a "book."
Review annual goals weekly and monthly. Yep. I made a goal about goals. For the past several years, I have used my membership to One Little Word and the monthly email / prompt as my reminder to review my goals. I feel like this reminder is hugely helpful in keeping my momentum and remembering to keep the important things ahead of the urgent. I am not doing One Little Word this year (so will not have have that monthly reminder) and also want to experiment with reviewing my goals more frequently. So, my goal is to do a brief review weekly and a more thorough review once a month. I've added these reviews to my to-do lists in my planner, to help keep me on track.
And a few other projects and plans for the year:
Travel Plans //
- Spring break trip to Illinois (just the kids and me, as Brian doesn't get a spring break)
- Estes Park trip with my sister and brother-in-law (and maybe my mom and step-dad)
- Camping x3 - this will be a brand new adventure for our family
- Small trip with Brian - somewhere close, and just two or three nights away
My goals for these trips are to put in time beforehand to make them enjoyable, to not "miss" any major highlights or opportunities and to have money saved and set aside before the trips begin so everything can be done with money we already have in the bank.
House Plans and Projects //
Paint most of the rooms and most of the trim, upstairs. Seven and a half years and three kids later, our "new" house is looking pretty rough around the edges. I don't really know how or when I will get this done - without the kids just making bigger messes with the paint - but somehow, it will get done.
Reorganize the store room. When I did this in the early months of 2016, I somehow thought I would then be "done" with this project. Ha! The mess is back with a vengeance.
Set up a legit tornado shelter and create a new emergency backpack. The tornado shelter has been on Brian's wish list for a long time, but we've never made it happen. We had an emergency kit, but everything expired and we need to start anew.
Make the house feel "happier." This is my overarching house goal for the year. I tend toward "happy" furnishings and decor items, but there is a lot of room for improvement. I have hopes that all the painting will make a big impact on the happiness meter. I don't have specific ways to measure this goal in mind, but I think when I reach the end of the year, I will know if I've met it or not.
And //
Make seasonal family activity lists for January through April, May through August and September through December and stick to them. These lists are how we plan most of our weekends and help us ensure that we are keeping up with family traditions and also exposing the kids to new experiences and new places. You can read more about these lists here.
There are two more big projects that I'm not quite ready to share, but that I would love to at least make progress on this year. I've written them on my private goal list and hope that all those weekly and monthly reviews will push me to be brave and get to work.
All that plus, you know, life, should keep me more than busy for the next twelve months!
No comments:
Post a Comment