As part of Rebecca Thorman’s Monthly Goal Meetup, I’m going to list some goal I hope to reach in the coming months.
It’s funny how this past summer has been slightly vacant of tangible goals. For the past couple years I’ve been riding myself all sorts of hard in trying to take small steps towards a better life/career. I think I’ve done exceedingly well with the cards I’ve been given, but I know I have a long way to go. I guess I took the past couple months to recuperate from an overall hectic Spring and recalibrate my path forward under current circumstances.
My Goals For September:
- Improve this semi-fitness craze I’ve been on. It’s been peacemeal at best for a little while, where I’m either eating well and working myself ragged, thus neglecting my work, or vice versa.
- Optimize my time management. I’ve had a considerable ammount of work added to my plate and I’m nothing less than thrilled about it. However, I’m still running on adrenaline to get it all done and I’m aware that there’s a better way to get it all done so I can have more time for myself. That’s important for the rest of my goals.
- Get more sleep. This doesn’t need much explanation. Better time management should help.
- Plan out my location in the coming months. Whether I stay local or not, my living situation is up in the air. I’m good at living in limbo, but it’s not my preferred mode of existence.
- Build my savings account and pay down my rotating expenses. More savings and less debt leads to less gray hair, so they say. I believe ‘em.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting goals, JR. I think yours are the least tangible I’ve read. Like how are you going to optimize your time? I’m interested to see how it works out for you. For me, optimizing my time means making to-do templates and spreadsheets and such, ha. Thanks so much for participating! Think it’s going to be fun
@Rebecca, criticism accepted. I’ll narrow these down!
Get more sleep is my favorite one. I slept til 10:30 this weekend for the first time in probably 5 years. Granted, I crashed at a friends on one of the most comfortable couches I’ve EVER slept on. Seriously, more comfortable that my own bed. Hrmm…if I hadn’t just bought a new bed frame I’d say one of mine should be get a new bed!
Elisa, I’m gonna need the name and model of this couch so I too can sleep like royalty.
Hey there! I found your goals through Rebecca’s post…great goals and good luck with that! I think getting enough sleep is highly important, and I completely neglect this as well. Too much to do and too little time, right? Good luck!
Hi Akhila, thank you for stopping by! I’m getting better at the sleep thing as I’m cramming more into the day and spending less idle time in between tasks.. this leads to less catch up and night and MORE sleep
During my summer at a software company, a phrase that popped up again and again was “agility”. This is a value that corresponds to how fast a team can work, measured in points/month (points are determined on project difficulty). Agility is a figure that managers employ to determine how much can get done over a given timeline.
I think that agility is an important component of personal time management. It involves a good deal of self-knowledge. You must assess how fast you are, gauge how much effort in a given task is “good enough”, & know what conditions to place yourself in to optimize your work. For instance, this comment took about 10 minutes to produce, so if I want to spend half an hour a day commenting on blogs, I’d probably limit myself to three blog comments per day.
Lemme know what you figure out, cause I’m horrible at time management.
Jonathan, the agility part, when I’m pressed, is excellent. However, whenever I find myself unfocused or held back by self-imposed or external circumstances, my time management always goes to shit. As long as I keep the wheels moving I tend to get everything done that needs to be done. It’s a slippery slope on both sides.
However, I feel like I’m picking up speed this month, so it’s all good. Will def. be interesting to see how things are assessed in October!
Get more sleep. That’s a good one. I really think I need to focus on that. The internet and my never-ending work always seems to get in the way of my sleep
Nonetheless, it’s important to focus on. Whenever I’m rested, my work is better and I’m happier and healthier. Great goals and good luck!
All the best, JR! I’m excited to hear updates on your living situation. I’m not one to stay in just one place for a very long time (my heels constantly itch, so they say) so it’ll be interesting to hear moving and traveling stories from you. Cheers! ~Karla
Hi JR. I like your goals. However they appear to me as more long term than can be accomplished by the end of this month. They can definitely be started this month though to eventually become part of your routine and second nature to you. It appears to me as though better time management to get more sleep is most important. Good luck to you!
goal goal goals… i suck bigtime in meeting them. some of those unfulfilled goals were going to gym, sleeping early, quit Farmville (facebook) and going independent at age of 21 (23, now). i dont know why they dont happen. *sigh
anyways, good luck on your objective!
I’m stuck with you on the lack of sleep and better time management (though I’ve gotten better in this area; legal pads and post-it’s!).
I think you have an excellent list goin’ and so cheers to a good Monday, and getting it done!
@Grace, I’m always much more likely to succeed when I’m well rested.. otherwise it’s just a test of will until I crash for 12 hours straight haha
@Karla, I’ll be heading to the Midwest in a few weeks. Declarative blog post forthcoming
@Mark, you and Rebecca hit it on the head. I’ve been re-assessing my goals, especially considering the drastic geographic change I’m about to experience. Time to do some really hard assessment of self. Although, I’m pretty sure the sleep goal is something I can start working on right away.
@John, goals are awesome because as long as you figure out a way to get them done, it doesn’t matter how long they take. Keep at it man!