If you’ll recall, I made a master goals list for 2019 encompassing several different areas of my life-home, financial, spiritual, creative, health.
In today’s post, I’ll go over what I accomplished, what worked well, and what didn’t. I’ll also discuss what I plan to do to hopefully get more accomplished this year.
Additionally, I will talk about my word of the year for 2019 (do you remember what it was) and reveal my word for 2020.
2019 WANT TO DO LIST
Home
- Repair laundry room door (DONE)
- Change knobs on the laundry door (DONE)
- Clean out the pantry (DONE)
- Change knob on the pantry door (DONE)
- Repair knob in the tub in the guest bath (DONE)
- Clean out/declutter the guest bedroom closet (DONE)
- Fix the kitchen drawer
- Repair the kitchen light
- Repair the vinyl planks in the guest bath
- Replace the shelf in the guest bath cabinet
- Hang shelves in the living room (DECIDED TO GO IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION)
- Clean out/declutter the master closet
- Clean out/declutter the hall closet
- Refresh the master bathroom
- -paint walls
- -paint cabinet
- -replace the flooring
- -replace 2 faucets
- -replace the pipes for both sinks
- -change out lighting
- -frame the mirror (started but ran into issues)
Fitness/Health
- Set a weekly/monthly workout goal (DONE) I didn’t always meet my goal but I set one every month.
- Continue with monthly challenges that including increasing water intake and activity tracking (DONE)
- Continue meal planning (DONE)
- Incorporate strength training into weekly workouts (DONE)
So, while I didn’t accomplish my actual monthly goal every month, I did set the goals and actually try to reach them. For the year, I worked out 123 days and completed 55 days of strength training.
Creativity
- Continue with Project Life along with documenting in monthly blog posts (DONE)
- Carve out time weekly for crafting including card making and scrapbooking (NOPE)
If you’ve been following along, you know that I faithfully uploaded my Project Life spreads every month. I enjoyed it and am proud of myself for continuing with the project.
Financial
Create a monthly budget-refine as needed. (NOPE)
Develop and work on a debt reducing strategy that may include bringing in more income, selling items, cutting back, etc…..The idea is to be very conscious about where my money is going and how I want to use it.
I did not do well with this goal at all. I did learn something about myself though which is equally important. I do not like thinking about money. It makes me uncomfortable. And it doesn’t matter whether I have a lot or none, the feeling is the same. I read something toward the end of the year that resonated with me. It talked about re-framing the thinking about paying bills. Instead of feeling negative about it every month, tell yourself how fortunate you are to have money to pay bills. Don’t say I “have” to pay this bill but instead, I “get” to pay this bill. I’ve tried it the past couple of months and it definitely feels better. I’m not waiting until the last minute to make some payments. More personal growth in this area to come in 2020.
Spiritual
This one is a bit hard to define and track. I will continue to listen to podcasts that focus on the spirit and emotional well-being. In order to do something that I can track, I will keep a daily gratitude journal. Nothing fancy or complicated but my goal will be to write down at least one (1) thing that I am grateful for everyday. I’ve not ever done anything like this so it’s definitely a stretch and outside of my comfort zone. (DONE)
I managed to get this one done and am happy about it. I did not read all of the books I wanted to be still feel successful with this goal.
2019 WORD OF THE YEAR
I thought long and hard about my word for this year waiting for something to come to me. When it did, it just felt right. This year’s word is TRANSFORM.
Transform my thinking, life, finances…..the whole kit and caboodle. This word gives me permission to be different, think different, try new things, ideas and attitudes. It’s not that I think I need to be a different person. It’s more to be consciously aware of my thought processes, mental blocks and biases and allow myself to be open to different experiences and ideas.
RESULT: I was not very successful with this one. I didn’t document anything about “transform” on my blog and I didn’t really think much about the word throughout the year. To give myself some credit, I did complete my monthly goal posts each month which was a way I was working to “transform.”
This year, I will add my word of the year to my monthly goals posts to insure that I am focusing on it.
Creative/Year End goals
Toward the end of the year, I set some creative and year end goals. In retrospect, I should have just combined them into one but, oh well! Here’s how it went:
-Get my gmail boxes to zero-(DONE)
I managed to get this done but not by being careful. I have 4 gmail accounts, one that is associated with the blog and one more general one. The blog one had about 1,000 emails to go through and the other had close to 9,000. The reason for this is that I tend to skim the emails and if it’s nothing I’m interested in or need at the moment I just let it be. Not good in terms of productivity!!
For 2020, I vow not to do this to myself. Honestly, I got the inboxes to zero by going through the last 3 months and then just deleting the rest!!! I did a cursory review but I figure if I haven’t read it and responded at this point, then it’s likely not really important!!
-Organize photos on new laptop (DONE) There is still some work to be done here, but it has started! FYI-I have thousands of photos to go through.
-Delete bad/duplicate photos (NOPE) This is a much larger project than I could get done in the past couple of months. A project for 2020! For both of these photo goals, I need to add an action step to my planner each week or month to do a little at a time.
-Decorate Christmas tree (DONE) I very happily got my tree up before Thanksgiving and have enjoyed it ever since.
-Take family photo at Thanksgiving (NOPE) Half of my family was gone for the holiday so it didn’t get done. We did take a sibling picture at Christmas, though.
-Set up my 2020 planner (DONE) As you know, I like using a paper planner which helps me to organize my thoughts and activities.
-Put up mirror frame (NOPE) previously explained.
-Dispose all e-waste (NOPE) I did get some of it in the car so I’m part way there.
-Shampoo carpets (NOPE)
-Ceiling repair (NOPE)
-Make holiday cards (DONE)
-Send out cards between 12-4 to 12-11 (sent out 12/16 so good enough)
-Decorate for the holidays (DONE) I got all my decor done before Thanksgiving!
-Visit family for Thanksgiving & Christmas (DONE)
-Complete and submit passport application (DONE)
-Connect blu ray player to tv in guest room for streaming (DONE) I actually got a firestick instead.
-Hang light fixture in master closet (NOPE) I looked around a bit but didn’t find anything I liked.
-Empty out all donations by end of the year (NOPE)
-Enjoy fall and holiday seasons (DONE) Not sure how to quantify this but I did enjoy the seasons. I did stuff that I wanted to do (Christmas lights drive/walk) and don’t feel like I missed out.
WHAT NEXT????
It’s easy to look at this list and think that I didn’t get much done. However, in truth, I got a lot done most of which is not on this list. And, that’s part of the problem.
I tend to get either overwhelmed which leads to not doing anything or I get distracted by other, easier funner projects. I’m pretty decent about starting projects but not so great at completely finishing them.
Because I get distracted or overwhelmed, I tend to waste a lot of time ruminating and thinking. Instead, I need to just make a plan, schedule it and do it. I can’t keep getting lost in YouTube videos trying to get confidence to work on projects. I know from experience that the confidence comes from the “doing” and not the “researching.”
In 2020, I’m going to really try and finish one thing before moving on to another. I might work on a home project and a craft project simultaneously but not 2 big home projects at the same time. When I do this, it’s usually because I’m finding one project overwhelming or have reached a point in the project where I don’t know what to do.
For 2020, I plan to start and stick with refreshing my master bath. There are so many things I want to do in my house, some big, some not, but I need and want to get this bathroom done. I’m going to do a project plan listing out as many of the tasks as possible that I can think of in an attempt to prevent the overwhelm. I hoping that this will help when I start to get frustrated I can focus on an easier and more doable projects.
That’s 2019 in a nutshell. I’m very much looking forward to 2020 and getting lots of things done. Stay tuned for the 2020 Master Want To Do List.
How did your 2019 go? Did you get accomplished what you wanted to? SHARE IN THE COMMENTS.
