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This week’s Home Simplified task is Goal Setting And Priorities.
I have realised in just six short weeks that setting goals has made a huge difference to my everyday life.
I was never a goal setter in the past.
A dreamer, yes, most definitely.
I would think about all sorts of things that I wanted to do, or wanted to start to do, and then that was as far as I would go.
Since starting to use my kikki-K Wellbeing Journal and Inspiration Diary, I have been setting all sorts of goals, some as small as something I want to achieve in a day, and others that I’m planning out over weeks and months.
Obviously right now my focus for the next 12 weeks is primarily on my health and fitness, as I am investing my time heavily in the 12wbt program.
My goals for this week were to plan as many meals as I could in advance, and schedule out the time each night when I will be exercising.
This afternoon I’ve pre-prepared and frozen all the food I need to take me up until Thursday, when I will cook again to take through until Sunday. Instead of having to worry about cooking each day, I’m only cooking twice a week! That’s the sort of organising I like.
This also means at night that I will have plenty of time to focus on my exercise, so there’s another goal sorted right there.
As we are in the middle of a major bathroom renovation, my goals for The Shoebox are to keep the place running as smoothly as it can over the next few months, even though I know there will be times where it will feel like a never ending project.
As is the case once you start renovating, you find yourself looking ahead to the next thing and the next, which in our case will be re-polishing the floor boards, and then re-painting, so I’m also starting to think about how we can change each room with mini-makeovers in the process.
One of the things I’ve wanted for a long time is to have a hallway filled with simple white frames housing black and white prints of us, our travels, our wedding, and of course Miss A over the last two years. All of these things take time, so I will literally be setting aside a few hours here and there specifically with the intent to sort through the digital files on the computer from the past five years and choose pictures and design layouts.
Also with regards to photos, I want to get a whole heap printed of Miss A from birth to now and put them into a photo album. Before I know it she’ll be at school, and I don’t want to be wading through five years worth of images. I still think nothing beats good old fashioned albums that you can look through and see just how much your precious ones have grown and changed (as have we!), and this is something I want to maintain throughout Miss A’s childhood.
In terms of family time, we are looking at ways to ensure quality over quantity. As Mr G works on Saturdays and plays golf on Sundays, we really need to plan our weekends so that we have the opportunity to enjoy family time, balanced with relaxation, and not just end up staying home because we’re too tired or unmotivated to do anything.
Today we tried something new which worked really well for us. Mr G went to golf later in the day which gave us the morning together, and we simply went to a local park for an hour, but it was just so lovely, and then when Mr G did go off to golf and Miss A slept, I got my cooking done for the week.
A perfect example of a day of kicking goals I would say!
Financially we’re obviously counting our dollars more than usual with the expense of the bathroom renovation. Even with Mr G being a plumber, it’s a costly renovation, and I’ve managed to save more money in the last six weeks than the last three months by setting a specific dollar value target on savings. I have found meal planning has helped immensely in this area, as we are saving on average $50 to $60 a week by shopping specifically to a list of what food we need for an entire week, and we’re also not wasting a further $20 or $30 a week on top of it on takeaway.
In terms of blogging, this year is the first that I have set myself goals, and I’m finding it very rewarding and motivating. Again, some are daily goals, like last night I set aside two hours to sit on the computer and go in search of new blogs. I find blog hops are such a great way to do this (and this challenge has helped me connect to bloggers I may never have otherwise come across), and it’s so refreshing and uplifting. As much as we all have the blogs we follow and have adored for a long time, I definitely think that continuing to seek out new blogs is very inspiring and can give you many ideas and thoughts about how to improve, extend, and most importantly enjoy your own blog too!
So that’s where I’m at the moment with goals.
I feel like I’ve got enough variety to keep me motivated and focused, but not too overwhelmed at the same time.
