Tracking One (or More) New Year's Resolution(s) - January

Hi All,

I'm thinking I'd like to pick one new year's resolution to track here with the support of this group month by month throughout 2018.

The resolution I want to work on is being more organized at work. I was really disorganized this year, and that created a lot of unnecessary stress for myself and I think also resulted in me doing a less-than-stellar job at times.

I've had some success with setting benchmarks for some of my goals in the last few years, so I'm going to establish some benchmarks each month for reaching this goal and then report here how I'm doing at hitting the benchmarks.

For January, my first benchmark is simply to spend 20 hours organizing my office. I actually have a new office, so everything from my old office is in boxes waiting to be unpacked, which is obviously a great opportunity for me to declutter and organize. In addition to making it more organized, I also want to make it an attractive and pleasing space, someplace it feels good for me and my students to spend time in.

My other benchmark for January is simply to reflect on and draft some possible monthly benchmarks for the next year. I'm sure they'll change and evolve as the year goes on, but I'd like to have a rough plan to work with.

I find I do better at meeting goals when I focus on only one or two at a time, so this is the only resolution I'm going to work on here.

If anybody wants to join in by posting about one or more New Year's resolutions you want to track here, that would be great!

Well, my New Years resolutions are more about continuing to focus the shape of my life, but there are three areas I want to concentrate on organizing - photos/scrapbooks, my barn studio, and the basement.

i will try to match you the 20 hours in January.

I also have 3 things I want to work on this month. First, finish the paper mess that I abandoned to enjoy the holiday season. Second, finish sorting photographs, and scrapbook my daughter's age 13 thru high school graduation, to give her for her birthday on Feb. 12. Third, make 4-5 outfits for my great niece's new MyLife doll (18in. I already have a pattern and plenty of fabric in my sewing boxes). I will do an average of 1 hour/day, starting 1/2. The first is a chore, 2 and 3 will be fun!

So nice to have company, Chicken Lady, and mschrisgo2!

1 hour done.

2 hours today :) Discovered a way to deal with my resistance: sort paper while on the phone! With less focus on the task, it was way easier, extremely easy, to see what was trash. I separated it into recycle vs. shred and did the shredding after my phone calls. Emptied a bankers box, and filed a 4 in stack, took out the shredding and recycle!
3 hours subtotal.

How are you doing, ejchase and Chicken Lady?

I am just struggling with sliding back into daily life so far. Probably won’t get to anything extra until the weekend.

Good going, mschrisgo2!

Like Chicken Lady, I am trying to get some momentum after being away on vacation and also dealing with a health issue with one of my family members. I might not be able to start tackling work/office issues until early next week, but thanks for the inspiration!

2 more hours, 1 this morning, 1 this evening. 2 more boxes emptied, mostly into shred/recycle. Subtotal. 5 hours.

As a bonus, i discovered completed scrapbook/ photo pages for DD's middle school years. So I only have high school left to do.

CL and ejchase, when the time is right you will work on you goals. You're both working, I am retired, and it makes a huge difference. I would have done nothing but work this week if I were still in the classroom.

2 more hours today, for a total of 7 so far.

I have now been through all the boxes and piles. I have quite a bit of filing to do next, and I am still intent on only having 1 plastic bankers box of "permanent" files, so i will need to whittle that down some more. Then I have a smaller box of working files.

I'm going to try to get the filing done over the weekend; the heavy rain is supposed to continue, so I have no desire to be out and about.

Then Monday and Tuesday I can sew doll clothes! Yay!

After that I will tackle the photos and scrapbook projects.