Breaking down goals is still relativity new for me. I have always been one of those people that declares on January 1st that I will magically lose weight this year. No goal weight, no plan. And as a result, it never happens.
This year I am once again going to track it all in my Bullet Journal.
I was late to the Bullet Journal party. In the past I had various scraps of paper or computer files tracking my goals and it just never worked for me. The bullet journal did.
This year I have picked six key areas I want to focus on, then I split each one down into two main end goals each. There are so many ways to do this that I got overwhelmed looking into it, so we will see if this works. If it doesn’t, I can always re-plan at any point through the year.
I know they are not SMART, but I didn’t want to be to rigid in what I set myself. I’ll break them down monthly into something measurable.
The areas of focus are:
- Health – Losing weight & being healthier
- Home – Improving the home & More regular cleaning
- Work – Organization & New Skills
- Money – Spending Less & Saving More
- Spirit – Learning Tarot & Reading More
- Creativity – Write & Blogging
Against each of goal, I have written in ways I can help get there. Like a Habit tracker, or savings goals. Notice that Bullet Journal is not a goal itself? That’s because it’s a tool to help me get my goal.
Habit Tracker idea’s – Walking, Water Tracking, Spending less, Counting Calories. These are some trackers I use.
Cleaning tracker – oI am sure as the year goes n I’ll realise there are things I’ve missed, or do more/less frequently, but I need to start somewhere.
House Project Tracker – This is to keep me focused on why I am saving money.
Reading Log – I love looking back and seeing how much I got to read over the year.
Weight Loss Log – I am reluctant to set a goal weight, I just want to lose weight and keep it off.
WRITING TRACKING
Writing is the only one on the list that has a project aspect that I broke down to more detail on exactly what I wanted to write. I made a Kanban Board, and a Project Tracker, and a quarterly planning sheet. After I did that, I immediately changed my mind, and the result is out of date already. I hunted through the web for a digital tool that gives Kanban, Gantt, Calendar options for free and found Click Up. It has so far been near perfect and makes some of these spreads redundant.
KANBAN BOARD – Love this idea, but will see how much I use it, might be better to be on a wall instead.
PROJECT TRACKER GANTT CHART – This was a great idea, but it has already changed as I rethought my end goal for the Ernie Project, so it’s now in Click Up instead. I may go back and tipex the hell out of it, will see.
PROJECT TRACKER PER PROJECT – In hindsight this one needed a bit more thought. 4 lines were not enough per project if it goes all the way through to publishing, but I’ll learn, and maybe changed next year if I use it.
PROJECT TRACKER YEAR AT A GLANCE – This was something I found after the Gantt chart did not work out like I had hoped. My plan is to write the project as I work on it and draw a line to the month. Unsure if it will work better.
WORD COUNT TRACKER – I use these already but I want to change how i use them slightly next year. I need to know how long I take to complete a First Draft, a First revision, a Beta revision, etc. How many words per minute, how many minutes per day I can write. How long it takes me to edit. So rather than doing a spread per month, which I’d then have to flip back and forth on, I have to create a tracker for a project. We will see how well this works.
This year I hope I can stay really focused on my goals with these tools. Some of these I have been strugling to meet last year, and others are new.