It is the start of a new year, 2020, and time for some bujo and making accountable goals. I have decided that in this new year, I will be making better use of my time and bujo, and to ensure that I will also be holding myself accountable, I will be making this a sticky post on my blog.
While browsing Pinterest, I came across a new concept of an old idea, Level 10 Life. In short this is looking at the ten areas of your life and coming up with actionable tasks to achieve your level 10 life. A more detailed introduction can be found at Be Level 10.
Another idea that can, in my opinion, be used in conjunction with Level 10 Life and the 101 Goals in 1001 days. The concept is to set 101 goals and, you guessed it, complete it in 1001 days.
Although these ten areas are instinctive, it is worth spending some time on each area to determine where improvement i s needed.
The approach I am taking is to give broad goals in each area. And then in my bujo to look at those goals on a monthly basis, and determine what I can do that month to achieve my goal. I haven’t used the SMART technique when setting the broad goals, but I know in my gut what needs to be done. By using my bujol, I am then incorporating the SMART principles.
Broad Goals
- Health and Fitness
- Lose 20kg
- Stop smoking
- Family and Friends
- Celebrate birthdays
- Spend time
- Be involved
- Personal Development
- Attend courses
- Spirituality
- Start meditating
- Finances
- Budget
- Savings
- Career
- Be strong
- Do what is right
- Romance
- Date nights
- Weekends away
- Fun and Recreation
- Travel
- Outings
- Contribution
- Santa Shoebox
- Donations
- Physical Environment
- De-clutter
- Minimalism
September 2020
Sadly I hadn’t realised that I missed out on two months (July and August 2020). This is partly due to the pandemic lock-down and my depression.
This is however a new month and chance to get back on track.
- Health and Fitness
- Continue with water aerobics – I am unsure as to whether this is still an option as I haven’t heard from the instructor for a while. Will need to follow up. Followed up, and classes have started in October.
- Continue boxing classes – Although classes started in August, I still felt anxious about starting so soon. And then this month I had to go to a physiotherapist due to pain in my shoulders and neck. I have been advised to give the classes a skip as the jarring and motion is not going to help in my healing.
- Aim to achieve at minimum 5000 steps per day – this has been difficult due to the lack of movement allowed. My daily average was only 4000 steps, and I know where I am failing. I don’t move enough over the weekends.
- Family and Friends
- Make an effort to connect. Contacted some friends and meeting ups have been scheduled in October.
- Personal Development
- Take more time to do blog posts and use it as an opportunity to improve my writing and thought processes. Well that obviously hasn’t happened in September. Need to do better.
- Spirituality
- Start doing time – outs during the day. Take a moment to breath and stretch during the day. This I find I do unconsciously during the day, so I guess that is a win!.
- Finances
- On track.
- Career
- Create routines for tasks. I have settled into a routine of sorts, and tweaking my already existing tasks.
- Teach / transfer knowledge to junior staff members. This will take fruit in October.
- Romance
- Husband’s birthday. Use it as an opportunity to show him how much I care. The man had many a breakfast made for him. And it was great to celebrate it with his family and then in a separate event his closest friends.
- Fun and Recreation
- Weekend away booked for the long weekend. Definitely lots of fun.
- Contribution
- Sign up for Santa Shoebox. And I have now pledged for one shoebox that is due at the end of October.
- Physical Environment
- I have purchased “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying”. And more importantly I have already done my clothes. I haven’t read any further in the book i.e. not past the clothes section, however I have started decluttering the lounge and bookshelves. My new thing is to think of just three things to do over the weekend that will be better server me and our space.
June 2020
This month is more or less cancelled due to the lack of interest.
I am back at work mostly on a daily basis. And I have been “promoted” or should I say recognised by being the acting manager of my department. This has added to the stress and bank account.
So far this year we have had to cancel three weekend holidays, which sounds so privileged yet it is a loss of sorts. We were both looking forward to it and now we get to spend weekends looking at one another, too scared to go out and not allowed to visit friends or family.
April 2020
This month is more or less cancelled due to the quarantine lock down.
I have battled with remaining positive and productive.
March 2020
- Health and Fitness
- Water aerobics – I attended the classes I could until they were cancelled due to the lock down.
- Boxing classes – I attended the classes I could until they were cancelled due to the lock down.
- Weekly weigh ins – I did this consistently until the lock down, and then lost the motivation.
- Measuring waist – I did this consistently until the lock down, and then lost the motivation.
- Aim to achieve at minimum 6000 steps per day – at most I was averaging only 5000 steps a day
- Family and Friends
- Breakfast with Art Class ladies – booked – attended and was great to catch up with everyone.
- Personal Development
- Beginner bee-keeping course – booked – attended and am now comfortable to work with a bee hive.
- Fun with dot art – booked – cancelled by the organisers
- Spirituality
- Start of small – 2 minutes of deep breathing in the morning and night – not as consistent as I would hope.
- Finances
- Cut down on unnecessary spending and increase savings – this I managed and moved additional funds into my savings account.
- Career
- Our financial year end is March – this months goal is to stay on top of all the daily tasks and start prepping for the year end – managed to do this and am in a better position to complete the year end than I had hoped.
- Romance
- Plan a date night – not done.
- Fun and Recreation
- Finish reading one book – not done
- Contribution
- Look into volunteer organisations / charities – not done
- Physical Environment
- Just going to aim for at least 10 minutes a day … just 10 minutes of cleaning – managed on most days
February 2020
- Health and Fitness
- Continue with water aerobics – battling to make it on time with the commute from work but have made adjustments to my working day
- Start boxing classes – done – enjoying it thoroughly
- Continue with weekly weigh ins – done – 2.5kgs lost in the month – total weight loss is 4.4kgs
- Start measuring waist for second data point – done – 7cm loss in the month
- Family and Friends
- Lots of birthdays to celebrate – semi completed – colleagues birthday lunches clashed with meetings and had a bit of a fall out with my sister on her birthday celebration
- Spend time with parents – beekeeping course planned with father – completed – and we are now ready to start luring a swarm
- Personal Development
- Look at continuing education courses at local high school – beekeeping course found – done
- Spirituality
- Attempt meditation again or find some other stress relieving activity – still not done and starting to question the importance of this in my life.
- Finances
- Monitor budget using 22seven app – done – and lets just say there is some room for improvement to my spending habits.
- Career
- The plan this month is just to survive it with good humour – this was a tough month and very little light visible
- Romance
- Make an effort with Valentines day – bought digital date from Date Factory – done – and had some fun
- Fun and Recreation
- Book a couples massage – done – we enjoyed it thoroughly although we have now learnt not to have deep tissue massages as we were bruised for about three days afterwards.
- Contribution
- Donate decluttered items – not done.
- Physical Environment
- Be more consistent and deliberate with decluttering – not done and it may have slipped further into chaos
January 2020
- Health and Fitness
- Weigh in and keep track – done – managed to lose 1.9kg
- Water aerobics – contacted instructor, first class Thursday 16 January – haven’t been consistent in going due to work commitments, only once a week instead of the intended twice a week.
- Park run – arranged with sister and attended on Saturday 11 January – I have now learnt not to take the pugs with on the park run – if unable to attend on a Saturday I arrange to do a walk with my sister on the Sunday.
- Take vitamins – not consistent yet – tracked in bullet journal – really not consistent and need to make a concerted effort.
- 5000 steps per day – not consistent yet – tracked in bullet journal – still not consistent although I am hitting this target more often than I thought I would
- Family and Friends
- Arrange coffee dates with friends – this I have failed with as I seem to be fluctuating on the idea of what a friend is.
- Spend time with parents – have managed to do this and set up some activities to do in February
- Personal Development
- Resolutions via Meetup – Saturday 18 January – attended and found informative although I wasn’t able to make the follow up meetings
- Chinese Painting via Meetup – Sunday 19 January – enjoyed this thoroughly and now have a new appreciation for painting with ink.
- Spirituality
- Download meditation app – done – and then removed, wasn’t finding the right guided meditation to follow
- Meditate daily – not consistent yet – tracked in bullet journal – not completed with any sort of consistency – will need to rethink this activity
- Finances
- Increase SATRIX investment – done
- Career
- Email managers regarding segregation of duties / authorisation – done – finding work to be stressful at the moment with a lot more expectations of me.
- Romance
- Arrange date – this I sadly didn’t do – I did however plan and book our holidays for the coming year
- Be more helpful to husband – feel like I have upped my game but there is still room for improvement.
- Fun and Recreation
- Combine with date i.e. go to movies – not done
- Contribution
- Donate unwanted clutter to charity / welfare – most of the items decluttered were not in a condition to be donated
- Physical Environment
- Remove 2 x items per day – not consistent yet – tracked in bullet journal – I wasn’t very consistent on doing this daily however I did have spurts of inspiration.