2018 Goals

I wanted to share my big goals for 2018.  As I mentioned in New Year’s Reflections  I take time at the beginning of the year to list out the important areas in my life and then write about the things that I want to happen in each area.

This year, I did something a bit different.  Once I finished my list, I picked the one thing from each area that would make the biggest difference and decided to focus on those things.  The other things in each area are still sort of out there.  Maybe I’ll get to them, maybe I won’t.

I’m going to be SURE to get to the most important thing in each area.

(I think it’s really important to spend a bit of time really defining where we want to go in life.  I also think that trying different strategies for reaching goals and refining these strategies based on what works for us is important.  I may make another post soon explaining exactly how I picked some of these goals.  Some of them (like my food goal for the year) I’ve designed very carefully from what I’ve learned about what works for me.)

Updated to add: Check out No Buying Sugar for a Year- Plus Thoughts on Designing Goals.

Most important things for 2018

1. I want to focus on getting outside with Baby B… hiking and going on walks.  I want to get sunshine, get out in nature and take B places.
2. My big food goal for 2018 is to not buy any sugar or sugar-substitutes (honey, syrup, etc.) or products with these things.  Birthdays excepted.
3. Spend focused time and PLAY with Baby B.
4. By the end of the year, I want to have an app on the Play Store.
5. Write lots for Live Hoppy and maybe for other projects or just for me personally.
6. Schedule productive work time.  Get stuff done.
7. Get something done with my Socorro house.
8. Track all expenses and regularly go through my accounts, paying bills, keeping credit cards paid, etc.
9. Spend time with friends and family.
10. Listen to my inner self and tap into the things that I already know and have learned.
11. Find silence and prioritize yoga, meditation, prayer, nature & journaling.

I also have two goals that are on my list that I’m choosing not to share publicly.

Turning goals into actions

I want to keep my focus on these things on a daily basis.  I know that I won’t hit every one every day, but I don’t want any of them to fall off of the radar for too long.

I took my list of goals from above and turned them into habits.  For example, my goal to make an app is reflected in the habit of spending time programming (or learning to program) each day or most days, or some days or something like that.  The only big goal that didn’t make it onto my habit list was doing something with my Socorro house.  It’s still a goal for me this year, but not something that needs to be on the daily list.

Tracking progress

I have started using a habit app to track these things.  It’s called Loop (currently only available for Android).  There’s lots of great habit/streak apps out there, but I particularly like this one for a few reasons.

Loop has a habit strength score that is the focus rather than focusing on the length of unbroken streaks.  A couple of missed days doesn’t make a big difference in the strength score for a habit, but a lot of missed days does.  The other reasons that I like Loop is that it is open source, free, the design is simple yet slick and there are no annoying adds or in-app purchases.

I know that I won’t get everything done each day, but by tracking it, I can easily identify if I’ve let something slip for too many days.  It also keeps these things in focus so if I have 20 minutes at the end of the day, I can see what last thing I can knock off the list.