Tag Archives: 2015

Happy Mail: Love

Happy Mail PackageAs you may remember, I was thrilled to be one of the first to sign up for the A Beautiful Mess Happy Mail program I’ve received three editions of the mailing so far, and I thought it was time for a little recap. I also had a bit of a revelation around this product that I figured I’d share.

Happy Mail PackageAfter sorting through mythird package, I began feeling a little discouraged. I now had several “I love you this much” and “I love you because” cards, and I felt like I didn’t have anyone to send them to. Matthew would be getting a card from me daily if I reserved all of these cards for him! Frustration began to set in because I really wanted to use these beautiful cards, but I didn’t want to give every single one of them to my husband. Then it hit me.

I love more people than just my husband.

The more I thought about it, the more that I realized how appropriate these cards were for other people in my life. Honestly, I don’t think that we tell others how we feel about them nearly enough. I know for a fact that I don’t. Sending cards are my top way of communicating. Get a card from me? It means that I care. Sending a card with a little note is how I communicate best. After some thought, I saw a way to use these fantastic “love you” cards to show people that I truly care.

I came to this realization while reading through Elise’s Use Your Stash E-course. I’m pretty sure that this course was written for me. I am the queen of holding on to things for later. I save my favorite things for a bigger and better project, which means most of these things never get used. This is especially true for greeting cards. I save the fancy cards for the perfect person/occasion, which means they usually stay tucked away in a drawer. When I signed up for Happy Mail, I made a commitment to myself to use these products. I knew that I’d want to hang on to them. I knew that it would take some self-talk and hard work to make myself actually send these items instead of keeping them to look at. I happened to be reading through the stash e-course on the same day that I received my third kit, and it was a great reminder to just send those cards!!

Happy Mail Package Happy Mail PackageHere are a few people that might like to know that you care:

  • parents and grandparents
  • siblings
  • aunts and uncles
  • friends
  • coworkers
  • your hairdresser
  • that store clerk that always brightens your mood (Hey, you might even marry them one day!)
  • your favorite barista

This list is just a starting point for the people that you could reach out to. Take some time to think about who those people are in your life that always bring a smile to your face…those people that always go above and beyond to help you. Do they know how thankful you are for them?

I love that the combination of this e-course and the Happy Mail subscription opened my eyes to ways of showing people that I care about them. I’m very excited to be sending out “I love you” cards to friends and family instead of reserving them all for Matthew. (Sorry, babe.) You can never tell someone that you care too much. You’ll most likely regret not saying “I love you” enough rather than too much.

Make it a point to tell someone that you care today! Better yet, send a few cards (or texts or emails) letting someone know that they’re loved. I guarantee that’ll they be immensely grateful, and you’ll probably make their day. If you make a commitment to show your love this week, please let me know. We can work on this together!

Leave a comment Inspiration & Thoughts - -

DIY Wall Hanging

Rope Project

Rope Project

Rope Project

When I saw this wall hanging on A Beautiful Mess, I knew that I needed to give it a whirl for my own home. Rope is one of my favorite things ever, and I’ve been drawn to anything copper lately. Perfect combination! Plus, the world is being taken by storm with textured wall art and weavings these days, which I’m totally fine with. There’s some pretty awesome work making its way around the internet, if you’ll look around a bit. If I’m not careful, my home might end up with a weaving or rope/yarn art on every wall!

I actually started on and completed this project months ago. It was finished (with the exception of trimming the edges to level them out) months before we decided to move from our rent house. Now that I think about it, I may have actually purchased these supplies this time last year! (Take you a year to get something completely finished? Me too…don’t feel bad.) I planned to hang this in our master bedroom….that I never finished. Instead, this little guy just hung out in a laundry basket until we moved. However, it was one of the first things I planned out for the new house. I knew right away that I would hang it in our dining room, and I was excited about how it would pop on the dark gray wall.

Rope Project

Rope Project

Rope Project

Rope Project

I’m not sharing much of a tutorial here since you can get all of that from the ABM link. I will say that all of the supplies came from TP Outdoors. The rope was a 3-strand rope, and I unraveled it to use the individual strands. I also taped the ends with scotch tape before cutting them to keep them from fraying quite so much as I worked. I removed the tape after hanging it on the wall. For the most part, I followed the directions pretty closely. The hardest part of this project was cutting all of the rope and getting the knots to line up. However, after you get going with a few strands, it’s pretty easy to work out a system. Don’t worry too much about the ends being the same length at this point. It’s much easier to make them a tad longer than necessary and then trim to the correct length after that.

This is one of my first DIY projects to make from ABM (They share so many good ones!), and it’s one of the first that I’ve done that turned out pretty much exactly how I’d hoped! It’s been a bit of a conversation piece in our new home and most people are shocked to hear that I made it.

How about you? Have you made any awesome DIY projects lately? I’d love to see them, so send me a link! I actually have another project that I made from ABM that I hope to share soon…just gotta get to work in that closet room of mine!

Leave a comment Home - Our First House - Projects - - -

How ‘Do Not Disturb’ Changed My Life

Do Not DisturbThis fun fact is really only for my iPhone readers, although I’m sure there’s a similar function on most smart phones. It probably sounds a little dramatic, but I seriously can’t describe how big of a difference this new discovery has made for me.

As a realtor,  my phone rings literally all the time. If I’m not chatting with a client or lender, an attorney’s office is calling. If I’m not scheduling an inspection or appraisal, someone is texting me about a new listing. (Let’s not even mention emails.) I blow through a full battery in the blink of an eye, but I’m practically always on my phone. This isn’t a complaint…it’s just part of the business that I’m in. (It’s also part of the reason I don’t really get a “day off.”)

What does this really mean though? It means that my phone is still going off when I’m home for the night. It means that during family functions, I can feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. It means that during a meeting with a client, they see my phone going off nonstop, and they feel rushed. None of these things are conducive to a well-balanced, happy life or a successful business. I got 11 texts back to back at 3:00 am once! I do work a lot, but I’m likely sleeping at 3:00 am. My phone has literally rang at all hours of the night. Then, I’m awake with work on the brain, and I can’t go back to sleep. This I how I come to explore the world of do not disturb.

At first, I was hesitant to use this iPhone feature because I was afraid that my mom would need me in the middle of the night or someone would call with an emergency. However, I learned that a call from anyone in your favorites list would come on through. How perfect!

For several months now, I’ve been putting my phone on do not disturb when I get into bed at night. Calls and texts still come through, but I’m not notified. This way, I’m able to sleep peacefully through the night (most of the time) and yet still be able to receive messages that I need to handle the next day.

On a usual day, I switch my phone back to its active mode once I’m done getting ready in the morning. I’ve talked about things that I’ve learned, and one of those is that if I get a call or text early in the morning with something that needs to be handled right away, I immediately start rushing through getting ready and my day starts spiraling out of control. I’ve also learned that being able to get ready in a slow, easy pace is like heaven to me. There’s just something so refreshing to me about being able to take my time getting dressed in the mornings. Almost all of my best days start with this. Therefore, I quickly learned that leaving my phone on do not disturb until I was done getting dressed made a world of difference for how my day developed and my mood. After all, I think it’s best to try to keep work to “work hours” as much as possible. (That means I’m probably not going to text you back at 6:00 am. Honestly, I’m not much of a morning person, so you really don’t want to hear from me that early. You’re welcome!)

I say all of this, not to discourage anyone for reaching out to me at any time. (I don’t get phone notifications for emails, so feel free to send those at any hour!) Instead, this post is about learning what works for you and makes you most productive. I knock out such a tremendous amount of work in the daytime hours, that I know I can limit the late evening and early morning hours for my personal time. I know that my entire day (which in turn means my mood and my ability to help my clients) becomes so much better when I give myself some disconnected time.

I shared the foundation of my productivity method last week, and I’d have to say using do not disturb would be my next big thing. If you struggle to disconnect or carve out time for yourself, you’ll want to give this a try. No one will know that you’re using the feature (calls don’t go straight to voicemail), and you can be in better control of your time. I honestly feel like I’ve been a ton happier and way more productive by using this tool.

What about you? Ever used the do not disturb feature? Have any other tips for ways of limiting your connectivity? I’m all ears!

*Again, of you’re a client or friend of mine, don’t hesitate to reach out to me if needed. I’m nearly always available and if you don’t get me right away, I’ll respond as soon as possible. I’ll just be sleeping (hopefully) during the night time hours. 🙂

2 Comments Business - - - -

It’s My Birthday!

Bread PuddingLast week (January 9), I turned a whopping 29 years old. This post is somewhat of a recap of my birthday festivities. I’m a huuuuge birthday person. I proudly celebrate birthday weeks (sometimes months), and I take them very seriously.

Funny story: Once upon a time, my best friend gave an ex boyfriend a copy of The Breakup for Christmas. Attached was a note that read, “This is Pamela’s favorite movie. Also, here’s a tip…her birthday is a huge deal. Don’t forget that or you’ll most certainly ‘break up.'” I thought it was so clever and simply hilarious. He didn’t….which is probably why we broke up.

Birthday Eve Ice CreamThis year, however, was different. I wasn’t as excited as usual about my birthday, and it took quite a bit to get me in the mood. I attribute some of this to not feeling well and being incredibly tired. I also think that I’m so pumped about my 30th birthday, that this one feels a little blah. (I’m totally expecting my 30s to rock…not dreading that birthday at all!) Nonetheless, I finally got excited as the day rolled around. On Thursday, Matthew and I finished up work a little early, so we got ice cream, ran a few errands, and did a bit of shopping. I counted this as my birthday eve celebration, and it definitely helped me get in the mood.

It's My Birthday!

Social Bites CupcakeOn Friday, I woke up to tons of messages and facebook posts and that made me so excited! (Seriously, if you took time to message me, I totally appreciate it!) I headed over to Ruston and had lunch at one of my favorites, Beau Vines. That lemon cake is amazing! Amanda surprised me with my first Social Bites cupcake! After lunch I went for a quick massage, and then met a few folks for dinner at Cascio’s Tavern.  (The parmesan chicken and blackened chicken pasta are my favs there.)

Possibly the highlight of my birthday weekend is that my long term best friend, Naomi, got to come for a visit. I most definitely don’t get to see her enough and was thrilled that she got to come spend a few days with me for my birthday. Saturday, I had to work for a bit and then Naomi and I did some shopping. (I bought some Minnetokas from Salt & Pepper that I’m soooo excited about.)

Birthday CakePajama Party CrewBirthday Cake Saturday night, a few friends came over for a pajama party at my house. I had a million plans for this pajama party but didn’t really get to implement many. Instead, I decided that my birthday reward to myself would be to invite people over to a less-than-perfectly-clean home that still has Christmas decor up and not stress over that. I didn’t get to do many of the cutesy things I had planned, but I did get to take a breather and spend some time catching up with friends and watching girly movies. For the record, adult pajama parties are the way to go. We’ll be doing this again soon!

I’ll tell the next portion of my birthday story, solelyto make you feel good about yourself. Seriously, if you’re feeling a little down today, you should read on. It’s bound to lift your spirits. I’d like to say that we wrapped up my birthday weekend by arriving on time and perfectly dressed to my family birthday dinner on Sunday. Not quite. Instead, we arrived to family birthday dinner (hosted for me by Matthew’s parents) 40 minutes late with me rocking greasy hair and no makeup. Why is that, you ask? I put it on my calendar for the following Sunday. If I were being completely honest, I’d tell you that Matthew and I considered wrecking our car on the way over, just so the family might feel sorry for us and forget about the fact that we totally screwed up. I tell this story in a joking manner, but I felt absolutely horrible. I guess if there’s any party that it’s ok to show up late to, it would be your own birthday party. Lesson learned. I’ll be keeping a closer eye on my schedule from now on.

The celebrating even stretched into Monday, as I had lunch with my real estate team at Waterfront Grill (and ate that amazing bread pudding shown above). Speaking of my real estate team, I stopped by the office to find 20+ of these “Happy Birthday Pam” signs spread throughout the office. On the front door…the coke machine…strategically placed on the top of the trash can…you name it.  However, my name isn’t Pam. It’s Pamela – all day, every day. I enjoyed searching for the signs, but if anyone starts calling me Pam from these signs, I might have to murder a coworker. (Thanks for thinking of me, Shane.)

All in all, I had a good weekend. I enjoyed time with friends and family and felt so thankful to have so many show that they cared. I didn’t do this birthday in my usual birthday style, but it’ll still go down on the books as a success. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

Leave a comment Other Stuff - - - - - - -

To-Do Notebook

Tennessee5Anyone who knows me knows that I’m pretty much always going 90 miles an hour. I seldom slow down, and I always have a million irons in the fire. As I get older, I’m trying to really get a grasp on my daily life in order to take it a little easier on myself and eliminate as much stress from my life as possible. I hope that you’ll do the same because stress is really, really bad for you.

One thing that I’ve spent the last year or so working on is mastering my to-do list. One of the major productivity methods suggests that you write down every little thing that you need to do instead of just trying to remember things. It maintains that by not writing these things down, you force yourself to try to remember them wasting valuable brain space and increasing your stress levels. Once upon a time I was the person who never used a calendar or wrote out a grocery list…I did it all from memory. I shiver at that thought now!

Throughout this process, I’ve tried several different ways of organizing my life. I’ve used list software like Wunderlist. I’ve read pages and pages on processes like the Getting Things Done method. For a while, I used a combination of methods along with Wunderlist, and it actually worked pretty well for me. However, I soon fell off the wagon and quit using my newly developed system. I no longer had a grip on my days, and I didn’t have the desire to pick my old method back up. Then, I started using a little notepad to track my daily activities, and I felt in control again. Using this little notebook to keep track of what I need to do each day has made a profound difference in my productivity and stress level. Today, I’m going to tell you a little about my current productivity system and my beloved to-do notebook.

Tennessee5First, let’s talk about my requirements for a notebook of this type.

  1. Spiral Binding: I like my notebooks to be spiral bound so they stay open easily by themselves. I can’t stand when a book closes when I don’t want it to!
  2. Size & Weight: I carry this notebook with me at all times, so it needs to be lightweight and not too large. Most of the times I prefer something around a 5×7 size…it’s not too big and not too small and can easily slip in my purse.
  3. Paper: I do not like recycled paper. (I know, shame on me.) In theory I’d love recycled paper, but in most cases certain pens and highlighters will bleed through the paper and that can make a mess quickly! The pages must also be lined…it just makes sense!
  4. Cover: The book itself needs to be very durable since I’ll be using it daily for months at a time. Furthermore, I need it to be fun and cheery. This book is what motivates me to accomplish my daily tasks every day. A boring, plain book is simply not going to do that for me.

Tennessee5-3I’m pretty sure that you don’t know many other people who are so peculiar about a notebook. You should discuss daily planners with my friend, Amanda, if you think I’m crazy! Honestly, I’ve learned a ton about productivity and organization from her, so don’t judge!

So now that we’ve thoroughly discussed my qualifications for a to-do notebook, let’s talk about how I use it. I have a few different to-do list pages. I have daily to-dos and overall to-dos. (While I’m referring to them as to-dos all throughout this post, I don’t actually use that term in my notebook. That term is known to cause some anxiety itself. I haven’t settled on another name for them yet, but “to-do” is never written in my notebook.)

The overall to-dos are things that I need/want to do eventually but aren’t time sensitive. For example, cleaning out the pantry and selecting a new rug would be on this list. These items don’t have to be done today or tomorrow, but I do want to get around to them soon. It’s important to write these sorts of things down because otherwise they’re clogging up your brain space and can cause anxiety when you suddenly remember that you needed to do something like pick up the dry cleaning. Ideally, you would transfer items from this list on to the daily lists as time permitted. You should reference this list often to be sure you’re working towards the things you want to accomplish. Be sure to understand that this isn’t the place where miscellaneous tasks go to die…it’s more like the waiting room.

Daily tasksThe meat of my to-do notebook is my daily to-do items. Each day I have a page where I write the day and date as a header. It’ll say, “Thursday, February 7th” on the top and that page will include everything that I need to accomplish on that day. One of the important things that I learned during my productivity research is to not write down big goals. Instead, your list should be full of smaller items that can be accomplished quickly. For example, your list wouldn’t include painting the bedroom. Instead, it would include taping the edges, picking a paint color, buying paint and supplies, covering furniture, etc. Nothing should go on your list that isn’t a specific action itself. Therefore, my daily lists contain items like sending a contract to a client, returning a phone call, etc. I put any and everything on there that I need to remember with the goal being to not retain any of that in my head. I even include calendar items there like “lunch with Sheila,” but that’s mainly for the satisfaction of marking it off after lunch.

Lists, lists, listsThe goal of this notebook is to keep me from forgetting important things, but it has so much more value than just that. It frees up my brain to focus on more important things than trying to remember what 17 things I had to do today. It also helps me to stay focused and productive. More importantly, it reminds me of just how hard I worked that day. I’m quite the workaholic and I struggle with guilt issues on a daily basis. When I wrap up a day with a full page of items crossed off, I can remind myself that I worked hard today and I deserve to take the evening off. I can remind myself that even though the day may have been chaotic, I still knocked it out of the park and got a lot accomplished. The value of this little notebook has surpassed what I ever thought possible, and while I may switch to another system eventually, this method knocks my socks off right now.

What system do you use to organize your to-do lists and stay productive? As you know, I’m very goal driven, so talking about productivity methods gets me excited! I’d love to hear about how you handle daily tasks…please share!

4 Comments Business - Inspiration & Thoughts - - - - - -

Goals and Not Accomplishing Them

Randy Pausch Quote

Setting goals are pretty much my driving force in both my personal life and my career. (See all of my posts about goals here if you don’t believe me.) Today I’d like to talk about the opposite of accomplishing goals...not accomplishing them.

Honestly, I could go on about this for quite some time. I think that the first thing to realize about not accomplishing goals is that it’s usually not a bad thing. Here are a few reasons why not accomplishing something that you set out to do can be a good thing:

1. You may realize that it’s not actually something that you want to do. This is the case for me right now. One of my 2014 goals was to start a Project Life album. I bought the supplies. I created a cover page (which had a spelling error on it…oops). And then I never touched it again. I didn’t complete a single page of photos for this album last year. I attributed my lack of success with this project partly to lots and lots of struggles with trying to print photos at home. However, a little more self exploration reveals that I really wasn’t very passionate about this goal. While I would like to have printed memories of our daily life, it’s just not something that excites me, and I’m not really willing to push through the challenges. Guess what? That’s ok! Sometimes while working towards something, you might realize that it’s not actually something that you’re passionate about. In this case, it’s perfectly acceptable to not accomplish that goal. Channel your energy to something you are excited about instead.

2. Sometimes the journey is more important than the finish line. Sometimes we spend lots of time working towards something but we don’t quite reach the end result. You might have set a goal to lose 50 pounds and only lost 45. You might have intended to take at least one photo a day for a year but missed several days. Missing goals of this nature are ok! Chances are you still documented more of your life than you would have without the goal in place. Losing 45 pounds is still amazing and something you might not have done without the initial goal. I was $750 short of meeting my financial goal for 2014. Does this mean I failed? Absolutely not! I was close enough to the goal to feel like I won. Just because you might fall a tad short, doesn’t mean that you didn’t still do something amazing.

3. Not reaching a goal can be the driving force you need to accomplish it later.  Maybe your timing wasn’t right. Just because you didn’t reach a goal the first time you tried, doesn’t mean that you won’t knock it out of the park later. Sometimes, we just need to reevaluate our methods and approach things from a different way. Didn’t lose the weight you wanted to last year? What can you do differently this year to make yourself more likely to succeed? Maybe you need to workout at a different time. Maybe you should keep different foods in the house to remove temptation. Whatever the goal is, there’s still a chance that you can reach in this year. Don’t be discouraged by past failures. Instead, reevaluate and adjust as necessary. After all, if success was easy, we’d all be great at everything!

As we begin a new year, I thought it would be great to talk about the unspoken...not reaching our goals. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean that you’ll never succeed. Instead, it could just be a learning opportunity or a chance to regroup. Don’t hesitate to set goals for yourself this year, just because you weren’t successful last year. Each day is a new beginning, and I think a new year is a perfect time to dream about what you want the future to be like. Then go get it! Most of the time, we are the ones stopping our own selves from doing great things. Dream big and then go after what you want. There’s no time like the present!

3 Comments Goal Setting - Inspiration & Thoughts - -

On Taking a Day Off..

Mmm... CoffeeI laid in bed on Christmas Eve morning reading blog posts and drinking coffee, which is basically my favorite thing to do. Truth be told, I don’t get to enjoy this sort of down time very often, so when I do, it feels amazing. (I almost always post something on IG.) The previous week(s) had been so busy that I was pumped about the chance to just rest for a bit before getting up and getting ready for the holiday festivities. I read a post about taking some time off, and it led me to think more about what taking time off means for me.

In 2015, I hope to share more about what the real estate industry is like, and I think this post is a great start. When it comes to taking “a day off,” let me begin by saying that never actually happens. Before you think I’m being a Debbie Downer or complaining about my job, let me be clear….this isn’t a bad thing, and I’m certainly not complaining. The reality of real estate is that your always working. (We’ll talk more about what “work” means for me later.) For a variety of reasons, there’s really no such thing as a day off. I work primarily from my cell phone, so I’m almost always available, even if I’m not at the office. There are probably only one or two times in 2014 that I didn’t do any work on a given day. Owning your own business most often means that you don’t get to leave your work at the office over the weekend or holidays. Instead, work comes home with you and follows you every where you go.

GatlingburgOur trip to Gatlinburg would be somewhat of an example of this. I planned to be completely off for a week. I terribly needed a break after the whirlwind that was May. I forwarded my phone calls to another agent and tried to do as little work as possible while on this vacation. However, I still responded to texts and emails every chance I had and had to handle a mini crisis from afar, that ultimately led to me crying in a restaurant bathroom. Embarrassing, but exhaustion will do that to ya.

The Gatlinburg trip shows how days off go for me in this business (minus the crying usually). I was technically “off” on Christmas Eve, but I had already handled two items of business by 8:30 am. It’s highly likely that I’m still working, even if I’m at home, at the mall, or on vacation. Being able to separate my life from my job can be a tough battle to fight. It’s very, very easy to let your work-life take over your personal-life, especially when you’re a workaholic, like me. I struggled with this a lot in the beginning of my real estate career. Here’s the kicker though…sometimes my work creeps in to my personal time, BUT I get to do my job from practically anywhere!

Working From My BedAt first glance this post probably seems negative. (Read: I can’t ever get away from my work!) However, after a few cases of burnout and tears to my husband, I realized something magical – I can do my job while simultaneously doing other things, giving me a ton of flexibility. Yes, I may never actually get a “day off.” However, I can get my nails done in the middle of the afternoon while simultaneously securing a deal on someone’s dream home. I can leave the office if I’m feeling shut in, and work from my patio instead. How amazing! Yes, I may technically have to do a bit of work on Christmas, but I can likely do so while getting back to my family quickly and easily.

As I sit and reflect on the past year, one of the things that I’m most thankful for is this career. I’m thankful that I took the leap of faith to start a new business (and for my support system who encouraged me). I’m thankful for learning how to really work this business in a manner that suits my needs. I’m thankful for a successful, mind-blowing year and the fruits of my hard work that Matthew and I are enjoying. I’m thankful for how much I’ve learned about this career and making it work for me over this last year. I’m certain that I’ll still struggle with carving out time for myself, but I’ve learned so much about making that happen this year, and I’m looking forward to an even better 2015.

If you’ve ever considered a career in real estate and have questions, I’d be happy to talk to you more about it. It’s a tough industry sometimes, but it’s also one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. There are so many things that I love about this career, and I’m happy to talk to you more about it if you’re interested. Click this link to get more information about the company I work with and feel free to email me!

1 Comment Business - - - -

2015 Goals

Today's GoalsIt’s that time of year again….the time to set goals for the upcoming year. Once upon a time, I had a serious problem with setting “new year’s resolutions.” I talked about that a bit in last year’s goal post. As a matter of a fact, I still don’t like that term. However, I do like setting goals. 2014 was a big year for goal setting for me. I set several goals for the year. I even ended up setting goals for the month, for the last part of the year. What I learned from my obsessive goal setting in 2014 is that I love setting goals. Turns out, I respond really well when I set realistic and manageable goals for myself. I quickly learned that making these goals public gives me just the push I need to actually make big things happen. In thinking about what my goals would be for 2015, I knew that I’d end up sharing them here with you.

I actually started lining out my 2015 goals in October. Yes, that’s a tad crazy. Nonetheless, I was getting very excited about wrapping up 2014. There’s just something about the fresh start that a new year brings that gets me excited! I started getting a little carried away (too many goals), so I spent quite a bit of time trying to narrow them down and make them more realistic and specific. Remember, a good goal must be realistic and attainable. Setting a million goals for one year was neither of those things, so I had to force myself to pare themdown a bit. I decided to approach goal setting a tad differently this year, so I broke my goals down into three different categories: personal, business, and home.

Without further adieu, here are my personal goals for the year:

  1. Maintain a regular fitness plan. – My goals is to do something active at least three times per week.
  2. Be up by 6:00-6:30 every weekday morning. – I’ve never been accused of being a morning person. I tend to wake up just in time to get dressed and make it to where I need to be. (I literally count this down to the second sometimes.) Instead, I’d like to be up early enough to have a few minutes of quiet time (sipping coffee of course) before starting the madness of my day. I might have to increase my coffee intake a bit.
  3. Blog 2x per week. – This was one of my goals for 2014 too. While I didn’t quite make it, I did definitely feel like I improved on posting regularly here. I’m going to do even better this year! (Fun fact: I made 50 posts in 2014. Doesn’t that seem wild??!)
  4. Have monthly quality time days with Matthew. – We’re busy people. Sometimes finding time to really spend together is tough. I didn’t want to say “date nights” here, because some of my favorite times together are days that we take off and do something special during the day. The goals here is to be sure we disregard everything else and actually spend time together at least once a month this year.
  5. Complete three random acts of kindness per month. – Last year, I wanted to say more nice things. I definitely did better at this, but sometimes I’d forget. Life gets busy and it’s sooo easy to forget to do little things like this. This year, I want to continue trying to say nice things, as well as doing other random acts of kindness. I hope to do this at least three times per month.
  6. Volunteer 4x. – I love to help people. Sometimes that’s actually a flaw of mine…I get too involved. However, my good intentions sometime get the best of me and I don’t actually make it to helping out causes that I care about. This year, I want to be sure to volunteer my time at least four times throughout the year. Four doesn’t sound like a big number, but I know that a quarter of the year will pass before I know it, so I’ll have to be very diligent on this one.
  7. Host at least two parties/events. – There were several times throughout this last year that Matthew and I would run into old friends. I felt like we were constantly saying “we should get together soon,” and yet not actually doing it. This year, I want to be sure to host people at our home at least twice. These can be big or small gatherings…I just want to be sure to focus on spending time with thepeople we love.
  8. Replace 3 mediocre things with 3 beautiful things. – I talked about living a beautiful life before. I’ve been working hard to put an emphasis on surrounding myself with things that I love, but it’s a daily battle. This year, I hope to replace at least three things we don’t love with things that we do…big or small.

Make29 ProductAmanda  and I starting meeting in late October/early November to talk about goals for 2015. (We had regular goal tracking meetings in 2014 but sort of dropped off later in the year.) We agreed that we needed some sort of way to track our progress this year since we both love that feeling of marking something off a list. We decided that we’d create some sort of spreadsheet to track things quarterly and then meet back up to talk strategy. Then something magical happened. Elise released her December Make29 product.

I follow Elise’s blog religiously, and I think she might be the master at getting things done. (She’s releasing a Getting Things Done workbook/calendar later this year and I can’t wait to see it!) As I looked over her December product, I realized that this was exactly what I needed to track my goals for this year. As soon as it was available, I purchased the PDF and began printing sheets for each of the items that I wanted to track. I knew that I might get a little carried away (with too many sheets tracking too many things), so I decided to combine some of the smaller, more yearly items on one sheet. For example, I have just one sheet for all of my home goals. (More on that later.) If you’re looking for a way to track your goal progress in 2015, I highly recommend purchasing this file. It’s a mere $4 to get an instant download that you can print as many times as you need.

I ended up with eight sheets tracking some of my personal, home, and business goals. I envision these being marked up, tattered, and stained (most likely with coffee) by the end of the year, and if that’s the case, I’ll be thrilled. I love how these trackers focus on the big picture. You can miss days here and there. Not every circle has to be filled. Instead, the goal is to see that you have 365 days to work towards something. If you fill in even half of the circles, that would be an amazing accomplishment! If you feel overwhelmed by goal setting, pick a few simple goals, purchase these sheets, and then begin chipping away at it one little bubble at a time.

It’s not too late to set a few simple goals for this new year. After all, it doesn’tmatter when you start working towards something….it only matters that you do start. What are you hoping to accomplish this year? I’d love to hear about your plans. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a great year!

1 Comment Goal Setting - - - - - -