My Goals Update For January and Looking Forward To Feburary

Late in 2009 I decided that instead of the typical New Years Resolution for 2010, I would write out goals that I wanted to achieve for the year, and also for each month.

The annual goal was a broad one with no real definition other than it was something to achieve by year’s end. The goal was simply “to increase my skills.”

This was left intentionally vague as I wanted to leave enough “wriggle room” for me to delve into various projects – both known and yet-to-be-discovered – but meaningful enough to have a purpose. A couple of the known projects are I want to increase my knowledge of a few programs (one being Excel) and software languages (one being jQuery), but there are other (mostly as yet un-thought of) areas I am sure I want to develop as well.

I guess what I am getting at is I want to be more knowledgable at the end of 2010 than at the end of 2009.

My monthly goals were much more specific. I have them listed on a simple Notepad file and look at them regularly (at least a few times a month) to see how I am tracking. At least that’s what I have done for Janurary and I am hoping to keep this up throughout the rest of the year.

I also want to write up a blog post at the end of each month showcasing (for myself more than anyone else) my successes and shortfalls. While at the same time looking forward to the next month with even more concrete goals to achieve. With that in mind, here is what happened in January, and also what I want to achieve in Feb.

One of my goals for January was to have 30 posts on OzSavings.com by the end of the month (basically, an article a day). Was this achieved? In a word, no. But I did manage 21 posts, and while this is not 30, I was happy with the number.

I am still deciding on how many posts I want to write for OzSavings in any given month. While one a day would be ideal, I don’t know that I will be able to meet that commitment with all the other stuff that is happening this year.

I would like to think I can manage one post every 1-2 days, so at a minimum I would be posting approximately 15 articles in a given month, with any on top of that a bonus.

I am also looking at listing quick “post-it” tips throughout the month (coming soon on OzSavings.com) so this should cover any real short fall in posts.

The main reason for this reduction in posts is twofold.

The first reason is, as I stated above, due to other commitments I have that will reduce the time I have to give OzSavings.

The second reason is due to the fact that I want to focus more on producing quality articles of some length, expanding on the type of topics that I write about now. For example, looking at commercialism in general and the “culture of spending” that I believe we have here in Australia, and discussing the ramifications this has on our individual financial position.

These sort of articles would take a lot more research and therefore a lot more time to write. Although I think it would be worth the time and effort.

Looking forward to Feb, I have a lot of work to do on both OzSavings.com and Jiipe.com.

Ideally I would love to see Jiipe at completion stage by the end of February, but being honest with myself I will more than likely have to push this out to March. This is mainly due to personal commitments over February.

I have my nephew coming to visit for 10 days and will be playing host to him over that time. Also, I will moving into my own home in early March and packing and organising will be taking a lot of my time as well (Hmmm… maybe I can combine these two and get my nephew to pack for me!)

Finally, I may be starting a new job and I need to increase my skills in Excel over the next week or so as this new job will be much more Excel-intensive than my current role (although I use Excel extensively, I feel I need to reach that next level of expertise).

I do have two long weekends coming up however, and I will be making good use of these writing for OzSavings as there are 28 days worth of posts to be written and I have committed to February being Financial Action Month (what was I thinking!?). I am hoping to write it all over the coming couple of weeks and then automate it to publish over the month, although I am sure there will be some breaking news or “must-write” posts that will demand my attention over the month as well.

So let’s have a look at my goals for February:

• Write at least 14 articles for OzSavings.com (at least 7 of these will be in relation to Action Month)
• Expand my Excel skills with online tutorials and tests
• Organise and start packing for the move to my new place
• Achieve at least 2 things for Jiipe.com to my satisfaction

I believe this is achievable but it will mean a lot of writing, which will have to be completed in the first two weeks of the month. Also, I am looking forward to playing around with Excel and learning more – which is a major component of my annual goal of increasing my skills.

Image Credit: g-hat