I miss making monthly goals. I tried moving to quarterly goals this year, but it’s not working for me. I find it hard to figure out what goals I want to accomplish each month… so why am I doing this to myself? Just make monthly goals! That’s what works best for me, and so I’m back to setting goals every month. Yay!
I’ve broken my goals down into three sections:
- Small Steps Toward My Yearly Goals – I’m setting five goals each month that will directly relate to my yearly goals.
- Daily(ish) Routines – I have a spot in my planner where I can list out a handful of daily routines and mark them off throughout the week. If I get an A or B average at the end of the week, I get to buy something off my Amazon wishlist, which is a fun bonus!
- Tasks – One-off tasks I want to get done this month.
Essentially, it means I’m setting 15 goals in a month but some of those are really fun goals (like reading an Agatha Christie novel!) and five of those are very small daily routines (taking meds, doing my skincare routine, etc) so it’s not as massive as it may appear. But before we get into my monthly goals, I want to take a look back on the quarterly goals I set in January and mark down which ones I accomplished:
- Find 2-3 new prints for my living room gallery wall and get them framed and hung up. I did this! I have a plan in place to showcase some of the changes I’ve made to my apartment since my original Apartment To-Do List post, and my gallery wall is really coming along now.
- Figure out my new organizational scheme for my bookshelf bins/walk-in closet and buy new containers to organize everything. Done! It feels so good to have everything in their rightful place and for my closet to be less of a chaotic mess.
- Schedule an appointment with my PCP and my gynecologist. Done and done. I have a follow-up appointment with my PCP to go over my bloodwork results (I’m getting bloodwork done today, in fact!), but all went well with my annual exam.
- Get my nose pierced. Done!
- Try two dry shampoo brands. I tried the I DEW CARE dry shampoo powder, but I didn’t care for it. Right now, I’m trying out Not Your Mother’s “Plump for Joy” dry shampoo.
Okay, with all that fun stuff out of the way, let’s talk about my March goals:
Small Steps Towards My Yearly Goals
1) Install floating shelves in my kitchen. My stepdad is coming over sometime in March to help me with this. Yay! It’s going to give me some extra room in my pantry, and that’s a win/win for me.
2) Read Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. My goal is to read 6 mysteries by Agatha Christie this year, and this is the next one on my list after getting multiple recommendations.
3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. I gave myself a goal to watch one season of a TV show every month—and it can’t be reality TV. Well, I failed in February as all I did was watch reality TV. It’s such a comfort for me! But I am committed to this goal so in March, I need to watch two seasons of a show. I’m thinking of finishing The Bear (I watched the first two episodes and it was very intense, so I haven’t gone back to it) and maybe watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith since it’s getting great reviews. We’ll see!
4) Buy the “I’m Dead, Now What?” planner and fill out one section. This was one of my quarterly goals, so I’m putting it on my list for March so I can get it done!
5) Clean up my categories/tags. I have finished my massive blog recategorization project! Yay! But now I need to clean up my categories and tags before I install a new blog theme.
Daily(ish) Routines
1) Go for a walk Monday-Friday (three of which should be 30 minutes or more). I do okay with my weekday walks, although it’s rare for me to hit 5/5 days. It will be easier when the time change hits and I can go for a walk after 6pm (when I usually end my workday).
2) Take my meds daily. I made this goal in January because I was doing such a bad job at taking my meds regularly. But now I’m not! However, my goal with these Daily(Ish) Routines is to keep them for three months and then move on to a new routine if I feel confident that I have the routine down. So I’m keeping it on the list through March.
3) Do my skincare routine daily. Another pretty easy goal, and one I genuinely enjoy doing every morning and night. Some nights, I get lazy with it but that doesn’t happen all too often anymore.
4) Continue doing 30-minute standing sessions once a day. I have a yearly goal of standing more during my workday, and I really like making sure I hit this goal! Most days, I get it done and it’s a nice break for my butt, haha.
5) Go to bed by 10:30 p.m. Ugh, my forever struggle goal. I probably only hit this goal 1-2 times a week, sigh.
TASKS
1) Get my tub unclogged and install the TubShroom. I put in a maintenance request to have my tub unclogged three weeks ago. SIGH. I could do it myself, but it’s the principle of the matter, you know? I rent so I don’t have to deal with these problems myself! (And also because owning a home is expensive.) But once I get my tub unclogged, I’m going to install the TubShroom, which will ensure my tub doesn’t keep clogging with all my hair. Lolz.
2) Declutter my junk closet. Some people have junk drawers, I have a junk closet. It’s my hallway linen closet and where I have all of my cleaning supplies and miscellaneous items like my suitcase, an old TV tray, wrapping paper, etc. I have just been throwing things into this closet and shutting the door very quickly so nothing falls out. EVERYTHING’S FINE. This is the month I will tackle it finally.
3) Do a big Goodwill drop. I have quite a few items that need to go to Goodwill, including a TV and computer monitor. Could I try to sell these on Facebook Marketplace? Yes. Do I want to do that? Hell no. I just need to get it all out of here finally.
4) Do my taxes. I still haven’t done my taxes! I usually do them as soon as possible because I like getting my tax refund early in the year. But recently, my tax refund has been tiny (literally $40 last year, ha) so I haven’t been compelled to complete my taxes. I’m also always worried I’ll have to owe, and I just don’t want to know if that’s the case. But I’ll do my taxes in March. Promise!
5) Do a week of time logging. For the last two years, I’ve time-logged during the last week of March. I’m excited to do it again and see how things have changed (or stayed the same).
What’s something you want to get done in March?