My October goals did not go as planned. It was a busier month than usual, especially as I played chauffeur for my mom for the entire month and seemed to have more plans than usual. So I kinda threw a lot of my goals to the wayside as I tried to keep my head above water with my busy schedule. That’s life, though! I’m rolling over a lot of my October goals into November, so we’ll see if I can knock them out this month!

October Goals

1) Do a 30-minute workout three times a week. LOL, no.

2) Update all of my blog posts from 2010. Complete! Yay!

3) Drink water every day. LOL, no.

4) Establish a better nighttime routine with lights out at 10:30 p.m. No, but I’ve decided to switch my exercise time from morning to evening. Before, I was trying to get up by 6 a.m. to get in a workout before starting my day, but it was so hard to make that happen when I was going to bed so late. (Hence, the goal of going to bed by 10:30 p.m.) So, I decided to experiment with evening workouts. I’m usually finishing up work around 5:30-6:00 and then I’ll do my workout. I don’t usually like waiting so late in the day to work out, as it gives me so many hours to talk myself out of doing it, but I hope this will a) help give me a mood boost at a time of day that is roughest for my anxiety (nighttime) and b) allow me to get a bit more sleep, even if I go to bed later, as I’m setting my alarm for 7:30 a.m.

5) Pay off my credit card. No, but very close! I think I can maybe make this happen in November. Fingers crossed!

6) Recycle some old electronics/cable cords + do a Goodwill drop. Ugh, no. I need to add a few more things to my Goodwill bag so I’ve been holding off on doing that dropoff. And while I could have dropped off my old electronics/cable cords at Best Buy, I was halfway to the store when I realized I left the iPad Mini I wanted to donate on my dresser, blergh. Next month!

7) Organize my iPhone photos from the first half of 2022. Complete!

8) Make a doctor’s appointment. No. I’ll probably wait until early next year for this doctor’s appointment, once I’m on a PPO plan and have a more reasonable copayment ($30 as opposed to $150. HMO plans are for the birds.)

9) Redecorate my bathroom. Complete! I love the change so much. 🙂

10) Continue making myself dinner three nights a week. I didn’t really keep track of this last month. I think so?

November Goals

1) Do a 30-minute workout three times a week. Rollover goal.

2) Update all of my blog posts from 2011. Another year to categorize!

3) Drink water every day. Rollover goal.

4) Complete NaBloPoMo 2022. Yay! This will be such a fun goal to complete.

5) Pay off my credit card. Rollover goal.

6) Recycle some old electronics/cable cords + do a Goodwill drop. Rollover goal.

7) Organize my iPhone photos through October 2022. Once I complete this goal, I will be all caught up on photo organization. My plan is to do the previous month’s photo organizing in the following month.

8) Start Christmas shopping. I already have some ideas for family/friends so I’d like to knock out some of my Christmas shopping early in November if possible.

9) Get my third tattoo. This has been on my yearly goals list for 3 years and it’s time to finally make it happen. November is the month I do it!

10) Update my One Line a Day journal and keep up with it. I am so very bad at filling in my One Line a Day journal. Thankfully, I have my “Everyday Moments” Notes app where I keep track of one good thing every day so it helps me out in a pinch if I get a few weeks behind and can’t remember what I was doing/thinking/feeling on that day. However, I really want to use this journal for more than just happy moments: I also want to document hard things, things that happen at work, and just things I want to remember from this time in my life (aka, the stuff I don’t always use for Everyday Moments). I need to get caught up (I’m about a month behind, eeks) and then stay caught up.

Ahh, September goals. As you might expect, things didn’t go as planned this month. I injured my big toe at the beginning of the month, prompting a few days of convalescence. And then Hurricane Ian upended my routine during the last week of the month (but thankfully, that’s all it upended!) In the end, I think I only completed one goal and nearly completed a couple more. But that’s life! That’s why I don’t put too much pressure on myself when it comes to my monthly goals. I love setting them and trying to accomplish them, but I’m also not going to beat myself up when goals don’t get done. Life is unpredictable, and these goals are just a fun way to push myself.

September Goals

1) Do a 30-minute workout three times a week. Not complete. The toe injury kept me from working out and I found it really hard to get into a routine this month. I think I only did, like, 4 or 5 workouts this month. Oopsy.

2) Update all of my blog posts from 2009 and 2010. Not complete. I got through 2009 and the first quarter of 2010, but I didn’t get much farther than that.

3) Drink water every day. Ugh, no.

4) Establish a better nighttime routine with lights out at 10:30 p.m. I am still really struggling with this goal, but for a week or two in September, I felt like I was getting into a better routine. And then the hurricane happened. So… semi-complete.

5) Pay off my credit card. Lol, no, considering I had to put a three-night Airbnb stay on my credit card this month. Sigh.

6) Find a reasonably priced course on growing a podcast following. Not complete.

7) Organize my iPhone photos from 2021. Complete! Woohoo – got something done this month at least.

8) Make a doctor’s appointment. Not complete. I just kept letting this fall off my to-do list.

9) Brush the cats once a week. Semi-complete. I did this a few times in September, but not weekly.

10) Make myself dinner three nights a week. Mostly complete. I fell off during the last week of the month since we were in Ft Lauderdale, but I was very good about this the other weeks of the month!

October Goals

1) Do a 30-minute workout three times a week. Let’s try this again! Please no injuries or hurricane scares this month.

2) Update all of my blog posts from 2010. An easier goal for this month. I think recategorizing one year of blog posts every month is about what I can accomplish right now.

3) Drink water every day. Rollover goal.

4) Establish a better nighttime routine with lights out at 10:30 p.m. Rollover goal.

5) Pay off my credit card. Would be nice to mark this complete in October. We’ll see!

6) Recycle some old electronics/cable cords + do a Goodwill drop. I have an old iPad, an old Chromebook, and some cable cords that need to be recycled, which I can do at Best Buy. I just need to make the trek! I also need to do a Goodwill drop. I have a garbage bag filled with items to donate and I want to donate an old cat tower, too.

7) Organize my iPhone photos from the first half of 2022. More photo organization! It’s so nice to see my Photos app look a lot less cluttered. Of course, I failed to realize that having all of my photos on Google Photos would mean I would quickly start running out of space on Google Workspace, which includes Gmail and Google Docs. I’m now paying $2 a month to have 100GB of space on Google Workspace.

8) Make a doctor’s appointment. Rollover goal.

9) Redecorate my bathroom. One of my 2022 annual goals is to redecorate my bathroom, which is really just a simple refresh: a new shower curtain, new towels, new bath mats, etc. I have everything I need but the bath mats, and I am forcing myself to order those this week so I can finally mark this goal complete. Yay!

10) Continue making myself dinner three nights a week. I’m going to keep this goal going in October. It’s a fun one for me to accomplish, but I don’t think it’s quite a habit just yet.

August Goals

1) Make my bed every morning. Complete! Okay, I didn’t do this every morning, but I did it most mornings and I have loved walking into my room throughout the day to see a made-up bed. It makes me feel so accomplished! I do have to fight with Ellie every morning as I’m making the bed (she’s not a fan, I guess?) but then I find her curled up on the bed during the day so she’s being a little trickster.

2) Figure out the 10 categories I want to use when recategorizing my blog posts and update all of my blog posts from 2009. Yes to the first, no to the second. I worked through probably half of the 2009 blog posts but then I got busy with some other stuff, so I put it to the wayside. I need to push this project back to the front of my list!

3) Fill up my water bottle nightly. Lol, remember how excited I was to have figured out how to make sure I fill up my water bottle every day? I failed hard on this goal in August. Oops.

4) Start time blocking. I did this for about two weeks, but then I grew tired of doing it every day. I still enjoy the practice of time blocking, and I would like to figure out how to be better at time blocking in the evenings, but I failed at this goal in August. Or if I’m being optimistic, I was somewhat successful at this goal. Ha.

5) Post regularly on our podcast Instagram. Complete! I’m posting every Tuesday when our episode drops and then every Friday with a fun memory of Bri and me so people can get to know us better. I’m not sure what I will post when we’re on our short breaks between seasons, so I need to figure that out soon!

6) Be in bed, lights out, at 10:45pm every night. Nope! Most days, it was 11:30 or later. Oof.

7) Organize my iPhone photos from 2019-2021. I got through 2019 and 2020, but that’s as far as I got.

8) Clear out my junk bin. Complete! I mean, I did it yesterday so way to wait until the last minute, Steph, but it got done.

9) Brush the cats once a week. I only managed to do this twice in August. Every time I brush Lila, I feel so accomplished because I always come away with a pile of cat hair. But she is very resistant to letting me use the brush on her. (And Eloise is the opposite, so when she sees me brushing Lila, she comes running to get some of that good brushing for herself.)

10) Bring my bank savings account back up to $500. Nope. Maybe in October? Wah.

September Goals

1) Do a 30-minute workout three times a week. I give myself these audacious workout goals because that’s what I see everyone else doing. But I need to remember that I have a completely different relationship to exercise (as in, if I didn’t have to do it for my health, I probably wouldn’t), so it’s okay if my goals are small and what other people would consider a “bad” workout week. So I’m challenging myself to three workouts per week: a spin class, a strength class, and a walk. That’s all I need to do every week.

2) Update all of my blog posts from 2009 and 2010. This will be a big goal for September, but I imagine I can do a lot of this while watching football with the fam!

3) Drink water every day. New water goal. I’m not giving myself a certain number of ounces to drink, but as long as I drink some water every day, that’s good enough for me.

4) Establish a better nighttime routine with lights out at 10:30 p.m. I really must figure out my nighttime routine, where I’m not starting my wind-down at 9:30 p.m. I just need to be diligent with myself to make it happen! I’d love to be in bed by 9:00, to give myself a nice hour-and-a-half for reading and ASMR videos.

5) Pay off my credit card. I should be able to make this happen in September, since it’s a three-paycheck month for me. And then I can focus on building up my savings accounts again!

6) Find a reasonably priced course on growing a podcast following. It’s been super fun to launch our podcast… now it’s time to figure out how to grow it! I honestly don’t really know how you grow a podcast (other than by word of mouth?), so it would be helpful to learn some tips and tricks of the trade to make our podcast stand out a bit more.

7) Organize my iPhone photos from 2021. One year seems to be the best I can do with this photo organizing project right now.

8) Make a doctor’s appointment. It’s time to talk to my doctor about adjusting my anxiety meds. I also have a few other things I want to follow up with her about, so I just need to make an appointment to do all of that.

9) Brush the cats once a week. Rollover goal—need to make this a habit!

10) Make myself dinner three nights a week. I am not the best at making myself dinner. I have fallen into a habit of eating like a frat boy (minus the beer) with too many frozen pizzas and homemade nachos. It’s time to be a goddamn adult and make myself a goddamn dinner with a protein, starch, and vegetable. Three days a week is my goal! It’s way more than I’m doing now.

Hi, friends! Thanks for all of your sweet words about launching our podcast into the world. I promise this blog is going to stay the same as ever, but maybe with some podcasting news sprinkled in from time to time. 🙂

My July goals did not go great (4.5 out of 10 complete), but it’s all good. I’m not much of a perfectionist when it comes to the monthly goals I set. A lot of the goals I set are just for fun and if I don’t complete them this month, they can roll over to next month, and it will all be okay. There are much bigger things to fret over than my monthly goals.

July Goals

1) 31 Peloton workouts in 31 days. (16/31) Oof, I did not meet my goal here, not even close! However, I am now at 60 Peloton workouts for the year (of 20 minutes or more), which puts me right on target for my goal of doing 100 Peloton workouts this year. I’ve been falling behind on this goal every month, so it feels good to be back on track.

2) Finish categorizing 2021 blog posts + figure out the 10 categories I want to use when recategorizing my blog posts. Well, I finally finished my categorization project! Now it’s time to figure out the 10 categories and to start the process of recategorizing and retagging blog posts. I’m also going to need to update the images on some older blog posts, so I think this is going to be a loooong process.

3) Fill up my water bottle every morning. You guys, I am so proud of myself for figuring out how to meet this goal! While I wasn’t perfect at this goal, I did achieve it more days of the month than I didn’t, and that’s a major success for me! What changed? The timing. Instead of filling up my water bottle every morning, I have made it part of my nighttime routine. As I’m winding down for the night, doing my skincare routine and picking up around my apartment, I also make sure to fill up my water bottle and stick it in the fridge. Easy as that! I’ve been drinking so much more water with this simple change!

4) Finish updating all of my blog pages. Complete! The last thing I want to do is update my blog photo, but that will happen in August.

5) Work on our podcast cover art + social media posts. Complete-ish. I started working on some social media posts but then… they disappeared from my drafts on Instagram for some reason. Not cool, Instagram! I’m nervous to draft anything else in case it happens again. In any event, I did complete our podcast cover art (and I love it so much!) and draft our intro Instagram post.

6) Be in bed, lights out, at 10:45pm every night. Ugh, I struggled with this goal so much in July! Not complete.

7) Organize my iPhone photos from 2017-2019. I didn’t quite make it through 2019 pictures, so this goal is not complete.

8) Clear out my junk bin. Not complete. I just didn’t make time for this in July.

9) Go for at least two 5K walks. Not complete. I think we’re just going to go ahead and call time of death on this goal of walking a 5K every month.

10) Buy some new bras. Complete! I purchased two really nice bras from Torrid and I’m really happy with them. They were having a sale, too, so the price of two bras was less than the price of one Thirdlove bra, haha.

August Goals

1) Make my bed every morning. I’ve never been someone who makes my bed because what’s the point when I live alone? But there is just something about putting in the effort to make my bed every morning that helps me feel a little more ready to tackle my day. I want to get into the habit of doing so!

2) Figure out the 10 categories I want to use when recategorizing my blog posts and update all of my blog posts from 2009. Here we go! It’s time to start step 2 of this big blog recategorization project.

3) Fill up my water bottle nightly. Now that I’ve sort of made this a habit, I want to continue doing it until it becomes a regular part of my nighttime routine.

4) Start time blocking. One of my biggest productivity struggles is transitioning from one task to another in a timely manner. It’s not so much an issue in my work life, but it’s a big issue in my personal life. For example, if I’ve been reading on the couch for 20 minutes and I know I need to get up and start dinner, I’ll usually start scrolling through my phone before making that activity transition. Then, before I know it, it’s 7:00 and I haven’t even thought about dinner. So I’ve come up with the idea of time blocking my day: I got a new planner that has a daily spread where I can list out my work priorities and goals for the day, as well as schedule how I want to spend every hour of the day. For example, this is what today looks like:

I’ve been doing this time blocking exercise for a few days now and I am really, really enjoying it! It helps me to understand when I need to be doing every task that’s on my to-do list for the day and make sure I’m transitioning to the next task when I need to. I’m going to experiment with time blocking in August and if it’s working for me, I’ll keep doing it!

5) Post regularly on our podcast Instagram. My goal is 2-3 posts per week so we can start gaining a little traction in the podcasting world. We’re not trying to become famous podcasters or anything like that and this is a zero-pressure type of creative project, but I want to at least try to have some sort of presence on social media, especially in the early stages.

6) Be in bed, lights out, at 10:45pm every night. Let’s try this for a third time. Hopefully, my time blocking exercise will help me adhere to a more reasonable bedtime.

7) Organize my iPhone photos from 2019-2021. More photo organizing to do this month! I always forget that I have this as a goal, even though it’s not really that hard to organize my photos. It just takes time.

8) Clear out my junk bin. Rollover goal.

9) Brush the cats once a week. I am terrible about brushing the cats, even though Lila really needs frequent brushing with her fluffy coat. But she is not great about letting me brush her and acts like I’m coming at her with a pitchfork when I get out the brush. (But then, if I’m able to get a few brushes in, she realizes she really likes being brushed and acquiesces.) Eloise, on the other hand, thinks being brushed is heaven on earth. So at least one cat will enjoy this goal!

10) Bring my bank savings account back up to $500. I have a CapitalOne savings account and then I have my bank savings account. The one in my banking account is used as a fail-safe if I need to quickly transfer money into my checking account to avoid overdrafting. I like to keep $500 in there, and for the longest time, I didn’t touch that money. But lately, I’ve had to dip into it more than I’d like so I want to prioritize bringing that savings account back up to $500. Having that money in there provides me with so much comfort!\

Do you have any goals for August?