July Goals
Small Steps Toward My Yearly Goals
1) Watch one season of a TV show. Not complete. Oops. I watched exactly one episode of season two of Suits.
2) Work through one more section of my “I’m Dead, Now What?” workbook. Complete!
3) Research cake decorating classes to find an option that works for me. Not complete. I had it on my list to do every week and never got it done.
4) Complete a no-spend month. Complete! I’m so proud of myself!
5) Read another Agatha Christie mystery. Complete! I read Five Little Pigs and gave it 3 stars.
Daily-Ish Routines
1) Daily movement (62%). Decreased slightly from June by 6%. I have been getting in my four gym workouts per week but failing a bit when it comes to movement outside of those workouts.
2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes three times a week (0%). Who’s surprised here?
3) Take my meds (55%). My percentage improved almost 10% from June to July, so that’s something to celebrate! Should it be 100%? Yes, of course. But I’m going to celebrate the win.
4) Drink water every day (69%). I’m happy with this since it’s setting my baseline. Hopefully, it improves in August.
Tasks
1) Train the cats to eat on a schedule. Mostly complete. I was lazy about this sometimes and would leave the food out longer than I had planned, but I made some progress here.
2) Utilize the “Downtime” feature on my phone from 9 p.m. – 9 a.m. Not complete. I forgot I made this goal, lol.
3) Put my bedroom door back on its hinges. Complete! Finally! I was worried that I would need another person to help me, which is why I kept putting this off. One evening, I just decided to try to do it myself and it was easy-peasy!
4) Declutter the top drawer of my dresser. Not complete. I didn’t get around to this goal in July.
5) Sell my spin bike. Not complete. I thought about this goal a few times but didn’t make it happen.
August Goals
Small Steps Toward My Yearly Goals
1) Watch two seasons of a TV show. Since I’m behind again on this goal, I need to watch two seasons of a TV show in August.
2) Research cake decorating classes to find an option that works for me. Rollover goal again.
3) Spend at least 30 minutes a week researching podcast engagement. I want to reach 100 listeners on the podcast this year and I haven’t really done the work to make that happen, so I’m giving myself this very doable weekly goal.
4) Work through another section of the “I’m Dead, Now What?” workbook. It helps to work through the sections of this workbook a little bit at a time because it is not fun to think about my own mortality.
5) Schedule my next tattoo appointment. I have an idea for my next tattoo and I want to finally get on my tattoo artist’s schedule to get it done.
Daily-Ish Routines
1) Do a daily stretching routine. I have this short 5-minute stretching routine that feels very good to do in the morning when I wake up.
2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes three times a week. Maybe August is the month I finally make this happen. No promises.
3) Take my meds. I’ve tried all the things to get me to take my meds regularly (timers, connecting it with a routine, putting my meds front and center). Nothing really works for me. Maybe I need some sort of negative consequence. Like: if I miss one day of meds, I cannot play my favorite phone game the next day. Ooh, that feels harsh enough to make me do it!
4) Drink water every day. I’m averaging around 5 days a week of drinking water (the other days I stay hydrated by other methods, like soda and coffee). I’d like to average six days in August!
5) Do two 30-minute standing sessions during my workday. When my sciatica was acting up, I stopped working on my goal to stand during the workday more often. Now that it’s (mostly) healed, I’m back!
Tasks
1) Track how much food my cats are eating. I realized last week that I have been starving my cats. Oops! This wasn’t on purpose, of course. But I need to make sure I’m putting out a reasonable amount of food (and that they’re eating it).
2) Declutter my medicine cabinet. My bathroom cabinets need an overhaul, so I’m going to start by reorganizing my medicine cabinet.
3) Figure out my cups situation. I have too many cups and not enough cabinet space. I need to take them all out of my cabinets to figure out what I have, what needs to be donated, and how to better organize them in my cabinets.
4) Declutter the top drawer of my dresser. Rollover goal.
5) Sell my spin bike. Rollover goal.
Do you have any goals for August? What’s the last part of your home that you organized?
Kyria @ Travel Spot
It seems to me like you did a great job on your goals! Sometimes just doing it 60 or 80% is a good start and maybe even in some cases, 100% is not realistic but you don’t know it until you try it!!
I sold my stationary bike earlier this year and used FB marketplace and it went well! The lady was funny though, she wanted to test ride it in my living room before buying so it was a little more involved than selling a blender! Also I would suggest you show them how to adjust the seat and stuff because my lady kept texting me afterwards to ask questions!!
Stephany
Those are great tips! I’m planning on using FB Marketplace to sell the bike. Hopefully it sells quickly!
NGS
I played with Zelda twice in July. TWICE. Poor baby girl. She needs more playtime.
So, I know exactly how many calories Zelda eats every day and what she needs to keep her weight. She eats a third of a can of wet food twice a day and she gets 15-20 kibbles of dry food with each of her two meals. LOL. It’s very precise over here. Because she’s on such a limited diet, there’s never any food left to put away. It takes her about 5-6 minutes to eat and then that’s it! We clean her bowl and she has to wait for the next meal. I’m surprised there’s leftover food for your girls if they’re getting the right amount of food!
Stephany
I have never had a pet who didn’t scarf down their food immediately, so it’s been SUCH a weird thing to have this experience with the girls. I realized I wasn’t giving them enough calories but they STILL weren’t even scarfing THAT down, which is wild to me.
How many calories does Zelda eat and what kind of wet food/kibble do you give her? (You can email me this!! I am just so curious about how people are feeding their animals, lol.)
Lisa's Yarns
It’s great that you are getting to the gym 4 times/week. This is such a hot, humid time of the year for you so it would be harder/less appealing to fit in daily walks, etc. But the gym time is amazing! As is all the water consumption!
The last place in my house I organized was one of our kitchen “junk” drawers. I had rifled through it when I was trying to find a valet key for our Corolla. Phil wasn’t sure if he had one but if we did, it would have been in that drawer. I was in a crazy rush to find it so I could order an uber fast if I couldn’t find it so I could make it to the clinic before my calls for the day started. Yesterday I was up before both boys so had a chance to organize the drawer again. I definitely recommend getting an airtag for your keys! In hindsight, I should have gotten an airtag instead of a tile, but the tile works great. I can use the ap to make the tile ring which makes it easier to figure out where the keys are – and if they aren’t close by, it shows me where my keys are on a map which was so helpful last week when I forgot them in the rav 4. I would have been panicking about where to find my keys otherwise and would have been looking all over the house. So whether you get a tile or an airtag, it’s money well spent IMO!!!
The boys will be at my parents the last week of August so I would like to do a little bit of decluttering while they are here and also would like to get rid of some of their toys. I think they likely will not even notice! I also want to really enjoy that week of kid-free time!!
Stephany
A whole week of kid-free time?! That sounds amazing, Lisa! I hope you enjoy every minute of that. That sounds like a great time to do some decluttering, especially in the boys’ rooms, for sure.
Ally Bean
Your goals, the ones you accomplished and the ones you’re striving for, seem very rational to me. I like how you phrase them and how you know the stumbling blocks. I’m sure you’ll get to them in your own ways. As for my August goals, keep sorting old photos, keep watering outdoor plants, keep moving. Not very exciting, are they‽
Stephany
Boring goals can be good goals, still! A lot of my goals aren’t all that exciting so I understand. Sometimes it’s good to have boring goals that make you feel accomplished when you complete them!
J
I admire you keeping track of all of your goals. Regarding the seasons of TV series, what if you picked a show with fewer episodes in a season? Is that cheating? I know you didn’t love My Brilliant Friend (the book) but wonder if you might enjoy the HBO show? Only 8 or 9 episodes a season…
Stephany
Oh, the TV shows I pick don’t usually have a lot of episodes. Suits only has 12 a season, I think, which is entirely doable. I just need to stop choosing my trashy reality shows to watch! Ha.
Kim
I’m proud of you for doing a no-spend month too!
Today would be a good day to start playing with the girls – International Cat Day! I need to be better about this too. It’s hard cause they never want to play on MY terms.
Stephany
I just find playing with the cats so boring after 2-3 minutes, lol. But they love it and it’s only 10 minutes and I should do it for them. Ahhh.
San
Way to work on your goals. You have quite a list, so I am not surprised you can’t focus on EVERYTHING at the same time, but I am proud of you for making strides and also for completing your no-spent month! I am sure that was a major focus in July!
Stephany
No-Spend July was the biggest focus of the month and I’m proud of what I accomplished!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I am all here for goal posts. Just typing it out and reading through it makes you think about your goal. Maybe it’s not yet the right time to achieve it.
That said you did make so much progress. Way to go.
This meds thing made me laugh: Ooh, that feels harsh enough to make me do it!
I also need to be better taking my migraine supplements. And my hair and nails are a disaster so I have to help with supplement there too. I just keep forgetting.
Anne
So, I can’t remember if I have asked this, specifically, but why do you set so many goals? Making sure you have some goals aligned with whatever you feel like working on that month? I would just be overwhelmed, that’s all! You did an amazing job with the water, and so glad to see that you are maintaining your workout goal (I don’t count such a tiny “drop”, LOL). Love these updates and the opportunity to cheer you on. 🙂
Stephany
Oh, there’s no real reason. Having this many goals doesn’t overwhelm me. I’m very low-key about it. Most of these are goals that are just for fun and not going to derail my whole life if I don’t get them done. I find it really fun to come up with goals and then try my best to achieve them throughout the month!