I love the freshness of a new month. A brand-new year? I’m allllll about it. I’ve got some big goals for this year, and I’m excited to get started and see how much progress I can make. Here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish in January:
1) Find a place to donate old prescription glasses. I believe I can drop old glasses off at Visionworks or other eyeglass stores, so I just need to call and make sure my local Visionworks accepts gently used glasses. I have two older pairs of glasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses to donate.
2) Have a no-spend month. The last two months have been very spendy, as the holiday season tends to be. Throw in buying a new car and it’s gotten a little out of hand. I’m going to challenge myself to a no-spend January (which means no shopping, no books, and no random Amazon orders) to get rein things in a bit.
3) Find a dermatologist. I used to be someone who went for annual skin checks like clockwork, but then the pandemic happened and now I haven’t gone to the dermatologist in over 3 years! The problem is that my old dermatologist was near my office in Tampa, and I haven’t wanted to drive 30+ minutes for a quick, 10-minute appointment so I’ve just put off finding a dermatologist near me.
4) Switch to having just one 10-ounce can of Dr. Pepper for lunch. In my ongoing effort to reduce my sugar intake, I’m going to start with my #1 culprit: soda. Lately, I’ve been having 2-3 12-ounce bottles of Dr. Pepper daily so going down to just one 10-ounce can will be a big shift for me. (Plus, I know I sleep soooo much better when I don’t have caffeine in the evenings, so this will definitely improve my sleep, too!)
5) Set up tracking spreadsheets for some of my yearly goals. I love a good spreadsheet and I want to make some for a few of the yearly goals I set that I need to keep track of, like workouts and savings. Setting these up will help me stay motivated throughout the year, hopefully.
6) Work through years 2009-2011 of blog posts and make a spreadsheet to list out the posts, categories, and tags. Recategorizing 1,800 blog posts is going to be quite the adventure! The only way I’ll be able to do it is to break up the task into little chunks like this. I’m planning on working on this during my weekly writing dates.
7) Set up two recurring savings deposits: for my new mattress and for my house down payment. I want to put $335 a month into my house down payment fund as well as $100 a month into a savings fund for a new mattress.
8) Get bloodwork done. I want to get a good look at my health and the areas I need to improve. The last time I had bloodwork done, my cholesterol was a smidge on the high side while my blood sugar was right on the cusp of being high. I’d like to establish a baseline and retest these numbers after implementing healthier habits.
9) Clean my interior doors and baseboards. I’ve recently noticed an accumulation of dust around my interior doors and bathroom baseboards. Oops. Time to give them a good cleaning!
10) Make one recipe in the air fryer each week. I got an air fryer for Christmas! So far, I have made pizza rolls, baked potatoes, and an easy chicken recipe in it. I want to attempt one new thing a week, so send me your favorite recipes/ideas!
Do you have any January goals?
Giving up soda is so hard. I switched from regular to diet and then my doctor told me to cut out caffeine, so I rarely have it at all now (maybe a caffeine free Diet Coke at my FIL’s once in a while). Those people who say if you cut something out of your diet, it six months you won’t want it? They’re lying. I really want a Diet Coke every time I drive past McDonald’s. I have replaced pop with LaCroix/Gatorade Zero, but it doesn’t quite scratch the itch, at least it doesn’t for me. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is good luck with that goal! It’s hard, but it IS doable!
You just reminded me that I should really clean my baseboards!
Good luck with your goals! I’m trying to make 1-2 new recipes a month, we will see how that goes! I tend to just make what I know, so it’s going to be a challenge.
I used to be such a soda drinker in college and then nipped that habit in the bud. But then Phil started buying packs of soda when it was on sale so I was drinking a good amount of coke over the last year, but stopped cold turkey when I went on Weight Watchers since the points in a can of coke are INSANE. I don’t really miss it all that much surprisingly. Phil will offer me some sips of coke or Dr. Pepper when he has one and that tastes like such a treat.
I am doing “The January Cure” which is an organizational challenge that Apartment Therapy puts on each year. Except today is day 4 of the challenge (it started on 1/3) and I haven’t done a single thing because I had Will home with me Mon-Wed due to him spiking a fever and just not feeling well from antibiotics… But I intend to catch up when I can. I also signed up for Laura Vanderkam’s time tracking challenge. It’s something I’ve always considered doing but never felt compelled to do it on my own. So a challenge with daily emails seems like the right way to approach it. It will be interesting to be able to add up how i spend my time! I have a sense but will be curious to see the # of hours I read/week for example.
Great idea to get bloodwork done! As you know, I’m a big fan of knowing where you’re starting from.
I have some goals for January, but things are a little chaotic with my son still here (like, we’re staying up late watching all the Harry Potter movies, which interferes with my goal to get more sleep.). He goes back to school on the 16th, so that’s going to be my official “New Year, New Me” day.
Good luck with the Dr. Pepper! Don’t forget about the unsweetened fizzy water if you need a substitute- I actually like the Publix brand, it’s more carbonated than La Croix or Bubly- lime flavored. Yum.
Ooo, girl, I love a tracking spreadsheet. Love it! Last year I tracked what we watched every day, which seems like a pita but it wasn’t. And now when we wonder what we watched yesterday (ha) we know! I was tracking my reads in that spreadsheet you shared until I lost interest this year, which is unusual for me, with a spreadsheet. Now I am just using GR.
How is the 10 oz Dr Pepper going? Did you use the air fryer yet?
Ugh baseboards and doors. You will feel so good when it’s done but UGH.
My January goal is to be active each day. It can just be a 10 min walk on the treadmill. The great thing about the treadmill is I can play on my phone while I walk, ha!
I still drink soda (guilty…) so I am not the person to help you with that. Sorry! I also drink a ton of water and sparkling water, though, so I feel like it all kind of balances out? Maybe? (She says hopefully?)
Yay on the air fryer and the derm visit. Skin checks are so important – plus you have light skin, plus you live in Florida. 🙂
I am impressed by the baseboard-related goal. Super-duper impressed. Let’s just say I’m not reaching quite that high right now…
It’s interesting – a lot of people chimed in that giving up soda is hard. I never drank soda on a regular basis, so I can’t really say, but I could imagine that it’s the carbonation that people get used to. Have you tried replacing Dr. Pepper with like fruit juice-spritzer? I mix apple juice and carbonated water when I feel like something with a fizz.
Spreadsheets FTW! I’ll have a few going this year myself.