Philotic Web

This is one of those threads I was hemming and hawing about starting. I want a place where I can keep track of my goals. It's significantly different, to me, from a To Do list. A To Do list is more immediate. Usually a one-shot deal. Something I need to complete and then cross off. But in my mind a goal means growth. By nature it's a lot slower and more time consuming. It's not something I can get done in an afternoon. It's something that requires a lot of effort. Something I have to work toward.

So I created this thread to help me keep track of my goals. I'm going to try to focus on just one at a time and update about my progress. If you are working toward any goals--long or short term--please feel free to post about them here!

The goal I'm working on currently is to write (note: WRITE, not "work on," which implies looking up names and their meanings on the internet and otherwise wasting time in general) for my novel every single day for the month of September.

I'm not setting myself a word count goal, or anything. Last night, for example, I only squeaked out a couple of sentences. But I am going to sit down at some point every day this month and focus solely on my writing for an uninterrupted period of time.

So far I'm 2 for 2 days.

I give you props. Its hard to write everyday. I always have great flow during the first chapter, and then cant figure out what to do with the second chapter. I have about 50 first chapters I've written over the years.

But I wish you luck. It's a good goal that I wish I could emulate.

I sent a friend of mine a watch, a ring, and some awards and certificates that mean a lot to me. Every week I set goals to accomplish in projects I'm working on, and if they aren't met at a preset time, one of them gets destroyed. We're still working out kinks in the system. Right now the destruction condition is moving forward on launching a business, but there are bonus conditions for exercising, my classes, and my own side reading, if all three bonus conditions for the week are met, next week I'm immune from the destruction condition.

I'm slightly concerned that the bonus reward is working at cross-purposes with the destruction condition, but then that's what testing is for.

Financial Goals
1. To have my credit card completely paid down by the end of January.

2. To make a plan for contributing to my retirement fund before June 2011.

3. To only put my student loans in forbearance for one year, and then make ten years of consecutive, timely payments and thus get them forgiven.

4. To have my car paid of in 2.5 years instead of 4.

5. To have my credit score above 780 in five years.

6. To have saved enough for a sizable down payment on a house in 10 years.

Spiritual Goals

1. Read something devotional and or Biblical at least 5 of 7 mornings per week for the next month. Reflect on it.

2. Go to church 3 of 4 Sundays per month.

3. Be more mindful of how I want this to play out in my daily life.

Work Goals

1. Get a workable system for staying on top of reports and paperwork

2. Have no one need to ask me when they can expect reports to be done

3. Read at least one book per month that is job related.

Now I just need a system to monitor how I'm doing on these.

Okay, I have a lot of these.

+ Save as much money as possible.
+ Get a second or third job
+ 2 pairs of jeans, 2 shirts, 1 shirt for my dressy occasions, 1 pair of work pants is all I'm allowed to buy until at least January.
+ Hopefully have enough money to take K up on his crazy plans, or at least a version of his crazy plans.
+ Apply to 8-12 graduate schools. Apply to extensive amounts of funding at every one
+ Spend that one scholarship on a cool program in the summer that will help immensely. Yes, that one, that I discovered last week, but is still what I've been looking forever.
+ Write, if not every single day, most days.
+ Average a book every 3 days, at least.
+ Visit N & P before they graduate and scatter around the globe.
+ Work out at least every other day, or hopefully, 5 days a week.

+ Get down to at least 170lbs by next summer
+ Complete a solid 5k run with no breaks (by extension, an 8k and then a 10k)
+ Start working on my bachelors, even if it is only one or two classes a semester
+ Get some kind of job this year, preferably one that is related to compsci in the next year

1. Figure out a system whereby I can schedule my academics. I have a very hard time self-motivating to study, and I tend to be a little random in how/where I get things done. I'd like to have a pattern or routine so that when I park my butt in a given place at a given time, my brain says "Okay, time to work." And I'd like it to be a daytime thing. I enjoy having my nights free for side projects, a little tv, or whatever.

Last night was a tough one. I was halfway to sleep when I remembered that I hadn't written anything. I dragged myself out of bed and over to my laptop and typed in a few blurry, grammatically unfortunate sentences.

Still, 3 for 3!

Today we're driving up to the family cabin, and I'm bringing my laptop with me. It'll be lovely to write there I think--except for the fact that it will be a free-for all. David's whole family has run of the cabin for holidays. I'm going to be expected to be social so snatching some writing time will be difficult.

I'll do it, though!

Financial Goals
5. To have my credit score above 780 in five years.

Hey SL,

Just wanted to lend a suggestion. This may be a goal you don't have complete control over. Especially if you don't have diverse credit histories that are at least 10 years or older: judging by the fact that you want to save for a down payment, it suggests you don't have a mortgage yet. Do you have a car payment? All of these things play a big role and may prevent you from hitting 780. But then again, it may not. It is hard to predict. Perhaps the goal should just be to have a high credit score? Then again, that's not very specific....

*shrugs* A woman's reach should exceed her grasp. Or something like that.

Putting a number on it helps. If I'm above 700 -- and I have been in the past -- I'll be happy. But above 780 is the ultimate goal.

Anyhow, I have student loans, and I have a fairly lengthy credit history, a credit card payment, and now a car payment. And, possibly a personal loan here one of these days if need be. So, I'm working on it.

No, no mortgage. And there will not be a mortgage until my credit history + savings qualifies me for a damned good interest rate.

It was just something I heard once. That you shouldn't set goals you don't have control over, to ward against unearned disappointment. I am sure you will have no problems, though.

I had a GREAT day of writing yesterday. Probably the most rewarding writing session I've had in years.

Of course, today? Utterly unmotivated.

I've been reading BIRD BY BIRD. It helps. But after such a wonderful day yesterday, it's a huge let down to feel so uninspired now.

It was just something I heard once. That you shouldn't set goals you don't have control over, to ward against unearned disappointment. I am sure you will have no problems, though.

There really is a lot of wisdom to that. It's less about the number than me doing everything I can to prevent any further negative indicators from showing up while I'm trying to live down the ones that are already there.

Six for six. Only one of those days produced any decent writing, but every little bit helps. Thinking of imposing a word count so that I can't do too many more of these "as long as I write one really, really awful sentence it counts as writing and then I can stop torturing myself and do something else" things that I've been doing. We shall see.

Now that I'm a stay-at-home mom, my goal is too keep up with the meal planning and to try and not let our place descend into chaos, cleaning-wise.

I've been really good with the meal planning most of the time since we've moved here. It makes us eat so much better and spend so much less when I can know ahead of time what we're going to eat.

Making a weekly schedule really, really makes a difference in the cost of food; as does cooking from scratch.

I'm getting a $50k mortgage here soon. My goal is to pay it off in 5 years. I'll probably be getting a second job that will go, in it's entirety, into mortgage payments above and beyond the minimum due. It's a cheap little mortgage, so it should be doable.

grammatically unfortunate sentences.

Excellent turn of phrase!

Financial Goals
5. To have my credit score above 780 in five years.

My wife has freakishly good credit. It's over 800 now, and rising. It freaks me out.

10 for 10!

DAMNIT, DAMNIT, DAMNIT.

I had a horribly stressful, very long day yesterday and I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO WRITE! It's not even like I was too lazy or made a conscious choice not to or anything. I was so exhausted after plowing through my day that I just collapsed into bed and passed out and it didn't even OCCUR to me until I saw my laptop sitting forlornly on the table this morning.

ARGH!

DAMNIT.

13/14 so far.

I have managed to write for the past two days, but it has been pretty half-assed. Now that my goal is shot a lot of my motivation has flown out the window and I know that I need to fix that ASAP.

The WRITING is the point. Not the GOAL. I set this goal as a way to keep myself accountable, and to bring writing back into my life. That doesn't stop just because I missed a day.

*sigh*

I'm going to make a sincere effort today. But there's still a huge part of me that's sulking about this.