January goals

I like the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, but I think it is a mistake to only set goals once per year. I’m constantly setting new goals, finishing goals, or tweaking ongoing goals. I have goals for days and for weeks and for years. This week I’ll be turning the corner into a new year. I’ve been mulling over what I want to accomplish during it. Mostly I’ve discovered that January is so packed full of goals to meet that I’m having trouble seeing past it to make larger goals to encompass the whole year. Year-sized goals seem too big. I need to focus on month-sized goals.

Plans for January 2008:
Finish the layout for The Teraport Wars. I may not be able to complete this one inside a month because there are pieces outside my control, but I am going to do my very best.

Do the final layout tweaks for Hold on to Your Horses. This is the book that I wrote for Gleek during December of 2006. Then I lined up an artist and got amazing pictures drawn for it. Then we fished around to see if a traditional publisher would be interested. There was no response. I’ve decided that I really want this book in print before Gleek gets too old to need it. So the Tayler Corp is going to be printing it. It is mostly done, I just need to tweak a couple of things to make sure that it is ready for print at the same time as Teraport Wars.

I need to put exercise back into my schedule. Howard and I have a plan for doing this together.

Family prayer and scripture study fell out of our schedule some time in November. I need to put it back. Ditto for personal scripture study.

I need to be scheduling family time on a weekly basis. I’m going to start by making Sunday dinners and by having Family Home Evening on Monday nights. These will be times where we spend an hour free of distractions just being together.

I need to help the kids plan, save for, and make (or purchase) gifts for Gleek’s upcoming birthday. Christmas turned out alright, but I want my kids to have a chance to fully experience the joy of giving a thoughtful gift. I also want to help them learn how to plan and execute thoughtful gift giving.

I need to be more strict about partitioning my days and making sure there are times where the computer and business things are not allowed. Hopefully this will help me do a better job of keeping household maintenance tasks done.

I want to polish up two stories, one to post one to submit.

I want to grow indoor flowers.

I want to spend time individually with each of my kids helping them learn a useful skill that interests them. Sewing for Kiki. Piano and basic music theory for Gleek. Reading aloud with Link. Beginning phonics with Patches. Ideally they’ll each get at least 30 minutes per week.

I need to be more thorough in my accounting and household management. I need to be tracking food inventory, shopping sales, and making sure we don’t over spend in any budget categories. As part of this effort, I need to be cooking meals from food we have here rather than running to the store or to a fast food place.

I think all of that just might be enough for one month. No wonder my brain balks at trying to think past January.