Ummmm. Happy No Longer Last Year...

Yes. Happy No Longer Last Year.

I guess since the date is 1.1.11 it's a good time to start over. Last year I started off the year focusing on how I could improve myself. I had just graduated, was jobless, and had pretty much just been forced to move back home. To the average twenty-something year old, that's about as bad as it can get. At least, it feels that way at the time. This year, I think I'm just going to start off the year by appreciating the fact that I made it through last year. I am technically no longer a recent graduate. I still don't have a real job. And I kinda still halfway live at home. But I'm not really in the same place that I was this time last year. Which to me is kind of amazing. Apparently this improving yourself stuff actually works. As long as you pick the right goals.

So on that note, here's a quick review of the goals I set in January 2010.

1. Get Organized - DONE

The goal - Find some sort of a system for me to use so as not to lose all of the information and stuff that's important to me.

The result - I am super awesome at organization. Or rather, the people I stole all my ideas from are. Anyways, I took a few different systems, from a few different book and blogs and people, and rolled them all into a system that kinda works for me. My nice shiny Franklin Covey planner is not filled with my calendar, to do list, shopping lists, inspiration pages, goal lists and my ever growing bucket list. Apparently writing things down in one place really does help. It seems like as soon as I started writing down everything, it was easier to understand what was going on in my life.



2. Get Rid of 365 Things - SUPER DONE

The goal - Pretty self explanatory. Get rid of 365 pieces of junk.

The result - It took me awhile to get moving on this one, but once I did, boy did I get moving. What really helped the most was figuring out what I really wanted my space to look like, feel like and be used for. With that in mind it was pretty easy to get rid of stuff that didn't fit the bill. In the end, i got rid of over 1000 things. The amazing part is that I don't miss anything I got rid of. And I still have A LOT of stuff. Yeah. 1000 things later and there is still too much stuff.



3. Get A Job - UBER FAIL

So..... I'm just gonna go with "Jesus didn't want me to have a real job". That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The economy sucks, etc. etc. etc. Not going to go down a list of excuses here. Simply going to deal with the fact that it's a year later and I am still unemployed. Actually, I don't say it like that anymore. I'm on vacation. It's January. I'm on winter break.



4. Take Control of My Finances - 1/2 DONE!?

The goal - Read I Will Teach You To Be Rich and have $1000 in my savings account by December 31.

The result - I read the book. I read the blog. I'm on vacation. It's hard to get paid when you're on vacation. So...... there is not $1000 in my savings account. There is however more than $1. And my student loans are up to date. And I have accounts set up for an emergency fund, a retirement
fund, and saving up for a new car. So I'm doing better than most people my age. At least I have a plan. And as soon as I get my first paycheck, from the job I'm on vacation from, I know exactly where the money needs to go. Down to the last penny. So $1000, not so much. Understanding where I am financially, done.



5. Start an Exercise Program/Routine - FAIL

The goal - Work my way back to at least high school running standards (2 miles in under 20 minutes) and increase the number of pushups and situps I can do consecutively.

The result - I think there was just too much going on in my life at one time. Exercise is a good idea. And every month I tried to move it back towards the top of the priority list. But when the rest of your life is spinning in circles, it's hard to convince yourself to do something that doesn't appear to move you forward. I did manage to run more than 10 miles in the year and do a few push ups and sit ups though. I'm not sure you can call that progress, but at least I didn't create a mold of myself on the couch...



6. Improve my cooking skills - FAIL

The goal - To be able to consistently cook about 20 things and maybe add in 2 really hard impressive things so I can pretend I know what I'm doing if I ever have super important company, like at the holidays.

The result - I never really pulled out any recipes or tried to cook anything difficult. I did experiment with different spices and such though. I never really had company to impress, so that probably didn't help. But still, nothing new coming out of my kitchen yet. More creative, yes. New, no. I guess we'll call it progress though. At least I have more options for breakfast than cereal now.



7. Keep In Contact With Friends and Family - Um... Sure. Let's call it DONE

The goal - Get a list of contacts, and maybe start a Birthday Calendar and send cards.

The result - Thanks to Google, I finally have all of my contacts in one place. Only problem is that there are a ton of duplicates on the list. I guess importing lists from different sites and just dumping them together will do that. So I have half of a calendar with dates pulled from Facebook. Maybe by this year I'll get it organized enough to be able to send Christmas cards. Or at least Christmas emails...



8. Start 52 Good Habits - DONE

The goal - Establish 52 good habits.

The result - About halfway through the year I lowered the goal to 12. I got pretty good with about 10 of them. So yay for me! 1 - For realizing that I couldn't accomplish the original goal and changing it instead of giving up. And 2 - For actually keeping up with it.



9. Read The Whole Bible - FAIL

The goal - Gee. I wonder. What could it be?

The result - So maybe I should have eased into this one. For someone who doesn't read everyday, the first plan should not be to read the Bible in 90 days. Over a year, sure. 90 Days, not so much. So I failed. Not as miserably as I could have, but I did.



10. Move To A New City - DONE

The goal - Move.

The result - Success. I don't live by myself, but I don't live in suburbia anymore either.


So the grand total is...
DONE - 5
1/2 DONE - 1
FAIL - 4

Not too bad I guess. I mean, It's not like I'm being graded or anything. And even if I was, I don't think 55% is failing at life. To me you can only fail at life if you don't live it. And it's no longer last year. It's this year. So I've lived an entire year. I've moved forward. That has to count for something right?

I've made some goals for this year already. But since it's Saturday, I think I'll enjoy my weekend a little before I get to work improving my life or learning new things again. There will still be plenty of 2011 left next week. Until then.... Happy No Longer Last Year!!!!

15 Minute Decluttering Part III

So apparently my room was never actually cleaned out and is pretty much a visual record of middle school and high school for me.

Random stuff I found while decluttering includes...
- a nanopet and a gigapet (amazingly i did not find a tomagatchi *insert sad face here*)
- a set of cds backing up my music collection from the days before affordable external hard drives
- 3 1/2" floppy discs containing who knows what (a few were actually games, but 1 - i don't even know if i own an external floppy drive, 2 - computers don't come with those standard anymore, and 3 - even if they did, who really runs DOS or remembers the commands? - if you do, you can have the Looney Toons game i just found, i guess....)

Also, today I reached my goal of getting rid of 365 Things. I still have too much stuff. So.... NEW GOAL! The new goal is to get rid of 1000 Things before the year is out. If by some miracle I manage to get that done before October is over I'll bump it up to 2010 just to be festive. But for now, 1000 Things. This means a new goal thermometer. Maybe I'll change the color, make it say a percentage, we'll see. For now, I'm off to declutter some more. Maybe get through the random stack of papers that seems to keep growing on my desk now that it appears as if I've finally learned the difference between moving papers around and getting rid of them.

So Yeah, About that Trip....

I promised to post a little about the trip to the funeral in SC.

I don't really feel like going step by step so here are a few highlights.
My family is crazy. I know. But really, who's isn't?

- my cousin can read. this was discovered when my uncle had him read every road sign he could from philly till dc. from the back seat of the 12 passenger van. on the driver's side. well, when he wasn't asleep anyways. after all that's the seat with the best view right?

- even though we didn't pack the van, we should not put members of my family in that close of a proximity for that long of a period of time. people will always bother their siblings just because they can. and when they're adults they just know what will push your buttons even better. things get thrown and people get hit when someone won't shut up. the tenth time you tell them. at 4 in the morning.

- a 5 hour energy drink will indeed keep you awake when you get tired. it will also keep you so awake that you can drive from SC to MD without being able to fall asleep. it's not that you're not tired. you just can't fall asleep.

- people do not trust one of my uncles to drive on a road trip. because he was the first on asleep. stretched out on the front seat. and it was still daylight.

- my cousins love to instigate. ask questions to keep people talking when someone wants them to shut up. add another opinion so people can't decide between two choices. turn to a radio station with songs people like but don't know the words to so they sing their own words and you can laugh.

Anyways it was a good trip. Not something we can do everyday. And not something i think i want to do in a van anytime soon. Maybe if we had a bus or RV or at least something with a bit more leg room. Anyways, the mafia had a great few days and then returned in time to rest up before the church had the sunday school picnic on sunday. All in all, a good weekend.

15 Minute Decluttering Part II

So yeah, apparently you CAN do anything in 15 minutes. So far I've dumped 108 things.

Here's some stuff that managed to go away this week using only 15 minutes at a time.

- A bunch of old notebooks from high school and college (stuff I'm never going to read again)
- Tons of random receipts for stuff I ate and therefor can never return (who keeps these?)
- A complete series of little kid books (I can read good now so I don't need tiny word books)
- Computer programs that some of my friends need that I don't use anymore
- Costume jewelry that I never wore that came free with something someone bought
- TONS of random fliers for events that happened already

And this is making my room look sooooo much better. There isn't really a before picture so I can't really show you the difference, but let's just put it this way, if I keep up with this I could kill my goal of getting rid of 365 things in less than a month. And I thought it would take all year. So my new goal is not to list each of the 365 things. I think that was part of why I wasn't getting rid of anything. It's a lot harder to keep track of what I get rid of than it is to just get rid of it. So the new goal is to do a 15 minute declutter session everyday for at least a month. There are 4 full months left before the year is over. If I can do 15 minutes for at least half of those days there is no way I'll get rid of less than 365 things. Even if I only got rid of 5 things every time it wouldn't take me that long. Plus I still have crap from elementary school still sitting around in my room. So 365 things is not going to be an issue. I have one more thing on my good habits list, and I'll end up with a MUCH cleaner space. Now I just have to figure out where to attack next. Maybe in my closet, cause clearly that is still a hopeless space...

I'll be in South Carolina for another family funeral later this week, so it doesn't look like my count is going to jump much before the week is over. I think I may just take a break when I get back and pick up on Monday. If I feel really motivated before I leave I may go at the bookshelves again though. Those are pretty easy since I'm not going to read most of that stuff ever again.
Anyways, Monday will be super update date I guess. Funeral stories and decluttering progress should make for an interesting post or two.

15 Minute Decluttering

To weeks later and I'm up to 7 Habits. It looks like this is going to go a lot better than I thought it would. I found this website called FlyLady.net. Pretty much it's a site dedicated to pulling your life together by cleaning. The general idea is that if you start in any area of your home and get rid of stuff you don't need, clear clutter from the areas that seem to breed it, and create small daily routines and habits you will eventually be able to have a clean, organized house. And by having a clean and organized house, you will be calmer, less stressed, more organized, etc. And all of that will help to clear your brain to think about what super interesting, creative stuff and free your time to do stuff other than clean, worry, and trying to remember stuff you should have written down. I really suggest checking out the site. Even if you don't agree with everything she says, you'll see that the system she uses makes sense.

So i stole an idea that I saw on there and also on a few other productivity websites (funny how these guys all think alike isn't it?) and I started to separate my day into sections and group my habits by what needs to happen in those sections. Now I have a morning routine, an afternoon routine and a night routine. 3 lists of habits that need to be done by a certain point in the day.

So now that I've gotten through some of the basic habits that help me get my morning going and one of the nightly habits that makes my mornings easier I'm going to move onto another habit. One that should help me accomplish one of my other goals. That really was the point of adding new habits in the first place after all. (It's easier to accomplish a goal if you can break it down into a daily habit and just focus on that every day)

Anyways, this week's habit is something I picked up off of the FlyLady website.

I'm not doing everything just yet. I'm mainly taking one of the ideas and adding it to my daily routine. 15 minute decluttering sessions. One of the most used quotes on the FlyLady site is "You can do anything for 15 minutes" So this week me and my trusty timer will be on a quest to see just how many things I can check off of my 365 Things list for this year using only 15 minutes at a time. I'm adding new Goals page to the site so you can follow along with my progress. Even if I don't post I'll be checking off my habits in Joe's Goals and updating my 365 Things progress bar which I'm going to reset to zero for the purposes of this 15 minute experiment. I guess we'll see what happens. Anyways, keep checking the Goals page to see how I do, and look for another post later this week with an update.

Establishing Habits

So this habits thing is getting to me. I've been back to reading blogs again lately and everybody seems to have a list of things you're supposed to do to get yourself together.

Healthy Habit Changes
10 Morning Habits
7 Habits of Highly Happy People
21 Habits of Happy People
50 Habits of Highly Successful People

The best thing that I can think of for me is something that I keep seeing on multiple sites. Having a morning or nightly routine, or both. So this is what I'm going to spend most of my habit real estate on. I'm going to build a morning routine and a night routine, drink water, and exercise. Thank should take care of most of the 20 habits. The only thing left to do is to keep track of how well I do with each habit.

So there are two types of habits I'm trying to track, "yes/no" habits and "how much" habits. Yes/No habits, for example, are either completed or they are not. I either got 6 or more hours of sleep or I didn't. I either worked out or I didn't. How Much habits are a little more interesting. Today I ran 2 miles, yesterday I ran 1 mile, tomorrow I will run 2.5 miles. How you choose to measure your goals depends only on you. When I first started running I only recorded if I ran or not. The more I ran, the more I kept track of other information for each run.

There are a bunch of different ways to keep track of habit info. I'm using these ones. They're all digital, so I don't have to worry about where I wrote stuff down. That's always been a problem for me before. Out of sight really does mean out of mind sometimes.

Yes/No Habits
Joes Goals - lets me add individual habits and check them off when you do them each day. it keeps track of how many habits I did in one day and how many days in a row I did (or skipped) a certain habit

How Much Habits
Daytum - lets me add items to do and quantities for each item. also makes graphs for when, how much, or what I did

Nike+ - I could really just use Daytum to keep track of when and how far I run, but this is sooo much more fun. it lets me interact with other people, set goals for myself (miles run, calories burned, speed) and challenge other runners. Things like this are for when you already keep track of basic information and want to try a little something extra (or just like the extra incentive - message boards are a great accountability tool)

You can also make your own checklists and graphs on the computer or by hand and use those to track your progress. Some of my favorite graphs have been ones I colored on graph paper in school. But for now I'm gonna use these. They work. Joe's Goals is programed to come up every time I get on the internet. Can't get much more of a reminder than that now can I?

Setting Goals

So a bunch of months ago I started with this whole rant about how i hated certain parts of my life and really wanted to change them. Then i started a whole set of blog posts about what i wanted to change, and why. But i made a huge mistake. I never really sat down and thought about HOW I was going to change anything. So now several months have gone by, and just by writing my goal ideas down I've made progress. But not nearly as much as I could have.

Time to start over.

No excuses. No trying to fix everything at once. No trying to catch up. I'm just going to start where I am and pick one of my goals to focus on. So from the previous posts that I've made on this topic, here we go.....

Before I pick which of my ten goals to get started on again, there are two types of goals that I want to talk about. Smart goals and dumb goals. Not good goals and bad goals, there is no such thing as a bad goal - unless your goal is to kill someone, then, not so good.

Smart Goals

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Dumb Goals
Dangerously Unattainable, Monstrously Big goals

The point is that there are two things that will push you to accomplish what you want. A plan, and your ego. Smart goals help you by making sure you have a plan. There is a specific thing to accomplish, a measurable way to tell when you're done, you've proved that it's not impossible, you have a reason to do it, and you know when you want to have it done by. This keeps you from not knowing where to start, getting overwhelmed, wasting your time on useless work, dragging your heels, etc.

Dumb Goals on the other had play merely to your ego. Who doesn't want to say they were great enough to triple their income in 6 months all while quitting their day job to start their own business in a new city in a field they knew nothing about before they started. Some would say that's dumb, others would say it's adventurous. These are the goals that push us to our limits and help us strive not to accomplish but to over-achieve.

You can read more about Smart Goals and Dumb Goals here.

So now back to my goals again. I'm going to pick a SMART goal to get started. There are a few DUMB goals that are hanging around on my bucket list, but that's another post entirely.

For now I think I'm going to get back to my goal of starting new habits. Originally the intention was to start 52 good habits by the end of the year. Now that it's almost August that's not so achievable, so I'm gonna make it 20 habits. I have 4 that I do already, so that just leaves 16 more to come up with between now and December. I think that's a bit more doable than still aiming for the 52 with less than half the year left.

If you wanna get on the goal setting bandwagon with me, here are a few sites to help you figure out what goals to go for
Achieve your goals by putting them online
How to stay committed to long term goals
How to choose the right goals for you
How to set deadlines

In one of the next posts I'll get a little deeper into what kind of habits I'm going to be adding as a part of my goal, how I'm keeping track of my progress and why I'm adding habits to my life in the first place. Hopefully I can stay focused this time...

Where in the World is.....

And now I've got the Carmen SanDiego theme song stuck in your head.
Mission Accomplished!!!

The real question is where am I? Or, more or less, where have I been.

I skipped May. In June I let you know that I wasn't dead. And now it's July. The END of July.

I honestly have no idea. I think the theme of this blog finally caught up with me. So here's the whole story, or most of it anyways.



For as long as I can remember, I have always been a person who was easily entertained and just as easily distracted. I've been interested in everything from swimming, track and field hockey, to piano, saxophone and clarinet, to Windows, OSX, and DOS to cats, dogs, and fish, to Spanish, French and Japanese to - well, you get the point. Just about everything. And sometimes all at once. There were very few things I didn't like, and it was very easy to figure out what they were. But the list was super short and still is. I am not a fan of strawberries, tomatoes, scary movies or roller coasters.

Anyways - now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere. Where nothing ever happens. Without most of my friends. With all of this running through my brain.

So where have I been? I've been trying to figure out what gets to stay and what needs to leave my life. Maybe then I'll be able to make something interesting of this blog, or my life in general. Cause right now, I'm kinda a real Renaissance Polymath. Interested in everything, Good at most things, and as focused as a Goldfish.

I'm Not Dead

Not Dead.


That would be my entire message to people when it looked like maybe i fell off the face of the earth for any given point in time during college. So i guess i'm not through the falling off the earth phase yet.

Anyways. I'm not dead. Not yet at least. I've done little more than color on walls with little kids in Sunday school. But i guess i'm doing something right cause they think i'm responsible enough to be in charge of little kids.

anyways, i'm gonna go be not dead some more... I'll be back eventually.

Focus

So I'm slowly getting my focus back. It's amazing how sometimes having one conversation can change your whole perspective. Even if the conversation isn't about you or specifically to help you, it can. So now I'm off to get some stuff done and get pumped and focused again so I have something to write about again.

April 2010

April is almost over and I have yet to post goals of any kind. Not sure how I feel about that. Anyways, here's what I've been up to lately.

Operation "Get rid of 365 Things" has helped me make a little progress in my closet. I now know that all of the shoes I have fit, are in good condition, and are well loved. They are also all very stylish. I will be very well dressed this summer, if only from the ankle to the floor. I'm hoping that next month I can make a bit more progress. Maybe finally get rid of any pants and skirts that I don't like or don't fit. Then I'll be well dressed from the waist down. Which to me is a good start. In the movies when they show good looking people they always start from the floor up.

I've also been working on a new project with two good friends. Kinda keeping it hush hush right now, but I'm hoping that it will be up and running by the end of the summer. We've all apparently had ideas about it for around a year but didn't really know that the others did too. So three projects became one project and now we're all working together and having a blast doing it.

I now teach the 3-5 year old sunday school class at church. My mom says I got the class because I'm a big little kid. Quite possibly true. This week we colored on the walls. I got chalkboard paint last week and we painted one of the walls in our classroom. It turned out pretty good. I think I may post pics when I finish decorating the rest of the room. The little kids loved it. So did the other teachers. I think we may end up doing a board in some of the other classes next week.

Other than that life has been one big blur. Maybe next month I'll do a lot better with remembering to write about it as it happens.

Happy Spring

In honor of the spring cleaning that I'm doing in my life, I figured I'd do a little makeover on the site. This week everything is getting a simpler, more streamlined look. I will also be setting up a posting schedule that will last through the summer. Hopefully this will be the end of week long gaps between posts and will jump start the summer happiness we all need. Let me know what you think of the changes.

Easter Weekend

Well, after 2 weeks with only one post total, I'm back. April is here and I'm ready to report on my first real spring weekend.

It started with a few hours on YouTube Friday afternoon. The church convention is in July and my friends have managed to get sucked into being on the youth department staff. We just found out that one of our friends won't be going for the whole week, so we had to find someone else to do the job she usually does. Giving the music crazy folks the job of figuring out how to put choir stuff together is not a good idea. We spend too much time listening to music as is... Anyways, two of us had already each had a song get stuck in our head and Friday we got to clue in the third and final part of our little circle. And she loved it, so we got distracted and sat in front of the computer for an hour or so listening to music and laughing about how everybody would be sooo tired of us singing parts of these songs by the time july came around.

Then it was off to the movies. Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married Too?" on opening night. Greatness. I'm not sure it was the movie that made it great so much as who I saw it with. Plus, stereotypical black movie + stereotypical black movie crowd = hilariousness. People talked back to the screen, made loud side comments, the whole theater laughed. And to me, it looked like it was set up so there could be a third movie in the set. I love endings like that. If nothing else happens you're still happy, but there wouldn't be a ridiculous plot jump to deal with if they decide to do another one.

Saturday was even better. A shopping day in Philly with Ms Fabulous was just what I needed. We did what we went to do and then wandered a little. I think the only bad part of the day was when each of us managed to find something we loved that was seriously out of our price range. And I do me seriously. If only we had now what we see ourselves having in the future. I mean, what girl couldn't use a fabulously flashy necklace or strapy heels to bring in the spring season... Oh well. It all got better when we saw LUSH!

As many times as I had heard other girls gush about the store I had seriously never been in one. It was sooo great. If you think shopping should be an experience, beauty doesn't have to hurt, and natural is good, then this is the store for you. As soon as we set foot in the door the salesperson was helping us figure everything out. She explained how everything is made, what the products were, what scents went with what, how everything works, and my favorite part - what products she uses. If the people who work there don't love what they sell, then why should I? She took us through her favorites for bath, haircare, and skincare and in the end we both wanted to buy and come back for more. I ended up getting a solid conditioner and a face mask. Didn't try the mask yet - that's for tonight - but the conditioner was ridiculous!!! I washed my hair that night and couldn't stop touching it the next day. It is soo super soft. And honestly, I'm not even sure I used it the right way - solid conditioner is a little different than liquid conditioner, takes some getting used to.

And to send off the weekend on a high note, yesterday was easter sunday. My mom made me a little easter basket, just cause I'm a big kid. I've been wanting a snickers egg and a peanut butter cup egg since they started selling them again - if i'm lucky they'll have stuff left over on sale for cheap later today. Then it was off to church to teach sunday school. I love my class. Little kids are so funny - although we're gonna have to get past what color is this someday... We learned about easter. "Easter is about Jesus" was as far as we could get with concentration though.

Short sermon for morning service and then family dinner at my aunt's house. It's amazing what happens when you try to get my family together. Ms Fabulous calls us The Mafia since there are so many of us but we're still so close. You have to have a thick skin and a sense of humor to hang out with us. At one point they managed to ask my aunt and uncle 'Why did you get married' which turned into 'why won't you get married' for three of my cousins. Hilarious.

And now it's time to get back to the real world and figure out what I'm going to do with April. There's a few more weekends, my birthday, and then it'll almost be time for graduation in May. Time to get moving I guess...

The Epic Fail that is March

Yeah so epic fail this month. I had such high hopes too. I guess I just have to turn around and make the most of April when it gets here. There is no way I will let April be an epic failure too. It is my birthday month after all. So at least the 22nd will be a good day. I have this thing about letting my birthday be horrible. It just can't happen.

Last year I had senior project presentations all day on my birthday so I delegated party planning and let one of my best friends plan it for me. We partied the night before, sang happy birthday around midnight, and everyone partied while I went to sleep. Presentations were a success and we partied again that weekend after they were over.

No where near the epic production that is JAbram Week, but still, a success. Maybe I'll have a birthday party in DC with all my friends even though I don't technically live there anymore. Something good has to happen. I refuse to let April be an epic failure too. I'll post some of my goals for the month later this week. For now, I'm going to make sure the rest of March is somewhat of a success. Or at least try anyways...

Projects

In the last Focus On: post we dumped our minds and came up with a massive list of stuff. This time, we'll focus on what to do with all of that stuff. This is where the Calendar and To-Do list will eventually come in. But for now we'll just focus on the massive list. First, we get to organize the list. You can rewrite each of these on separate pieces of paper. You can put stickers next to list items, star them or highlight them as we go along. Do whatever works for you.

There are two ways to look at organizing the list.

One way is to think about what you want out of life, your mantra, manifesto or end of life goals and narrow down your focus so that everything you do reflects the type of person you want to be. The other way is to think about everything you do on a daily basis and then work up the chain once you have those under control.

Since you're reading this blog, chances are you're like me and prefer to start with what you want the big picture to look like.

In either case, you'll want to go down your list and put your items into groups. Since most of the things on my list were bothering me because of my thinking that I want my life to look a certain way, my groups are based on things that appear to be a part of some large goal or project. They are areas of my life that I want to change. Here are some examples from my list.

1. Many things on my list focused on things I wanted to get, organize, or get rid of. When I looked at it again I realized that it was all about creating a spacious, organized, inviting place to live and work. So I labeled it "Home". This category has everything that deals with tangible items that I want to do something about, apartment search ideas, chore lists, etc.
   
2. Another category was "Things I Want to Learn". This turned into "Education/Career".
   
3. Other categories were lists of things I want to change about myself. "Personal".
   
4. Some things didn't seem to go with anything so they stayed by themselves

If you notice, some of these are evident in my "10 Things" list from earlier this year. This is how I decide what my goals and projects will be. Categorizing your list should help you see the types of overall goals and projects that you want to work on. Many times the things on our minds are bothering us simply because we didn't take the time to think them through and do something about them. Don't think too much about the categories if you get stuck. They'll become clearer as you work through the list and add more to it each day.

Using the categories on your list you should be able to clarify a few of your projects. Some of mine are

1. Create a clean, organized, open area to live in.
2. Learn Spanish, French, and Japanese
3. Be more organized, productive, and accountable
4. Get in shape

You'll notice that I used the word projects instead of goals. Mostly that's because I haven't yet defined a way to know when I'm done. In my world, projects can go on forever, but goals have to be measurable. I can keep "Improving my cooking skills" but once I "Learn 5 new recipes" I have to move on to something else. In the next post we'll focus on setting new and better goals, but for now we'll just pay attention to the projects you have. This will help us to get started, organized and be productive as quickly as possible.

The most effective way to make progress on your projects is to pick one or two to focus on at a time. I suggest picking the one that needs to be done first or the one that bothers you the most. That way you'll be able to appreciate how the system works and how much progress you're making. For me, I need to make money, so I'll be focusing on my job search. For the rest of your projects, remember, we want to write everything down. You may want to keep a notebook page, or an entire notebook devoted to your future projects. I have a whole notebook filled with things I'll do when I have free time, get bored, finish one of my other projects. For example, I want to learn several foreign languages, build a glass top table over a fish tank (i like pet fish!), and learn to cook a 5 course meal, but now isn't the time. I'll keep the ideas in my notebook until I can use them.

My Current Projects List

1. Blog
2. Career
3. Church
4. Home
5. Money
   
6. Personal

Next time I'll let you know some of the goals I've come up with for each of my project categories.

If you can't quite understand the whole process of getting from a random list to a projects list, I recommend that you read Getting Things Done by David Allen. That's where the whole process is taken from. He explains more in depth how to work from concepts down to tasks, and from tasks up to concepts when planning out your life.

Family Funeral

Wow. I am sooooo behind. I was away this weekend so I guess what I originally wanted to spend this weekend on kinda flew into Monday and Tuesday. Anywho... I'm back. Today is catch-up day. And there should be at least two more posts between today and tomorrow so I can catch up by Friday. And when I get through all this learning about project planning, hopefully it'll never take me a whole week to get back on track after a weekend away.

SO, here's the weekend update, before we get to another weekend...


This weekend was pretty cool for me. I got to see a part of my family that I haven't seen since I was about 2. About a week ago, my mom's dad's sister's husband died. I say it like that because it's sooo much easier to understand when you spell it all out.

Since I hadn't been in a while, I went with my mom and her sister to the funeral in South Carolina. Wadmalaws Island, South Carolina. I don't think many people have ever heard of it. It's right outside of Charleston. And apparently about half the people there are related to me in some way. There's even a road named after the family. Although that's a pretty basic thing in most places. a lot of roads are named after the people who lived there when they were built.


I thought that was kind of weird at first but then I thought about it. My grandpop's family had 10 brothers and sisters. I think 2 died, and the rest had at least 5 kids each. And then almost all of their kids had at least a kid or two. So yeah, there are a lot of us. It's a running joke in the family that you have to ask people who their parents are when you date because there are so many last names.

They like to tell the story of two cousins who had gone on one date with each other and then were at church when they asked everybody in the family to stand. They were both on opposite sides of the church and both stood. I'd hate to have that happen, but I can see how it could. I saw sooo many people at the funeral that I had never seen before. And that was mainly the family of one of my grandfather's sisters. There are still some parts of the family that I've never seen. Hopefully we'll get to have a family reunion soon and I can meet some more people. the ones I met this time were really cool.

We drove down on Friday so we could take our time and enjoy the trip. On the way we stopped at South Of The Border.


It's a rest stop just below the border from NC and SC where they used to stop every time they went down south. Apparently this used to be a big thing. Not so much anymore. I thought it was really cool, but stuff isn't open as long as it used to be. I guess people don't really road trip like that anymore. I could see it being open 24 hours a day if people drove like they used to. I took pictures of all the South of the Border Pedros and got a bumper sticker and some post cards for my collection. With the exception of the fact that we were going because of a funeral, the weekend was pretty nice.

I think I'm going to have to post more about my family from time to time. There will definitely be another post if we have a family reunion. And one when I make the red rice that cousin Rose taught me how to make. And when I see my cousins who live in Philadelphia, that I didn't meet until we were in South Carolina. Go Figure.

Getting Started

If you're anything like me, you always have some kind of project that you're working on. Some kind of great idea floating around in your head. Some kind of super awesome, imagination using, adrenaline pumping, brain flowing idea. And you have no idea where to start. Big ideas never seem to work out exactly the way you want them to. You get lost in a mountain of notes on post-its, calendars get squished and overloaded, and your to-do list grows to a mile long. This month is the end of all of that. I'm going to lay out the basics of why and how we so epically fail, and show you where to look for help and answers.

To get started, I suggest doing what many productivity people call a "mind dump". All you need is a cool looking notebook and a pen or pencil that works. If you have trouble finding either of those or you manage to find 50 or so pens that look exactly the same, don't worry about it. I've been there. Boy have I been there.

The main point of the mind dump is to dump your mind. Write down any and every thing that you can think of. Ballet practice is next tuesday. The football game is saturday at noon. Buy new shoes. I need more applesauce. Whatever you think of. Don't censor yourself or leave anything out. Nothing is unimportant. And don't try to orgainze the list. You'll just get distracted. We'll worry about that later. This may take some time, so don't be afraid if you have to sit there for a few minutes, or hours. If you have other things that you need to do, it's alright to get up and do them, but take your list with you. And write down anything you think of while you're doing what needs to be done. While it's ideal to take a weekend or at least a few hours to do this, life goes on and sometimes you can't. Just keep plugging away and soon you won't be able to think of much more that's on your mind or has been bothering you.

Since we're starting with a clean slate, I think now would be a god time to clear your desk and calendar of those annoying post-it notes. They're great reminders. I use them all the time. But they were not meant to be used by themselves. And they are not helpful if you have 20 of them around your computer screen, 30 on the wall calendar, 6 in a notebook, 3 behind the couch, etc. Take all of these and all other random scraps of paper with notes on them and write them at the bottom of your mind dump list.

Now a lot of people suggest also clearing your calendar and email, but that doesn't really work for most people. After all, most of us still have things that we will have to do and places to be while we're getting organized. And emails come in every two seconds at the peak of the day. I find it works best to just keep these two systems as they are and then tweak them as you go along. This way you'll learn how to keep your calendar organized and your inbox at zero without setting aside an entire week to hit delete over and over again.

Now that your mind is clear it should be much easier to tackle the planning and execution of your major project. This calmness will only be there if you have a clear mind. So take your mind dump list with you and be sure to write things down as soon as you think about them. Duplicates are going to happen at first, but you'll realize that the more you write things down, the less you have to remember. And that frees your mind to think about other, more creative and useful, things.

In the next post we'll tackle the to-do list. Until then, dump all that clutter from your mind, clear all your thoughts, and enjoy your post-it and scrap-paper-free life.

Focus On: Project Organization

This month, I will be focusing on a major project. My Career. While most of the details will be about my job search, the majority of the posts this month will offer tips to help you start, organize, track and finish any major project.

Here's a preview of what I will be writing about:
How To Start - Setting Goals and Establishing Habits
Taming Your Monster of a Calendar
To-Do Lists
Folders, Files, and Notebooks
How, When and Why to Track Your Progress

Throughout the month I will also be writing about books and products that have helped me to redesign my career and organize my projects and my life. Hopefully this month of focus will help you to figure out what you want to do with your precious moments and how you want to affect the world around you. Or at least help to get all the small stuff cleared up so you can think about it.

New Series - Focus On:

Welcome to Focus On: the latest idea to cross my mind. As I've been planning out my year, I've noticed that all of my ideas seem to focus on what I consider to be the basics of building a balanced life. These are the parts of life that every person on the planet worries about, or almost everyone anyway. While it may seem that some of these issues have nothing to do with one another, they are essentially all interconnected.

Over the next few months, I will be taking the time to define these life categories. I will also be examining ways to stay sane while trying to focus on all of the basics while still dealing with the everyday world. The first series entry for each month will introduce the month's topic of focus and open up what I hope will be an enlightening discussion for all involved.

Through this series I hope you will find ways to bring your life into balance, free your mind to think clearer, and open your heart to new ways to love yourself and the world around you.

March 2010 Goals

After seeing the progress that I made with my goals last month, I decided to do this again. Documenting the progress that I make here holds me accountable for my actions. Even if the only person reading has already heard about my plans, or happens to be me.

This month, my focus happens to be on my career, or lack of one. So most of my goals will focus on that. Although, I have included some random goals like last month as well as some of my year long goals.

Career Goals

- Sort through all old papers and files
- Organize paper filing system
- Organize computer filing system

• Keep - File
  
• Trash - Trash and Recycle
  

- Organize school notes

• Keep - organize related subjects, minimize notebooks needed
• Trash - Donate to students still at Howard if in good shape
• Create a Book List - read syllabus for each class to match each notebook with a reading list and get rid of large unneeded books
  

- Read and Review Career books, websites and articles for blog
- Send emails to people I would like to work for or with in DC and virtually
- Review my GTD system
- Send resume to family and friends

Health Goals
- Run/Walk for 20 mins every day (not sundays)
- Set and accomplish 4 Nike+ Goals

• Run 20 Times
• Burn 1000 Calories
• Run 25 Miles
• Run 1 mile in 16 minutes 5 Times

Church Goals
- Create IYPU contacts database
- Plan IYPU dollar-a-day finance sheets

Personal Goals
- Get Rid of 31 Things
- Complete Stuff Inventory
- Update packing and travel list

New Habits
- Weekly Blogging on Monday and Friday
- Setting and Accomplishing 1 Productive Goal Every Day