Quarterly Goals Update 2019 | A Rural Girl Writes

Inside: New planner, new year, one quarter down. How did I do? Check out my goals update 2019 to find out what worked and what needs work.

My planner with water color painted flowers on calendar. — My goals update 2019.

My First Quarter Goals and How I Did

This post is late in coming. We’re nearly a third of the way through with the first month of the second quarter, and I’m only now reviewing the goals I made for January, February, and March–one of which was time management. . .

Can you guess how that’s going?

But I’m not going to launch, head-first, into beating myself up for not mastering such a challenging subject as time management. Instead, I’m going to explain what did work and what needs improvement. How does that saying go? The biggest room is the room for improvement?

So let’s review. I am still–yes, still!–reading Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. This is my second time reading the book, and she has many great tips and strategies–if only I had the time to pursue them! Okay, a little lighthearted ribbing toward myself. Time management is not something you learn over night–or even in three months. Right now I’m still taking in the information and working with this new planner. I find it a small “win” that I keep up with the planner almost daily. Baby steps.

Social Me?

The second goal for the first quarter of 2019 was certainly not “me” inspired. After prayerful consideration, I felt the Lord gently nudging me in the area of being more social. As I wrote back in January on the subject, my default tends to be “just stay home” rather than put myself out there. Surprisingly, I found He didn’t expect me to say yes to everything. For example, doing a 30-minute reading of my work at an art festival was something I had no desire to do when approached, and that was fine. Unfortunately I found myself attending several funeral/memorial services, yet also a wedding celebration in a snowstorm in January! Nothing like January for snow and new beginnings! More than anything, I’m developing a more open approach to each social event, whatever it is, rather than resorting to my default of just staying home. In this respect, it’s learning to be aware of my social habits and developing a more healthy approach.

Fair warning: I will never be a social butterfly. Or the life of the the party. . . Hey, I gotta be me.

Spending Habits Revealed

Inside of the Jesus Centered Planner along with water colored flower calendar. — A peek inside my planner.

A third goal was to get a better handle on my finances by making a budget. I should mention here that I have a homemade spreadsheet with monthly bills that I use, but it doesn’t cover items such as groceries or eating out or buying gifts. Dave Ramsey’s app, Every Dollar, was the method I used. I say “used” because it never really caught on with me–but I don’t blame the app. It’s more that it doesn’t fit my brain and the way I do things. I found it a lot of work to enter all of the budget items, and I didn’t intuitively move through the learning process, so using the app never felt comfortable or easy.

I also don’t like breaking up my groceries into smaller categories. Vitamins or light bulbs, I don’t care what it is. If it’s in my cart at Walmart, it goes in the grocery category rather than health or home maintenance. So it wasn’t for me. That said, I did learn a few things about my spending habits by simply setting up one month’s budget, and for that reason I found the exercise valuable. I will be tweaking my own homemade spreadsheet system instead.

Second Quarter: Goals Within a Goal

Before I go any further, I want to mention that I like renewing goals on a quarterly basis. I wasn’t sure I would, but I find this very freeing. Making a bunch of goals in January for the entire year makes me feel like I already have my map for the year, and I can’t change anything. While I realize that’s a mental hurtle, and, yes, of course I could change a yearly goal, this just makes more sense to me and works better for the way I am wired.

My goal for April through June is this: Focus longer term. Decide what is and isn’t important to me going forward and build my days around this.

My new goal is inspired by the above-mentioned book, actually. Thinking about time management on a deeper level. One of the exercises in the book is to divide your life into three to six life categories. Mine are: God, Family, Health, Work, Home. These are broader in nature to simplify the process.

Next I ask myself what I want to attain in each of these categories. What are my big-picture goals? The activities that fill the pages of my planner need to reflect this.

At this point I’m not sure what this will look like. I’m continuing with the book and the exercises and will report back at the end of this quarter.

In the meantime, moving onward.