Thinking about Goals

Before we left for the mountains I paid Paul and Bryan to take down the tree, help pack up the decorations, and get all the Christmas things put away in boxes in the shed.  It took several hours and we were all tired when it was done but it was well worth it.  The boys earned some money to buy Winter Park sweatshirts and we came home to a house that was clear of all the holiday trappings.  

I love holiday decorations and think all the fuss is worth all the trouble, but I do like starting the New Year off with the house back to normal.  No matter how fun and festive Christmas decorations are, they take up room and after a few weeks I'm ready to get that space back.  It was great to come home to a clean slate.

Well, maybe "clean" isn't the right word since the house really needs a deep cleaning, but that's what January is for, right?  Or is it?  What exactly do I want to do in January?  

I've never been much for setting resolutions for the new year, but my new life as a retiree is making me consider just how I want to use this gift of free time that I'm lucky to have now.  

Up in the mountains I did some thinking about this and jotted down some plans but I found that my Wunderlist app wasn't much help in organizing my ideas.  Yesterday I found and downloaded a nifty monthly goal planner on Etsy and it's helping me get these thoughts organized into some specific goals.  

You use the graph paper PDF to jot down your goals for the month and then use the Monthly Plan to make specific weekly plans to accomplish these goals.  

For example, I jotted down "Clean 1 room deeply each week" on my January graphic....

and on the monthly plan I figured out which rooms would get deep cleaned on which weeks.  

You'll see that at this point except for the "deep cleaning" tasks I've only planned out the first week  and not the other weeks.  Generally, I just can't think that far ahead, so I'll make a point of sitting down each weekend and planning specific tasks for the week ahead, which means later today I'll be planning for next week. 

Did you notice that tail-like thing at the top of the above image?  That's Spikey, hanging out on one of my sewing machines!

Not to be outdone, Fetcher came in the keep me company as well. 

It snowed again yesterday several inches and it's very cold, but Ben & I are heading out to get some lunch and to buy some paint for the kitchen; one task to check off on the list!