checkin

Day 183: Monthly Check in Part 6

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Time for my sixth monthly check-in! I realized I skipped my last one because it was around the holidays and I was working a lot and traveling and the days just sort of flew past me until it was January. And now today. Disappointed in myself, but it’s a new year and I’m back blogging and sometimes things get away from us and we just have to recenter ourselves and get back on track. (See Meditation is working!)

  1. Work on my Novel – I am doing quite well! Writing mostly every day for a nice little chunk of time. Not a lot, but I’m working up to adding more time to my schedule and I’m almost done. I feel I’m 70% of the way there, so maybe a few more tweaks until I get to 90% and then I can submit. I should start looking into getting an agent though.
  2. Ballet – I have been going to yoga and ballet consistently for two weeks! Hopefully I’ll continue on and solidify my schedule so it becomes a habit instead of just a chore. I also think I might do 30 days of yoga in February + a little bit of March to keep progressing forward. TBD.
  3. Promotion –  DONE! 
  4. Get out of credit card debt – This is actually going well. Although I had to buy some flights for family reasons, so I have to dig into my savings to get back on track. Still, I’ve made some good progress and we will keep progressing as the year goes on!
  5. In a relationship – Still Bumbling, although not a lot. I’m trying to go on one date next month, so we’ll see.

Six Monthly check in!!! I’m halfway done and I feel I’ve accomplished quite a bit so far. Maybe not as much as I want to, but there’s still time left and maybe it will be small steps before a big jump. Or maybe it will be small steps before the finish line and that’s okay too. Still I think I’m happier than I was six months ago, and that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?

Until tomorrow.

Day 123: Monthly Check in Pt. 4

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Time for my fourth monthly check-in. Everything sort of fell by the wayside since I got my promotion. Not only did I start a new job and have to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing, but several people were out of the office for various reasons and it was A LOT of extra work. My schedule has just been work, sleep, eat, repeat. It’s terrible.

  1. Work on my Novel – Like I said, everything fell to the wayside so I haven’t worked on my book at all. But I have several days over the Thanksgiving holiday to work on it and get back on track.
  2. Ballet – I went a few times at the beginning of the month, but then fell off since I was working a lot of overtime. Classes are cancelled for the weekend, but I’m aiming to be back on track next week. Hopefully….
  3. Promotion –  DONE! 
  4. Get out of credit card debt – This is actually going pretty well! With my promotion, I have a higher salary, but I’ve also been working a ton of overtime so I have more money than anticipated. Good for the holidays too. 🙂
  5. In a relationship – Still Bumbling. Since I started working more, it’s been harder to date. It didn’t really pan out earlier, but I know I have to keep trying. I often wonder if I’ll ever meet someone, but that’s another thought for another day.

So there’s my fourth monthly check-in. I feel a little discouraged since I feel like I haven’t done much since last month. I have to remember things take time and I can’t get everything done all at once. It’s only been four months and I’ve already accomplished a few things. I have eight more months to get everything done.  Plus, as they say, you have to plant the seeds for the trees to grow in the future.

Until tomorrow.

 

Day 100!

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Happy Day 100 Me! There are way more milestones to check in than I thought! I have the first of the month, the monthly check-ins I set aside for myself and now 100 days. (Today also happens to be the first of the month so it’s double check in day.)

I’m not going to do a check in since I just did one, but I do want to say it’s good to have “check-ins” on a regular basis. Just take ten minutes to yourself and see what you’ve accomplished and what steps you still need to take to move towards your goals.

I generally do a life check-in at the beginning of each month (today!). I have a habit tracker that I fill out every day to see if I’m building the habits I want to make part of my life. I check off the boxes every day, so if ever there’s a long string of empty boxes, I know I have some work to do. Sometimes it’s empty because someone was visiting or I was traveling, so my routine wasn’t the same as usual, but if I know there are no different circumstances around those days, I know I need to do something! I also have a longer term goals check-list which I carry over from month to month so I can see what I’ve completed and what I still need to do.

So check in with yourself! And hopefully it’ll help you see trends of your behavior and days over time.

Until tomorrow!

265 days to go!

P.S. Went to ballet. Yay!!

Day 39: Happy September!

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Happy September! I get older every year (obviously), but September always brings the excitement of fall and new beginnings. I no longer live in a place with seasons (Hi, LA!) and I’m several years out of school, but I still can’t wait for the cooler weather that comes with September.

At the beginning of every month I make my habit list in my journal, my new budget in excel and my monthly list of goals I want to accomplish. It’s a good way to check on how much money I’m spending, how often I’m doing the things that are important to me and what things I want to accomplish during the month. It’s SO easy to let the days pass you by and leave things left undone.

There’s only 24 hours in the day. 8 spent sleeping. 10 spent working and commuting and 6 left for everything else (fun things, chores, exercising and the like). It’s really not enough time which is why you have to have priorities. If you spend time on one thing, you’re not spending time on other things.

I find the first of the month is a good time to check on my priorities. It’s easy for a year to go by and not have accomplished anything you want, so a quick check in to go over my annual and monthly goals every month is really helpful. Maybe I don’t want the things I wrote down anymore and that’s okay. But I also have to be sure I want the things I’m working towards. And what better day to check in than the first of the month.

Off to do that now. Until tomorrow.

 

Day 31: Monthly Check-in 1

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Sooo…somewhere along the line my days got messed up and I’ve been numbering everything wrong for the past month. Typical, but that’s okay because I just googled how many days it’s been since July 23 and the answer is 31. Back on track! (Hopefully)

I’ve decided to do monthly check-ins to see how I’m progressing in the long term and where I can improve! TO THE EXCEL DOC!

Screen Shot 2017-08-24 at 9.23.39 PM

Okay, it’s a screen shot of the excel doc. Now let’s revisit my goals in Day One.

  1. Become a Novelist – The righthand column with the bunch of “Yeses” are every day in the past month (plus some) that I’ve written. Sometimes it’s only a few minutes, and sometimes it’s much longer, but the important thing is that I work towards what I want every single day. I’m not there yet, but now I can see patterns in my behavior. Weekends seem to be tough for me to write some reason. I know 8/5-8/7 and 8/15-8/20 were the days I was dog sitting. And the end of July was when I got sucked into Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Still, I think I’ve written more consistently since I started this project and that’s a win. Hopefully next month it’ll be a row of green.
  2. Ballet! – I took a few months off of Ballet and I’ve just gone back. I’ve also tried to take up yoga, which I’ve gone to a few times and pop physique (groupon!), which I haven’t managed to go to yet. I’ve made a little progress in that I’ve started going to something once a week, but I really do need to go more and hopefully once I make it part of my routine, I’ll be more green and less red.
  3. Promotion – No movement on this front, but I didn’t think things would happen in a month, so I’m content to wait. I should ask for more opportunities at work to learn new things so I can be a good candidate when the time comes.
  4. Credit Card debt – Still chugging away on this one, but I’ve been set back a bit because I had to buy a few flights. Next month I hope to make a serious dent in it, but it looks like it’s going to take longer than expected. (As many things do.)
  5. In a relationship – Nada on this front too. Although I did try a few new activities and met some new people. Who knows what the future holds there? 🙂

So that’s my monthly check in. I’m doing better overall than I was a month ago, but I still have a long ways to go and need to put some serious work in.

Until tomorrow.