My goal-setting heart goes pitter-pat at this time of year.  I love this time to reflect on what went well the previous year and to plan for the year to come.  For 2015 I’m going to add in the practice of keeping One Little Word for the year.

My one word is going to be FOCUS.  I tend to have many ideas and I want to follow them all, and follow them right this minute.  This year, I’m going to work on reigning myself in a little bit, to focus on the here and now, to complete some big projects and to separate my work life and my home life a little better.

For me, that means fewer goals, but ones that will make a bigger impact on my life.

Focus on Family: 

I will renew my commitment to be off my phone/computer for certain hours during the day. From 8:00 to Noon and from 5:30 (or so) til morning.  This is HARD.  But I only have a limited amount of time and I am so easily distracted that I often find myself frittering away my most productive hours of the day on meaningless tasks and/or the rabbit trail of the Internet.

We have recently instituted Family Fun Time around here.  Evenings are pretty full, so we don’t do well at spending face-to-face time with our kids during those hours. However, we are blessed to have Jason working very close to home (it’s about a 5 minute commute).  He comes home for his lunch break around 11:00 each day and the kids and I drop what we are doing and we all just play together. We might have a Lego challenge, or play a board game.  We might play Frisbee or go for a quick bike ride.  We try to let the kids pick activities often.  We hope this will change the tone of our home for the better.

Focus on Creating.  

My big work goal for the year is to build up my Etsy shop to include 100+ items. This is going to be a huge undertaking and most of my morning creative time will be spent on this goal.

This goal also includes creating for the blog.  I hope to share a free printable with you every single week this year.  I already have so many ideas (see above) and a fairly detailed plan in place for making that happen.

I’ll also be participating in the 52 Project, which I am thrilled and a bit intimidated about.

Focus on Reading.

Reading is my relaxation.  I consistently read 60+ books in a year and I plan to continue that habit in 2015.  I am going to add in some additional specific goals that fall under the reading category as well:
 
Read the New Testament.  I will be reading/studying Walking with the Women in the New Testament along with this goal.
 
Read Aloud Daily.  We’re pretty good at this already, but this year we are going to try not to break the chain.  The only requirement is that it needs to be for 10 minutes or more each day.

I’ll continue with other habits, such as exercise 5-6 times per week, journaling (mostly) daily, budgeting, etc.  But in the interest of FOCUS I won’t be including those items in with my yearly goals.

2014 Goals Wrap-Up

As for my goals for 2014 goals, I did well overall.  I bombed a couple of the goals; but I’m trying to keep in mind Progress, Not Perfection.

SPIRITUAL:
Attend the Temple 2 times per month. (Did not do well with this.  I think there were a couple of months last year that we went twice.  But for the most part we were grateful to go once.  This is definitely something I’d like to improve on!)

Work through the Come Follow Me study guide.  (I worked through the majority of this, but lost steam toward the end of last year.  I just wanted to decide what to study on my own.  So I left it for a while, but I’ll definitely pick it up again.)

Memorize one scripture per week as a family.  (This was hit and miss.  I have a great plan in mind, but didn’t follow through.  Maybe for 2015?)


MARRIAGE
“Catch up” Daily.  

Weekly “Date Night”.  

PERSONAL:
Say NO to projects I’m invited to participate in that do not excited, inspire or add to our family life. (I’m definitely improving in this area!  Here’s to saying No!)

Weekly Night Away.  (We were very consistent with this. Over time it shifted a little bit.  The last part of the year, Jason took all the kids with him and left me at home alone to work on projects.  I think this will continue to change as circumstances do, but the practice of me having time to work on projects is pretty ingrained for us right now.)

Read 60 books.   I read 63 books last year.

Read all of Jane Austen’s novels along with the Motherhood and Jane Austen Book Club.  

–Read Hans Christian Anderson’s complete works with Ellie. (We didn’t finish this book.  We ended up starting a Mother/Daughter book club last year and didn’t make the time to read this as well as our monthly book club books and read alouds for school.  This book goes back on the Someday List.

Keep a Gratitude Journal. 


HEALTH:
Run 2-3 times per week.

Fitness Blender workout 3 times per week.  

5-7 veggies/fruits each day. 

FINANCIAL:

Pay off remaining adoption fees.   We just made the final payment this morning! I’m so excited!

Build back up our emergency fund.   This is a work in progress, but we’re happy with how much we saved last year.


USE TIME INTENTIONALLY:

Limit time online/on phone. (did well with this on and off during the year.  I am recommitted to phone-free hours this year.

Outdoor time daily (even if it’s just 5 minutes for an extended walk to the mailbox).  We all need sunshine and fresh air in order to be happy and healthy.  We will spend some time outside each afternoon.

20 minutes one-on-one time with each child daily. (Didn’t get to this every single day.  But most days we did.)

HOME
Complete several smaller renovation projects that have been on our list for a while. 

Maintain home management plan. (I totally dropped the ball the last couple of months.  But we’re in major purging mode around here and it feels SO good! I’m constantly tweaking this, and have a new plan for 2015.)
   
Grow a garden.