Altered Goals

I thought I would be posting a lot this month with an in-depth discussion about my goals for 2014.  As I've struggled to get almost anything done this moth I've realized that I need to make my goals very, very limited.

Things that are important to me include a lot of things, but I just can't do everything.  In fact, I can't really do very much since I am pretty slow in developing skills / learning and reading.  I also do not have very much time to myself.

I'm interested in (in no particular order):

• Archaeology
• Anthropology
• Sports (watching)
• Hockey
• Rugby
• Football
• Sports (participating)
• Swimming
• In-line skating
• Rugby
• Hockey (wish I could)
• Joining some sort of team
• Sailing
• Short fiction writing
• Horror
• Fantasy
• Mystery
• Sci-Fi
• Comedy
• Audio Drama
• Novel writing (same genres as my short fiction)
• Bike commuting
• Podcasting
• Old Time Radio
• Pets
• Getting another Bearded Dragon
• Getting a dog
• Pond fish
• Gardening
• Camping
• Boy Scouts, specifically Commissioning
• Girl Scouting
• Deism
• Forestry
• Staying healthy and doing things that will help me prolong my life
• Romance
• Family
• Music
• Ukulele
• Bass (wish I could play)
• Sax
• Wish I could join a band
• History
• Military in general
• WWII era
• Chicago
• Greece
• Astronomy and star gazing
• Greek and Greece
• Family vacation
• Reading

So you can see that there are a lot of things.  A lot of these things have additional expansions below them.  A lot either need a huge investment of time, money or both.  Some of these things are very personal, some are charitable and some are involved with others in a mutual nature.

Even when I start to narrow down the list or prioritize it so that I can develop goals I end up adding more and more.

Previously I listed five areas for goals:

1. Greek
2. Archaeology
3. Writing
4. New Job
5. Commissioning

I left off a health oriented goal, but two weeks ago I weighed myself and clearly I need to exercise on a regular basis.  You can see that the goals keep getting scope creep. If I want to change these six to areas of importance rather than goals it might help, but I'm not completely convinced.

I think I need to tighten this very much, man up and focus.

My will make just two goals:

1. Learn Greek
2. Get published

However I will measure everything I do against 7 priority levels:

1. Staying healthy
2. Learning Greek
3. Staying employed
4. Family support (things my family needs me to do)
5. Commissioning
6. Getting published
7. Archaeology

I'm going to talk about my priorities more on Flowers of Mundelein.  I'll track my Greek goal on Flowers and my publishing goals here.

Καλό Καλοκαίρι! Happy Summer!

Wow, Greek again.  That is indicative of my renewed efforts.  I think the only major goal I'm going to have for 2014 is to learn Greek.  I'm going to have to get serious about this.  It has been going on far too long for me to not know it better.

I rode my bike to work four days this week.  That's the most in one week so far this year and I finally hit 25 commutes.  That's very far off the pace I set two years ago when I rode my bike to work over 75 times (that's about 1/3 the workdays in a year and several hundred dollars of savings in fuel alone).  I got rained on very much yesterday and a little earlier in the week.

Let me review my goals:

1. P90X - done
2. Learn Greek - behind
3. Quarterly Dates - No dates so far this year.
4. Get a New Job - I've been checking the job boards, but haven't found anything yet.
5. Get Girl Scout Training - done
6. Gold Commissioner JtE - working on it.  I have to, others are depending on me, especially scouts.
7. Fortnightly History Podcast - Although I'm far behind in my original schedule,  I've been reading up on Chicago History and podcasting.  I set up my podcasting equipment in anticipation of recording a podcast and of recording the guidebook for the Chicago Lincoln Avenue Trail, but I'm having some trouble getting it to work right.  I think I'm going to tank this as a goal because I need to work on the CLAT more and the others.
8. Learn the Trees  - I am going to put Learning the Trees and Participate in an Archaeology activity on hold for this year.  By not fretting over these I think I can concentrate on my Greek studies.
9. Participate in an Archaeology Activity
10. Join a Club - We'll see.  If it helps to concentrate on Greek to skip this one too, then I will.

For the second half of the year here are my goals in order of importance:

1. Learn Greek
2. Gold Commissioner JtE
3. Get a New Job
4. Quarterly Dates

Four goals, six months.  Think I can do it?

2013 Goal Setting - Part 3a

I have the following goals to set yet:  Mental, Abbott Worker, and Writing.

I'm feeling a bit guilty for not taking a Chicago Lincoln Avenue Trail goal.  I've got other people involved in that project and I really should take that as a goal.

I've decided that I'm going to take that as my Mental goal, sort of.  I'm taking, Learning More About Chicago as my goal, and that feeds right into CLAT.

1. Passion - I love Chicago, the CLAT was my Dad's project I want to keep alive and I owe it to those who have already said they would help
2. Visualize - I envision scores of young people gathering for a parade-like opening, each wearing their earbuds plugged into their pod-esque devices.  The TV, radio and print media are there to record and interview for the human interest pieces of the day.  The march begins and everyone listens to the professional sounding hiking guide as they learn about Chicago and earn unique patches.
3. Interim steps
1. Mental Goal only steps
   a.  Get books from the library
   b.  Read up on general Chicago history
   c.  Find material about Lincoln Avenue and read up on that
   d.  Record any applicable information for use with the CLAT
2. CLAT specific steps that may or may not be finished, but we'll work on
   a.  Finish the CLAT blog (this has several interim steps itself)
   b.  Steering Committee meetings
   c.  Pitch to CAC (Chicago Area Council of the BSA)
   d.  Pitch to the GSUSA Council (Greater Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana)
   e.  Pitch to Eagle candidates who want to help, and then coordinating with those Scouts on their Eagle projects
   f.  Get the guide re-written
   g.  Get the guide recorded and posted
   h.  Publicity
   i.  Fundraising
   j.  Parade coordination
   k.  On-going upkeep efforts
   l.  Blazes along the route
4. Write down - here; in my planner; on the CLAT blog; and for the CLAT itself; I'll be writing meeting notes.
5. Due Dates - 
   1.  For reading it's more of an ongoing thing with less designated due dates than weekly reminders
   2.  I'm setting the date of the end of the quarter for the first  Steering Committee meeting.  We'll set the schedule from there
6. Review Monthly here and on the CLAT facebook page.

Wow, that seems like a lot.  I've still got my Abbott Worker and Writer goals to do yet.  I'm pretty sure my writing goal will have something to do with audio dramas and/or podcasts.  To date my most lucrative writing effort was an audio drama so I may continue in that vein.  Also, that lends itself well to the audio hiking guide of this goal.