Actually, most of the time, when I FEEL like I'm fifty percent done with something, I'm actually not quite fifty percent done, so maybe it's more accurate to say, "Fifty percent is about two-fifths of the battle."
I'm referring to tasks. Or, in this case, goals. Six of them that I shared with readers of WPFF a few months ago, written out on actual e-paper. These were those goals:
1. Blog at least 2x a week.
2. Finish landscaping and lawn-tending that needs to take place in the fall.
3. Sort through the boxes of art that my children have created the last couple of years.
4. Become social again, scheduling at least one lunch or coffee a week.
5. Visit the girls' school at least 3x.
6. Burn at least 3 DVD's of video from our computer so as to erase the data and free up disk space.
Since a list of goals isn't any good if you don't go back and see where you came up short, let's review:
1. Blog at least 2x a week.
I was probably about 2x a week until the Christmas holidays blindsided me--they should totally put those things on a calendar or something so people know when they're coming. I ended up taking about 4 weeks between posts, but it was the worst kind of time off--the kind that you don't give yourself until afterwords, so instead of relaxing about taking a break, you stress about not being more diligent until you're finally like, "I guess I took a break." I think the goal was good, and I think 2 posts a week is reasonable for the foreseeable future. I THINK I'm learning how to do this better, though who can know these things for sure?
Level of Completion: Close
2. Finish landscaping and lawn-tending that needs to take place in the fall.
There's one bag of mulch that I keep hoping that I have already spread around our lone, backyard tree, then forgot that I did it. Unfortunately, my lack of any memory of doing this task has proven to be completely accurate. Still, each morning I look out the back window and hope.
Aside from that, fall landscaping was very successful-ish. I did some mulching, some spreading of grass seed, some fertilizing, and some mowing-in-lieu-of-raking. I even remembered to completely drain our rain barrel so that it wouldn't crack from freezing water inside.
Level of Completion: Very close
3. Sort through the boxes of art that my children have created the last couple of years.
My daughters are more prolific artists than I am a writer--or really than I am anything. I made it through quite a bit of their art, and I've got a "keeper pile". But they keep making more. I can't stop them.
What I have learned with this goal (and number 6) is that it's pretty hard for me to make time to do projects that take a little bit time each day, with the fruit of any given daily efforts being virtually negligible. I don't think I'm special in that way. I just need to redouble my efforts; or, what's it called after you've already redoubled your efforts once, then need to redouble them again? Is that retripling? Or is it exponential, so as to become requadrupling?
Level of Completion: Not very close.
4. Become social again, scheduling at least one lunch or coffee a week.
It probably helped that I had initially thought I had written down TWO lunches a week, so I got off a pretty fast start. Even though I slowed down a little, I still ended the semester having averaged even more than 1 meeting a week. Mission accomplished: I am fully social.
Level of Completion: Full
5. Visit the girls' school at least 3x.
I adjusted "what counted" with this one, and included chaperoning field trips as well as being "the heavy" at the girls' after-school Lego club. Plus I had one full-fledged, sit-in-on-the-classroom visit. All told, there were about 6 experiences of participation with the girls' school.
Level of Completion: Full
6. Burn at least 3 DVD's of video from our computer so as to erase the data and free up disk space.
As with number 3 above, this "little at a time" task proved difficult to make time for. A couple of funny things about this goal, though:
-I actually enjoy doing it
-I don't think it's going to take THAT much time
I did an hour's worth of editing today, and made a decent dent. I think doing 3 hours a week could put me on course to finish within a month or two at most. It would be VERY nice to have all of our video edited and cataloged. I just need to make it happen.
Level of Completion: Not very close, but maybe closer than I think
So, this concludes the looking back segment of my fall, 2011 goals, and the results are mixed. Maybe I came in at a little over 50%, which amounts to half the battle (since finishing the battle always takes a little more time than I think it will). Good for a batting average, not so good for an ACT score. In a week or so, I'll look forward again and lay out a new set of spring semester goals (which will include some rehashed fall semester goals as well as some new ones).
Thanks for reading.
-THP
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