Planning for January 2023
As part of my plans for the year, I have been reading the latest tips and tricks articles on goals, time management, etc., and one thing that frequently happens is evident in my list for the year. I have too many commitments, in short. Almost 100 big and small ticket items for the year. Some are huge, like building an observatory; others are small, like doing a backup. But it’s a huge list for a year.
If they were all the same size, I would have to do one every three days to get through it all. And if I did them all? It would probably take me close to 2 years of solid work, assuming I wasn’t actually working for a living at the same time. They’re big and ambitious plans, deliberately so. “Unrealized potential” and all that.
One thing that has been niggling at me is that I also try to update things weekly, which is often too short a timeframe. I can parse out, say, 15 steps to building an observatory, and one of them might be the design phase which itself could take 2-3 weeks, with several sub-activities for it too. And thus, on a weekly basis, the pieces are too big and numerous, and the timeframe is likely too short. One of the tips articles talked about the difference between work goals and personal goals, particularly when you are balancing work/life on a daily basis. It noted that while work activities might break down into week-long or even daily progress tracking, personal goals might be better grouped around the month. And without over-committing. It got me thinking about the difference between larger projects (like an observatory), ongoing repetitive tasks (like exercise), or one-off tasks (like cleaning up the basement). Is there something in there that will help me plan more effectively on a monthly basis?
So what would happen if I picked a small subset of the 100 yearly goals to focus on in January? And then perhaps grouped them as I said above? Well, you’d end up with this list.
| Larger projects | Ongoing repetitive | One-off tasks |
| Finish organizing basement New doctor, meds, shingles question Start Lego Colisseum Setup my Reading Challenge for 2023 Use my 3D printer Hang pictures around the house Observatory: Figure out a pier | Walking 3x per week Bowflex 1x per week HD backup x 5 Complete 2 more sections of HR guide Blog: 1 MR, 1 recipe, 1 TVR, 5BRs, 2 QotD, 2 JoTD, 2 articles curated Upload 1 year of photos to Flickr Complete 2 lessons on GIMP | Finish Sleeping Car Porter Setup TV and stereo in basement SunLife account, submit health claim Assemble exercise bike Assemble work-out bench Update AstroPontiac Renew website domain |
Hmm, a subset of 29 is probably too high a commitment. But I am off for another week. Some of them are also for delegation, like hanging stuff around the house — we’re using TaskRabbit to do that, not doing it ourselves. Plus 14 of them are virtual computer thingies.
I think it’s doable. And, not for nothing? Two of them are already done. 🙂 Happy January!
