HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s 2018, and I did not wake up taller or skinnier and no one magically cleaned the house while I slept off the champagne so I guess it is up to me to make it happen. And so I did the one thing I know makes everything better: I made a list.

It’s not a new year in my life without a little selfhelpy list of goals!

This year’s list is different because I am using a cool (free!) app called Asana to track my goals and reminders. In 2017, I used this kind of software to track projects, progress, ideas, budgets and time commitments at my job. I put all the best of me into my work and by the time the winter break came, I felt ground to a nub. I had also put all my personal goals second to work, something that is officially changing right this minute.

Drew and I were on the phone last week talking about our New Year’s Resolutions. He asked me what the intention behind my 2018 list was. “I want to put myself first,” I said. “I’m sorry, that sounds selfish, but I have to. I’m burned out. I need to invest in myself first and then everything else next.”

“Why do women DO THAT? Apologize like that?” he asked. “Men don’t apologize for getting their needs at the top of their lists. Why do women apologize for what they want?”

It was some pretty profound stuff for a Tuesday. He was so RIGHT. Jeezus, why was I apologizing for putting my health and my growth first? Without that everything else falls apart.

So I’m taking a tool I have used to be super successful at work into my personal life and I am going to invest in me in 2018! And while I love my paper and sticker lists, this one works on the phone as well as your regular computer. My phone is the one thing I always have with me. I will walk out of this house with no shoes and no keys but you know I have my phone in my hand.

During 2018 I am sure the sticker list will make an appearance, but I am going to use Asana as the master list and try this extremely granular daily tracking approach.

Why all the attention to daily tracking? Over the winter break something clicked — I seriously overestimate what I can accomplish in a long weekend and underestimate what I can accomplish by doing small, daily, repeated tasks. For example, I had the idea that I could catch up on a year’s worth of work during the week between Christmas and today. HAHAHA. That did not happen. But I could definitely see the effect of doing a few minutes (or even an hour) every day working on my sewing room.

My 2018 Goals

Overall Theme of These Goals:

Make Positive Personal Growth Happen By Doing Daily, Weekly, Monthly Stuff (and not saving it all up until December 21st again like in 2017, ahem.)

Daily Goals (365 Goal)

• Walk at least 10 minutes every day
• Plank every day starting with holding 1 second and building by adding 1 second each day, working up to holding it for 365 seconds (6.08 minutes on December 31, 2018) (!!!)
• Practice a foreign language every day, with the minimum being at least one Duolingo practice per day. (By the way, I am doing Spanish to start this year. Hola, amigas!)

Weekly Goal

• Declutter or deep clean the house for at least one hour each week.

Monthly Goals

• Give myself one day a month as a dedicated Project Day (this is at least a four-hour block of fun to sew, knit, paint, do anything creative.) (Probably sewing!)
• Do a monthly check-in on my goals to gauge my progress and adjust where needed. Happens on the last day of each month.

And that’s it. This year’s list seems pretty small compared to previous years. This is a new approach for me, master of the wordy, long-winded bullet point list. In 2018 I will focus on sustaining a few key areas and not spreading all my energy out across a massive to-do list.

There are some other general goals and project ideas and tasks sprinkled though my Asana board, but the ones on the list above are my only trackable goals and they have specific time commitments. Each goal is set to repeat either daily, weekly, or monthly. Another positive is that I can use Siri to add to-do items, shopping list stuff, hopes/dreams/reminders, book titles I want to research, names of songs (all this seem to come to me when I am driving, so I like the voice-to-text aspect.)

Everyone does it differently, and I am happy to see I have also evolved over the years. Rather than set some generic, vague goals like in past years, I have created a list of time-boxed actions that I hope will make me feel a lot of forward momentum. Momentum is tricky because it can go in a positive direction or a very negative direction. I felt the pull of negative momentum last year and it showed up in my attitude, my health, and my stress levels. The only person who can change that is ME and man oh man do I have a drive to change the direction of this vehicle. Just thinking these through this past week has made me feel invigorated and happy.

Have you set any goals for 2018? Do you have things you want to achieve, places to go, people to see, things to do? Are you also ready to take on the world? I can’t slog through another 2017. I feel the world is changing and most of us want to be a part of that positive change. For me it starts at home, by taking care of myself and investing in my health and well-being. What’s on your list?

List or none, I hope this year is kind to all of us. ♥