Quarterly Projects (No Resolutions for me)

I don't make New Year's Resolutions anymore. When I did, I tended to forget about them even before January was over.

However, this year, I'm doing Quarterly Projects. I figure I can remember something for 3 months, and this way I'll get 4 things rolling, instead of forgetting the 1 or 2 resolutions I made.

For this year, I'm focusing on areas that have gotten away from me a bit when I was in school, or that I want to improve upon.

Quarter 1 (January, February, & March): Decluttering and Reorganization/Organization.

When we moved into the new house in October 2008, I was in the middle of a school semester, and didn't really care where things were, just so long as they were sort of where they needed to be and out of my line of vision. After I was done with school, and starting to pay a little more attention, it dawned on me that many of our current organizing systems were soooo not working.

Also, when I was painting every closet upstairs last summer, it was a big hassle to unload the closet, look at most of the stuff and think, "And we kept this WHY again?" and then have to sort through it. Since I will be tackling the main level painting-wise later this year, I'd like to be able to do it without having to move a bunch of crap, er...treasures (hence the decluttering).

Q2 (April, May, June): Finances

This might seem like an odd thing to do in the middle of the year, but for me to fully function, I have to get all the visual clutter out of the way first. THEN I can really focus on what I'm working on.

We did the Dave Ramsey thing a couple of years ago. And it worked. It worked so well that we got lazy about it, and fell into the "Oh, we can get XYZ and shift money around to cover." We ate out more, didn't make budgets, didn't plan for upcoming expenses...basically we'll be back on step 1: Get $1000 in the bank. Luckily we know what needs to happen so we'll be OK. It's just a matter of being disciplined.

Q3 (July, August, September): Home Improvement

I made a good start at this last year. I keep a list of things that I see that need done. I just ran out of time last fall (painting-weather-wise) but will have a better plan of attack this year.

Some of the projects are more than paint. Some involve building things. Some involve demolition of things in order to rebuild. All of them will be fun.

Q4 (October, November, December): Exercising my mind and creativity

There are times that I miss school. I know...seems odd. However, in my undergrad classes, I learned things that I hadn't ever heard of, and always wanted to know more about. That's not the way school works, though. There isn't time to go as deep into various subjects as I'dve liked.

As for my creativity, I like making things, but had to put it on hold so I could do homework. I really enjoyed making some of the gifts that we gave for this past Christmas, so I'll be doing more of that. I may even learn to sew. MAYBE. I'll have to see if I can get over that mental block.

So, no resolutions, just good solid goals.