June 2017: Monthly Goal Review

June 2017 marked the 1 year anniversary of the Pulse shooting here in Orlando. Our family and friends were safe, but everyone I know was shaken up and impacted in their own ways. For me, heading to the Pulse memorial at Lake Eola and surrounding myself with others affected by the tragedy helped. The nightclub itself was less than 2 miles from the office I work from.

What is a Goal Review?

Going forward, I’m going to try writing these “Monthly Goal” posts here, rather than using Evernote. I hope that by doing that I’ll hold myself more accountable, and share my process for self-improvement.

Here’s the high-level goal I wrote for myself for June 2017.

By July 1, 2017, I want to worry less about what it would be like to move out of our house, by focusing on taking action that would make a move easier.

Things I did well toward this goal

I went through a number of rooms in the house and cleared things out that had been weighing on my mind — giving away or planning to give away things that had been long underused. Here are some successes from the month. Items with a “+” I did well at, with a “-” I wanted to do better at, and with a “<>” I did OK at.

• + Gave things to Goodwill, and sold them on LetGo.
• + Sold most of my old, unused video games and systems to GameStop.
• + Cleared out nearly everything in my upstairs storage closet.
• + Clear out electronics that I have no intention of ever using — including duplicate cables.
• + Reduce luggage to where all luggage fits inside 1 carry-on.
• + Brought a bunch of old Code School t-shirts to the Pluralsight office and gave a bunch away.
• + Reduced the number of books I own by bringing technical books to Pluralsight office, and giving away books I’m never going to read, or have read. I’m down to 1 bookshelf of books I care about.
• + Sold my Flute to a young musician (who had played Carnegie Hall!) through LetGo.
• + Gave away some heavy folder tables that have collected dust for 18 years.

What’s still in the works?

• <> Lined up someone to take my Baseball cards.
• <> Pulled out some Postcards I love, with the intention of selling some 50+-year-old ones, and giving the rest away.
• <>Giving away and selling the last few video games and systems that are unused, but are on eBay, or loaded into my car with a plan in mind.

What didn’t go well?

• – Come up with a plan for what to do with the remaining photos and old documents I inherited when my mom passed away.
• – Go through the attic and move everything down.
• – Lots of areas of the garage still seem cluttered. Need to go through and dispose of a bunch of cleaning and other hazardous material.

Other goals for the last month

In addition to the main goal, there were a few other areas that I wanted to focus on.

• + Go to the gym 3x a week. Did a great job of this, sticking to a (mostly) MWF morning schedule.
• + Read more. I started reading books, but have also added Medium and Feedly. The thought behind this is reading more impactful articles rather than news.
• <> Plant grass in the front yard. We shifted to just having grass magically spring up due to the rain. Now we don’t need to do this.
• <> Cook more things based on recipes. Made a few recipes, but I didn’t specify enough about what success looks like for this goal.
• – Put all yard trash out by the curb. There are piles and piles of wood, leaves and other yard trash that’s accumulated around the yard, that I haven’t put out.
• – Get more sleep. I was shooting for an average of 7 hours a night by the end of the month, but I’m still under 6.

What Next?

After evaluating how things went during the previous month, I’ll write up my goals for the next month.