2016 Goal Setting

I've never been good at Goal setting I always ended up forgetting about the goal or just giving up because it got overwhelming. So recently I decided to try it differently this year. I sat down the other day and told myself this is it you want to do these things you need to figure out a way to do it. These are the tricks I'm using to get my goals in order and achieve them.

My first step was to grab a pen and some paper and write down the areas I wanted to work on. For myself I chose;

-School

-Book

-Etsy

-Blog

I then started with one, in this case School and started to write what I wanted out of this semester. I decided that is how I wanted to organize all four sections, So each section was separated, spring 2016 which is January to May then Summer 2016 (June and July), then Fall 2016 August to December. For right now I just focused on what I wanted out of spring.

The Four notebooks and the Colors.

Now I have a list of goals for each section of my life with a reasonable "due date." I didn't stop there however. I then took to One Note this could be done with just a plain note book but this way I can print off the pages I want. If you haven't used One Note before it is a Microsoft office product that helps you organize your notes and documents all in one place. Now I have never really used One Note before but I love the ease of use it has and thought it would be perfect to use for my goal planning. In one note I made a notebook for each thing on my list, color-coded them with my planner, then moved on to pages. Each notebook, except school, has two pages: one is goals and the second is a timeline.

My Goals page for two of my sections

In the Goals page I've typed up the goals I wrote on my piece of paper earlier. Then it gets fun, The timeline page is where I've made my goals reasonable and easily achievable. I split up my goals put the date I wanted it accomplished then split the main goals into tasks with due dates. This way I know I need to work on a task for my main goal on a specific day and I know I will be able to do the task.

My Book timeline for one goal

Then I moved to my Planner and put the task in there with a sticky tab on the day I want to do it. This way when I plan for the next week I know I have something to do for my goal and I can make the time to do the task.

There you have it my new trick to get Goals done, splitting your large goal into small quick tasks that you can work on once a week. I hope this will help you with any of your goals you may have I know I feel so much better about getting everything done this year!  

Back to School: Chooing an Agenda and Color Coding Life

 
      I've mentioned before that agendas are definitely a must have when it comes to college. I have searched forever for that perfect agenda. The ones at Target and Walmart just weren't what I was looking for, but they were what I could afford. The life planners that you can get online were always so expensive, but looked like they would work. So after years of agendas that just didn't work for me I went on the hunt for one that was exactly what I need and could afford. Over the summer I found in my search a type of notebook/agenda system called Arc by Staples. When I found this system there was already a lot of others using it for the printable that can be found online. Well a few years ago I went to make my own agenda with no luck as to how to bind it or the time to work on it. Needless to say when I found the Arc system my mind went straight back to making my own. This time however, I had the time. So I created a personalized agenda from front cover, and back to everything in between. The best part is if something doesn't work I can change it. I can customize it to my liking, add pages, takes pages out, and move pages around. For me I wanted to make sure each section was exactly what I needed so in the end I have five sections:
                         -Planning
                         -Budgeting
                         -Journal
                         -Book
                         Contacts
      Each section has pages that I worked and reworked until it was what I needed. For the sake of this post, I'll only talk about my planning section.

In my planning section I have a monthly page where I can write important dates, with room at the bottom of the page for my monthly to dos and inportant notes for the month.

Next is the weekly view page which has a small section for each day as well as a section for the weekly to do list. I also added a section for notes for the next week and a box for task tracking.

Then I have a page for each day. Now on this page I have my schedule for the day, a spot for notes/
to dos for the days. This is my favorite page I made, I always wanted a spot to write down everything for a day and the weekly view section never has the room.

My big Agenda tip is to find what works for you, and if you can't...make it! There are tons of free agenda printables out there as well  as some really nice ones for sale. If you go this route I would weigh your options of binders and the Arc system. I personally love the Arc system but the hole punch for it is expensive. So if you don't want to drop the money on that a small binder would work just as well.

Now that you've seen how I've set up my agenda, I'd like to tell you my other big agenda tip. Color coding! Yes I love color and as you'll find out I love to color code. When I color code my agenda I think of everything I'd need to write in my monthly calender then pick a color to go along with it.

 This is my color code key for my agenda. Making this isn't necessary but if my boyfriend looks at the calender he'll know what the colors mean. Also when you start a new color key (which is what I just did) you might need a small reminder.

Hope you enjoyed, and have fun picking out, or making your agendas!