Setting Goals

Setting goals for my leave year is important to me.  At the very least, at the end of the year, my goals help me look back and know that I accomplished some things during the year off.

Months ago, I started a list in my writer's notebook with all the activities that I wanted to complete  during my year off.  I know I will never manage them all. You've already seen my totally unrealistic travel list.

I know very little about goals except that they should be SMART.  That is to say:

Specific
Measureable
Attainable
R?eally, really cool?
T?errific?

OK, now it's completely obviously how little I know about goals.  It's a good thing that I don't need to know any knowledge to continue this post.  I have goals, way too many goals.  What I really need to do is to figure out how to pare them down, rank them, or organize them somehow.

A friend of mine who also has the summer off has organized her summer goals in this way:

Things to Do Daily

Things to Do regularly

Long Term Tasks

Handyman Tasks

Fun Stuff

And I tried that, but it ended up looking more like a to-do list than an overarching set of goals to plan my year by.

So, I'm thinking of some different categories.  Here they are, with an example of each:

Once in a lifetime activities that I've wanted to do for a long time
(learning to surf)

Fun pastimes I want to do several times during the year
(horsebackriding)

Goals that will challenge me
(run a marathon, or walk a marathon, well, complete a marathon somehow)

Deeds that will improve my health
(exercise every day)

Stuff I already do that I want to keep doing because it makes me happy or improves my life
(write every day)

Tasks that if they were done would be a load off of my mind
(find my digital voice recorder)
   
Then after I sort all my goals into those groups, I can rank them in order of importance.

Finally, the only thing left is to achieve as many as I possibly can.