Earlier this month I shared my business and personal goals for the month of January and did a status update a
few weeks ago. Since January comes to an end on Friday (I cannot believe how fast this month has gone by!), I decided to do a final update on how I did with those goals for the month.
As a recap my goals for January were:
- Blog twice a week
- Check my email according to schedule and no more than that
- Schedule more automated posts for my social media platforms
- Engage in social media in a more structured manner by setting time limits for each of my social media platforms
- Go to bed by 11:30 pm so that I am well rested both physically and mentally
When I set these goals for the month I made sure to set realistic, practical goals so that I wasn't setting myself up for failure and six days in when I did my first update, I was actually doing well in all areas except social media engagement. I was struggling to find the balance between all or nothing and said that I planned to write out a schedule for the rest of the month to help keep me on track with that.
Well twenty one days later and I have a decidedly mixed final update...
Let's break each goal down separately shall we:
- Blog twice a week - this goal has not been a problem for me to keep up with at all. With the exception of a recent two week stretch where I didn't post at all (which is highly unusual but due to a sick bug running through the house could not be avoided) I really look forward to doing my blog posts. I'm so happy that people really seem to be responding to them and they are really helping to build my brand.
- Check my email according to schedule - this one has been been hit or miss. For a good portion of the month I was doing well with this and only checking twice a day: morning and afternoon. Then I made the mistake of leaving my email open a few days and every time I would hear the ding, like Pavlov's dog I would check my email. I also made the mistake of checking it before I went to bed a few times, and of course that meant that I would have work things on my mind while trying to go to sleep...disaster! I'm now working on keeping my email closed during the day & no email before bedtime.
- Schedule more automated posts for my social media platforms - this has actually worked out really well as I have come to fully embrace the Hootsuite social media management tool and my new best friend the Hootlet app that I have in my Chrome browser. I have been able to schedule out my content for the week from my social media posts folder that I've bookmarked in my browser (I know I can go out longer than that but baby steps...) and if I happen to find something interesting while just browsing I can schedule it with the Hootlet app. This has proved to be a huge time saver for me and I absolutely love it :)
- Engage in social media in a more structured manner by setting time limits - another hit or miss area for me, but it is getting better. Keeping up with my personal social media has been a struggle for me, but Hootsuite helps in that I can post to multiple platforms at once if I want and I can see exactly what I want to see at a glance without getting distracted. The other thing I have started doing lately which has really helped is setting half hour time limits for each platform and sticking to them; this way I get to hit all of my platforms without staying up half the night!
- Go to bed by 11:30 pm so that I'm well rested - this has been a complete bust for the past several weeks. Again I started out really well and could feel a real difference in my body and mind with the extra rest, but I have had so many things on my mind lately, including my dad, that I'm back to going to sleep between 12:30 - 1:00 am, sometimes later than that (I know, I know...). I tried forcing myself to lay down a few times by 11:30 and all I need was toss and turn so I'm just going to have to get through this phase as best I can and work hard to get this under control.
Overall I feel that this month has been semi-successful because I more or less hit all my goals, even though some do require some additional work to get back on track. The point is I have a plan for the month on what I want and need to do which keeps me focused and as I've stated before I love a challenge (just not a video one!) ;-)
