2021 is right around the corner and it’s time to become more responsible with goal setting and time commitments. Here are 8 things everyone should track in the new year.
I’m a list maker. I’ve mentioned this about 6 million times over the years I am sure. It’s the only way I’m able to get through this crazy thing called life.
As a writer, I have dozens of contracts opened at once. That means there are a lot of people that hold me accountable and those requests come to me from every angle. There is no structure. There are no guarantees. I live in a constant state of chaos.
And you know what? Lists balance me. They ease my worries. They help me feel like I have some sense of control over it all.
Yesterday was the first day that I really sat down and started to look at the upcoming year as a whole. I thought about how I wanted to walk into this new year? Manage my upcoming workflow? And if there was anything that could change from the current year’s process that would create a simpler day?
I came up with a few solutions – all doable. Here’s a quick rundown of my grand plan. Just so you know, I bought a simple day planner that has pages filled with empty lines. I’m using that one book to house most of this information.
8 Things I Plan On Tracking This Year
- Incoming gig income on a daily basis: I tend to do this regularly, but I am going to really stay on top of this. I want to see WHEN I earn my money. Do I get most gigs in quarter one? Is February normally snow? I can’t tell you this information historically because I’ve never really tracked anything in a timely fashion. I know what I’ve made for the YEAR…but not broken down by a particular quarter/month/season. This year, I want to understand trends.
- Draft due dates: I am horrible at this. When are projects due? I need to get a better grasp of deadlines so I can stop being last minute Nelly working during the 11th hour all the time.
- Side hustles: I used to always have several streams of incoming going at once. I’ve gotten a bit lazy with this. Need to step up my game.
- Food intake: This is going to be hard for me because I am not a huge fan of being conscious of what I eat. I hate that I am in my 40s! WAH! I downloaded a food tracker and plan on punching everything in as I go along throughout the day.
- Water intake: My goal is to drink 5 big glasses of water a day. MEGA for me because I am made up of 95% tea. I also want to get my kids into this habit. Water is a personal goal for the upcoming year.
- A budget for the house: A huge goal I have for my family is to own several pieces of commercial property over the next ten years. The only way to do that is to SAVE.
- Time kids spend on electronics: The children need to spend LESS time online (me too).
- Social media numbers: I recently went onto YouTube and saw that I had over 20,000 followers. Had NO CLUE! I don’t really upload much anymore ever since Bill said he wasn’t interested in being filmed and so I stopped checking. However, that was a nice number to hit. I was excited to see it. I think that once a month, I am going to do a sweep across all channels and see how I am doing, where the biggest increases were and attempt to figure out why they occurred.
That’s it for now! What did I miss? Are you planning on tracking anything this year that I did not include? Would love to hear. There’s always room for another list.