Goals

Hello, everyone! Happy summer!

I just finished my school for this year, and I am so happy! I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands now! I feel so free!!

Alright, moving on. I don’t want to bore you guys with my excitement!

Today, I’m going to share my summer goals with you guys, and give you some tips on how to be productive.

Step 1: Planning

The first step in being productive is to plan. Specifically, plan out what areas you want to become more productive in.

Here is my list:

Studying for my driver’s test
Spending less time on screens
Reading more books
Taking more time to write
Doing more blog posts
Doing more art
Doing more exercise

Your list can even just be one word ideas. That’s how mine was at first, but I formed it into phrases so you guys would understand.

Step 2: Forming Goals

The second step is to form goals. Basically, you just want to take your ideas and form them into reachable plans.

An important thing to note in this step is that THESE GOALS NEED TO BE REASONABLE. If you make them too hard or complicated, it’ll be too hard and you’ll probably just end up giving up.

Here is my goal list:

Take driver’s test before fall.
Do a blog post each week.
Write two hours or more each week.
Read for at least thirty minutes each day.
Use art as a substitute for screen time.
Exercise at least three times a week.

Once you’ve formed your list, write it down. You can even decorate the page! Below is my page I created in my bullet journal:

Step 3: Idea List

Next, you should create a list of ideas of how to form these goals.

Here is mine:

Take driver’s test before fall.
- Study every day (if possible).
- Schedule appointment.
- Take test.
Do a blog post each week.
- Start working on post several days before the day you want to post it.
- Post on the same day each week.
Write two hours or more each week.
- Have a goal of writing time for each day.
- Record when you write.
Read for at least thirty minutes a day.
- Read instead of picking up a screen 🙂
- Make a list of books I want to read.
Use art as a substitute for screen time.
- Do art while watching tv.
- Do art instead of watching tv.
- Learn how to paint.
Exercise at least three times a week.
- Go for walks with my family.
- Go for runs.
- Watch exercise videos.

Step 4: Tracking Your Goals

Next you need to come up with a way to track your goals.

I highly recommend trying a bullet journal. If you would like more information on what that is, check out this post. You can have a separate page to track your goals, or you can track them in your habit tracker.

Step 5: Do it!

Next is the hardest part: actually doing it. You may not feel very motivated at first, but after you start seeing results, you’ll become excited and motivated.

Be Nice To Yourself

An important thing to remember while trying to fulfill these goals, is that you need to be nice to yourself while you’re getting started.

Don’t push yourself too hard. For example, I want to start exercising more. On day one, I’m not going to go run a marathon; that would be ridiculous. I’m going to start slow, like maybe taking a brisk walk or going for a run.

Don’t expect to be a superstar after the first few days. I know I’m not going to be super fit after I’ve done my first two runs. It’s going to take time.

If you miss a day on something, that’s okay. I know I will have a few days where I’ll be too busy to study for my driver’s test. I’ll just study as much as I can in the future.

Until Next Time . . .

That’s it for this post! I hope this information was helpful for you! Let me know in the comments if it was!

Next, time I’ll be giving you a look at my new bullet journal. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! Happy writing!

For I hold you by your right hand – I, the Lord your God. And I say to you, “Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.” (Isaiah 41:13 NLT)

Greetings! I hope your November and Thanksgiving was wonderful! Today, I’ll be giving my November Monthly Recap.

Writing

My goal was to start going through my book, but I got no writing time in last month. None. I suppose I could’ve spent less time reading… but Legacy came out last month! I just HAD to spend every spare second reading it!

So, on the less desperate side of things, I plan to spend less time reading and more time writing this month.

Blogging

Well… I think we all know how blogging went for me this month, if you read my update post. No posts. No time to write.

But, this month will be better. I plan to get at least two posts out that will continue our bullet journal series.

My goals last month were:

Drink more water. I did start on my water goal, which was to get to the point where I drank three cups of water each day. I got up to two cups, but not three.
Read three books. I did reach this goal.
Study driving book. Nope. I didn’t. Not even once. I have a driving guide that I’m trying to get through, but I just haven’t had time to study it.
Work on going through your book. This is referring to the book I’ve written. As I said before, I didn’t have any time.
Do a devotion every day. I did not do very good on this goal.

My goals this month are:

Study driving book at least three times a week. Be finished with it by the end of Christmas break.
Get at least two blog posts out.
Work on going through my book.
Get to the point where you drink three cups of water a day.
Read at least two books.
Do daily devotions.

Books

Last month, I read three books and started one.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. This is the fifth book in the Harry Potter series, and I loved reading it for the second time. The first time I read this series, my mom read it out loud to me; so this is my first time reading the books for myself.
Legacy. Okay, I have a lot to say about this book, but I’m going to save it for a different post. I got a request to post about this book when it came out, so that can definitely be expected this month, for all of you KEEPER fans. This is the eighth book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series and I enjoyed it. So. Much! Whenever I had a break in my school work, I buried my nose in this book. I CANNOT WAIT for book nine.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I finished this book for the second time, and had just too. Many. Feelings. Of course, I loved it all the way through and I started book seven the moment I finished it. 🙂

My goal next month is to read at least two books (this is less than last month because I want to focus more on writing and studying my driving guide). I plan to finish book seven of the Harry Potter series, and start another series of books (I’m not sure what I’ll read next).

Bullet Journal

I think I’m finally getting the hang of bullet journaling (says the girl who’s been bullet journaling for over a year). I’ve figured out a system that works for me, and I didn’t miss very many days of filling out my journal this month. That might sound kind of discouraging, given that I’ve been bullet journaling for over a year, but it has truly been an amazing journey. It has been so fun to figure all this out, and I am so happy that I decided to try it.

This month, I did a Christmas-y theme, given that it is December.

I used stencils to create this page, and I’m not thrilled with how it turned out. But it’s only the title page. I don’t really look at the this page a lot.

This is my monthly overview. I have my calendar, and a section for events and another section for goals underneath it. On the right page is a page for reviewing my month. The first two sections are for writing out the positive and negative things that happened during the month. The next two sections are for recording the books that I read and my water goal. Finally, I have a place to record memories and and a drawing of a snowman. Isn’t he just so cute?

Next is my mood tracker. This is a simple tracker. Each day, I’ll choose the snowflake that best shows how I felt and draw it in the empty space.

This is my December Brain Dump, where I can write down anything I want to remember.

Here is my Habit Tracker for this month. It’s the same as always: dates are written at the top, and on the side of the green line is where I will write my habits.

Finally, here is my weekly layout. I did this in gel pen because I couldn’t come up with any color schemes that I hadn’t used on my regular pens and I had a lot more colors to choose from with my gel pens. The left page has all of my extra information and the right page contains all of the daily sections. At the top of the left page, I have a section for my goals. I’ve decided to start doing three goals for each week as well as the ones for the entire month. Underneath that is a section to record all of the exercise that I do during the week. The section below that is divided in two- one for extra notes and one for my water tracker. Finally, I have my to-do list at the bottom of the page.

Life In General

Life in general last month was hectic. We just moved in to our new house last October, and this month was full of unpacking the house and going out. Then came Thanksgiving, and it was from house to house, dinner to dinner, family to family. So now, I’m glad to be back home, writing this post in front of my Christmas tree.

Next Time…

That’s it for today’s monthly recap. My next post will be about Legacy, so if you’re a KEEPER fan, stick around!

How was your November? Are you all set for Christmas? Are you a KEEPER fan? Tell me in the comments!