Are You Meeting Your Goals This Year?

How are your goals for 2009 coming along?  Any progress?  I outlined an action plan back in January to help make this my most productive year ever and thought it was time for a review.  As a reminder, I limited myself to three goals so that I could have a lot of focus on each of them.  Here is an update on my progress:

Exercise Four Days a Week
My exercise and healthy eating have been right on track! I hurt my back shoveling snow yesterday so this will be the first week that I won’t hit four days of exercise.  Of course the shoveling was pretty exhausting so maybe I could count that as a workout 🙂 

I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost, I haven’t gotten on the scale once.  I’m trying out what I call the “un-diet” where I just eat healthy and exercise and don’t focus on how much weight I’ve lost.  My goal is to make it a lifestyle change and the weight loss will follow.

Outsource 3 Major Tasks
I’m halfway through a great book called “Cloning Yourself for Fun and Profit” by Edward Savio that’s walking me through the process of smart outsourcing of tasks. He’s a screenwriter and novelist who’s successfully used virtual assistants in his work and documents his process in the book.  I’ve only been reading it so far, haven’t taken the time to go through the workbook so that’s on my list of things to do.

I’m also in the middle of putting together a screening process for people that apply for the jobs that I want to outsource.  My goal is to spend the time up front defining the tasks and objectives and then let my screening tool filter out the best people for the job.  I committed to having it completed before our baby is born this Spring so the clock is ticking!

Limit Myself to 3 Projects  & Complete One a Month
Unfortunately, there were several projects that I had to stop working on all together in order to help get my outsourcing system in place.  My goal is to get them back up and running eventually once I find quality people to help me with them, but for now, they’re on the back burner. 

I’ve done a pretty good job of staying focused only on my outsourcing process and keeping up to date with this site.  I’ve had many distractions come along but I’ve managed to pretty much avoid them; of course taxes are something you can’t avoid so I had to make time for those. 

I haven’t done so well on the “closure” aspect of this goal, I said that I’d finish one project a month and I didn’t finish one in January or February so the pressure is really on this month.  I’ve made a lot of progress but don’t have anything finalized yet, I don’t want the first quarter of the year to end without finishing a project so by the end of this month I WILL have one done.

How about you? Are you tracking and working towards your goals to help make 2009 the best year yet?

Ben Edwards, the founder of Money Smart Life, saved up enough to buy a Nintendo back when he was 12 years old. When he used the money to buy shares of Wal-Mart stock instead, he knew he wasn't like the other kids... His addiction to personal finance has paid off for his family and now he's helping you to afford the life that you want. Check him out on the web at Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook.

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