Motivation Monday: Summing Up June Goals
So, in the beginning of June I laid out my goals for the month. Which, was a big step considering I got off track for a few months (which is probably to norm for me). The good news is that I feel I did ok for the month. No big stellar steps taken, but baby steps are there.
My goals for June were:
Writing: Most of my time has been spent with writing or working at IDG, I want to get back to blogging here, on my personal blog at least once a week. I am working on a weekly calendar to keep my time divided for everything I need to do.
One of my goals is to write a book on one of my families this year, I have not started that at this point. But, it is still something I want to do. It might move to be a goal for next year. Jen Holik told me that I needed to read Sharan DeBartolo Carmack’s book, You Can Write Your Family History
I have started a book project and have the chapters I want already in place, plus a few of the chapters have been started on. I need to put this in my weekly calendar so that I can move the project forward.
For the month of June, I wrote 4 posts for this blog. I also wrote 2 articles for my Examiner Column, an article for Irish Times Remembered and posted to my photo blog 2x (no writing there, lol).
So, I feel that I did very well this month with writing. Next month, I will be launching a new blog related to travel and photography and will probably spend a lot of time on that. I also have plans to redo this website in the very near future, so writing might be in the back seat for now as I plan all of the changes I am going to be making.
Organization: This seems to be the area that will never be complete! Just this past week I cleaned my desk off again. I made some file folders and got many things filed, now I just need to get a file box for all of them. I also still need to go through all of my family files and get them cleaned up and organized. I also might put together some files for the places I am researching to keep up on the history of that specific area (thanks to Pat Biallas of Geneajourneys for this great idea).
The good news here is that I went through a large pile of genealogy related papers and have them all filed (I still need a file cabinet for them) in folders. I need to go through the ones that are in a file box and make sure I have the files set up the way I did the new ones. The exciting part of this is, I have all of my records together that need to be transcribed. I figured it best to keep them away from the folder they belong in until I get this completed. I seem to work better when I have the certain steps I need to do completely mapped out in writing (or by different folders). So, I hope to move on that sometime this year.
Education: I am into month 4 (I believe) of ProGen 15. So far, I am loving the opportunity to have monthly discussions with my peer group. Second best is going over everyone’s assignments. Personally, I am a visual learner and I tend to learn more by looking at everyone’s assignment rather than the reading. I am trying to stay ahead on this, but it seems that I usually get my assignment in just in the nick of time. Need to get ahead of this, that way I can have the rest of the month to work on everything else.
ProGen goes well, still getting the assignment in within the last two days or so. But, the important part is that I am still in the game and working towards this. This is a long program to commit to and there are times when I ask myself why I did this and then I remember that it is to make me a better genealogist and to really take a look at the business aspect of genealogy. I am not 100% sure if I plan to be a for hire researcher, but if I do, I am prepared.
As for July, I am not setting any goals for the month. Personally, I have way too much going on for the month to try to commit to doing anything that needs to be done.
Also, I cannot believe it is July already. 2012 is going fast!!!
How did you do in the month of June with your goals?
