goals

Our 2020 Goals

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We are a little late in posting this post!  The idea of 20 in 20 is from Melody over at The Minimalists Next Door.

Goals for 2020

  • declutter 2020 items in 2020
    • I doubt we will hit this amount but we will give it a try!
    • go through all the pictures
    • tackle the garage again
  • visit 20 public lands, hopefully spend 20 nights
    • national parks, national forests, BLM lands, state parks, county parks, etc. count.
  • do 2020 squats
    • there are plenty of squat challenges out there but with our bad knees, doing hundreds at a time seems unreasonable.  We figure we can average 5.5 per day for the year.
  • lose 20 pounds each
    • we joined WW (formerly Weight Watchers) so this should help.  We weren’t very effective without the accountability.
    • Barb has already decluttered 11.8 pounds in 2020 and John is at 8.7 pounds.  (20.5 pounds together so far in 2020!!!)
    • maybe we should check these off as decluttered boxes at the end of the year

So what are your goals for this year?  Let us know in the comments!  You might just inspire us to add a new one to our list!

SMART Weight Loss Goal

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Nicole’s recent post “Dec. 1. Almost 2020” over at Prosperity and Calamities inspired me to start my weight loss journey sooner than 1/1/20.  Those darn New Year’s resolutions!  They never work so why not just set a goal now and get started.

Kiddo #2 was home when I read the post and we had an interesting discussion about personal goals.  In the work place SMART goals drive me crazy because they always mean I need to do more.  I hadn’t really thought of them for personal use.

As part of our discussion, weight loss came up.  It was so easy to use the SMART goal method for this!  Why didn’t I think of this sooner??

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S – Specific – Weight loss didn’t seem specific enough.  I decided on an average of 0.5 pounds per week.  To help with this,  I went online and joined WW (officially not called Weight Watchers any longer).

M – Measurable – I’m pretty sure the scale (which I dread) will help with this.  Something like “pants aren’t tight” didn’t seem as measurable.   By the end of the year, the goal is to lose 26 pounds.

A – Attainable – I think if I stay on track and record my food and exercise, this goal is attainable in 1 year.

R – Relevant – How could losing weight not be relevant to my life and health.  We went to the scale and I realized I was 2x my previous WW goal set 30ish years ago.  Between the 2 kiddos, I was able to reach lifetime member status.  The weight has been gradually creeping up since then.  I only have data for the last 20 years and it has averaged about 4 pounds per year.  It was very eye-opening to realize this.  A little bit per year has done significant damage to my body.  She also had me do a fasting blood sugar test (using John’s blood tester) and it was 110.  Not diabetes but not good.  Losing weight will help with this too.

T – Timely – A year seems like a reasonable time goal.  If I’ve gained 4-10 pounds a year, I can lose that amount (and more likely more) in the same time frame.

Tomorrow marks one week following the WW blue plan.  I’ll occasionally be posting about this journey.

 

 

How Many Miles Have I Walked in 2018??

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As you may recall, I got an Apple iWatch Labor day weekend.  I’ve been faithfully wearing it to track my steps.  The only drawback I have is that the app that comes with it (Activity) doesn’t calculate a total for the month or an average for the month.

To solve that issue I use the Accupedo app.  It records all the stuff from my watch/Health app but also totals the steps for the week, month, and year into a nice graph.  Love this app!

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Unfortunately I still have to add up the miles manually using the “History” information.  Easy enough to do, just annoying.  You can also tell when I changed from using my phone as my pedometer to the watch.

So here are my totals for 2018 since getting this awesome “pedometer”:

I can’t believe I’ve walked 235 miles!  If 4 months was 235 miles, a year would be 705 miles.

GOAL FOR 2019 is 1,000 miles!

Decluttering The Stuff Challenge

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We are ready for a new decluttering challenge!

How about 100 items?  We should probably set a deadline – how does May 1st sound?  That would be 9 days with an average of 11 items per day.  I know some of you will do all 100 in one decluttering event and that’s ok.  I’m just feeling the need for some accountability on getting rid of some stuff!

Who’s ready to join me in a quick “GET THE STUFF GONE” challenge?  Remember that even 1 items is one less item cluttering the place!

Habit Trackers, Trial 1

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So I’ve decided to look into a habit tracker app as suggested by Melody at The Minimalists Next Door (The habit of forming habits post).

I have an iPhone so all apps are for the phone.  I used these 2 apps for the last week.

App 1 – Productive – free version used
* easy to read interface
* track 5 habits on free version
* not obvious you need to swipe to mark as complete
* premium/paid version is $13.99 per year (must renew to continue with the premium version)
* statistics are for days you complete all habits

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App 2 – HabitBull – free version used
* easy to read interface (especially on the daily screen)
* easy to figure out how to mark habit completed
* weekly screen shows all habits and they day you marked it completed
* track 5 habits on free version
* premium/paid version is $4.99 one time fee.
* shows statistics for each habit overall, daily, weekly, monthly


Conclusion:  I’m removing Productive free, continuing HabitBull free, and also trying Habitify free.

2018 Goals

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Well, we have decided on 2 goals for each of us, the house, and financial.  Keeping it simple and specific seems to be the best way to do this.

HOUSE
◊  Remove 2018 items from the house/garage.  We think this will be our last year of counting.
◊  Get rid of the air hockey table.

BARB
◊  The always on the list but more reasonable this year, lose 15 pounds during the year.  That’s only 1¼ pounds each month!  That seems doable!!  Tomorrow is Weigh In Day!
◊  Do yoga class/video at least twice a month.  After the shoulder injury, this is something that hasn’t happened in about 6 months so it’s time to get back into it!

JOHN
◊  A weight loss goal of 20 pounds for the year.
◊  Complete another backyard planter.  This is really more of a house goal but that’s ok!

FINANCIAL
◊  Have a no spend month – most likely February.
◊  Decrease our food out budget to average $400 per month.