After messing around with the five and one year goals threads for a few years, i don't think those are helping as much as they could. Even a year is a big chunk and my life changes it seems several times a year. If my life was more stable i think yearly goals would be more useful for me.

So I was thinking for me and perhaps for others, quarterly or seasonal goals might be a better place to start. It might be worth trying this.

What are your quarter year goals?

I'll start. Over the next three and four months, I'd like to have these things done -

have food stamps
Make the small trailer safe for the road
organized my lean-to
Sold my recyclables
sold some silver
have utilities help with catholic charities
back on track with NACOG
have had a mammogram
everything off my huge porch (it looks like something from hoarders)
everything out of the rv, inside of RV cleaned
firepit made
have a financial plan for spaying my kittens before they become fertile

I think that is doable. These are high priority things that need to get done. I think my next step is breaking these things down into unintimidating components.

Done -
firepit

mammogram

doing -
utility help (call back monday and make appt)

spaying the girls (call vets monday and get prices)

bring in one load of recycling this week, bring coupon for extra 10%)

baby steps in the lean-to (some sections cleared already out, take a 'before' photo, think about getting ground cover in there, fold up tarps so they are out of the way, bring more recycables out)

Next -

food stamps - make date to go in and apply again

That's as far as i can take this timeline right now.

Dear Jilly -

That is awesome that you're making progress! Absolutely a year list provides direction, but the short term list provides actionable items to give you specific steps to move forward with! Those are great!

Hi Everyone!

Jilly,

I hear what you're saying, not all of us are long term goal people. So what we can do is what you're doing, breaking the goals down into actionable items.

I wrote about this recently What's Your Task Type?

Huh.
Setting my goals by season? That is truly an awesome idea.

One of my (long-term, haha) goals is to stop procrastinating. It's funny on sitcoms, but not in my everyday life when I have so much to accomplish each day. I really dig this idea Jilly - thx for sharing!

Keep us posted on yours... in the meantime I need to think of which goals I can work on this winter...

I'd like to have long term goals but with all the crazy that my DH throws at me, I can't even plan to be in one state or another past a few months.

This is why I am trying to have my own place, completely independent of anyone else or their timelines or ideas. The hope is that I can get stable enough to have a realistic chance that any goal i set from one year out will actually happen. Otherwise I just get upset when a year goes by and i look at the things I optimistically thought i might do.

Leah, that is a very interesting article. Thank you for linking to it for me.

I don't know what kind of task satisfaction i get. How do i figure that out? I don't think either long term or methodical is exactly me.

Rayna, please do list your seasonal goals! Just start with something. You can always change it as you go along.

This method is already taking some of the anxiety away re: not getting my garage cleaned out by 2012. I might still make it, but if I don't, it's okay.

Over the next three months, I'd like to:


Redesign my daughter's homeschooling schedule

Obtain (make or buy) a new bookshelf and add it to the living room

Write 6 articles in advance

Organize my garage

Give @ least half of what's in my garage away on FreeCycle or to family/friends

There. I feel pretty good about those being totally doable. I've actually made a longer list for myself and tacked it to my bulletin board. It's quite motivating. Woohoo - that was fun!