Hello! I am officially back from my online holiday today Monday 17th February. Thanks so much for supporting me over the break by reading the blog.
You may have noticed a few small changes happened while I was away. The free menu planner on the blog is no longer available. When I moved hosts late last year, the menu planner had transition issues. Created very early on in my blogging journey, to get it up and running properly would require significant funds so I made the choice not to keep going with it. My apologies to those who used it, but with limited resources I had to make that decision.
I will be making a few further tweaks to the blog, based on feedback from the annual survey to help improve navigation and ease of use of the site over the coming months.
January 2014 Monthly Review
Each month I review my progress (or lack of!) towards my personal goals for 2014. You can see my goal list in this post here – Goal Setting For 2014 And Creating My Decision Making Framework. The monthly review looks at the highlights and lowlights for each month to help keep me on track and learn from my experiences.
Work – Place boundaries on my work hours
As I have had most of January and half of February off from work, this goal is yet to be truly tested. I do know though, it is going to take me a little while to find my feet and create a rhythm for my working week.
Family – Increase family harmony
My focus for Jan/Feb was settling the kids into the new school year. Our youngest started school, our second eldest son starting secondary school and our daughter changed schools.
I am so glad I took time off work, as these changes have been a significant adjustment for the entire family. The three with new starts have needed particular attention and have been very tired at the end of the week.
In order to keep things as smooth as possible I have altered my morning exercise routine so I am home earlier to make sure everyone is doing okay getting ready for school. I will do this for another week and think it will be okay to return to my normal routine.
I have however been way off the mark in terms of my goal to achieve 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments. This will be my main focus for the rest of February.
Health and fitness – Test myself
The main testing of myself this last month has been not to run so much. I have an annoying injury that just won’t go away, so my running has halved this month, to give it more of a rest. I am really missing my long runs!
In terms of diet, and I use diet in the dictionary meaning of the term “the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats” – source I am trying to be a little more adventurous with it. For instance I have been having the same smoothie for breakfast for about the last six months.
I am such a creature of habit, I find something I like and I stick with it. So I am making myself try new smoothie combinations, so I can come up with three favourites all a bit different that I can rotate through.
Local community – Increase my participation in the local community
I am enjoying being the class coordinator for my prep child’s class. I have sent out a couple of notes sharing personal stories and experiences along with necessary info I think the parents might need. We have our first meeting this week, so will find out a little more about exactly what I should be doing.
Now I am back at work, I will be going through my email requests for community speaking events and undertaking research to find a community partner for the key fundraiser on the blog.
Learning – Find new sources of information to grow my knowledge
I am booked in for a conference in September which I am very excited about. Will be looking out for the most appropriate and cost effective conference/events for me to attend across the year.
I have started getting back into podcasts and will include my highlights in my upcoming weekend reading and listening posts!
Fun – Increase the time I spend with those I love
Having time off from work made this an easy goal to achieve this month, making sure I continue with it is the important part.
Over one month into 2014, have you reviewed your goal progress yet?