We figured we should practice what we preach about Goal Setting and share our goals for the year. Like everything else on this site these will be updated as things change.
2021 Goals
| Goal # | Category | Goal | Goal Amount | Current Status | Goal End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Health | Average 10k steps a day to improve physical health | 10,000 | 12524 | 12/31/2021 |
| 2 | Health | Track mood in Daylio at least 4 times a week to improve mental health | 212 | 2 | 12/31/2021 |
| 3 | Health | Drink Water 60 oz of water a day to improve health | 260 | 2 | 12/31/2021 |
| 4 | Personal | Read 4 Books to increase knowledge | 4 | 0 | 12/31/2021 |
| 5 | Personal | Write 52 blog posts to improve the site | 52 | 0 | 12/31/2021 |
| 6 | Personal | Update “The Company” Data twice to enhance the data and keep it fresh. | 2 | 0 | 12/31/2021 |
| 7 | Financial | Invest 10,000 in retirement savings to prepare for future retirement | 10000 | 0 | 12/31/2021 |
| 8 | Financial | Save 30,000 for down payment for a house. | 30000 | 0 | 12/31/2021 |
Health Goals
These are goals focused on physical and mental health.
Goal 1 – Steps
One of my biggest surprises for me in 2020 was my progress in my health goals. This sadly has not been a huge focus for me previously. This past year when COVID started I began going for walks just to get out. This has snowballed into a habit for tracking and focusing on my daily steps. Since June I have been hovering around 10,000 steps per day so I think this is a realistic goal. I plan on accomplishing this by continuing to track my steps using my Apple Watch.
I have also been tracking my food using MyFitnessPal. In the app I have connected my exercises so I get additional calories when I work out. I am all about finding any ways to gamify what I am doing and building habits, so I really like the fact that I am using my exercise/steps to “reward” myself.
Goal 2 – Mood Tracking
This is honestly the goal I am most nervous about completing. I have been trying to track my mental health for years. I just have not been able to make tracking it a true habit. As a data nerd, I would love to have a quantitative and qualitative history of my mood over time. I am interested in seeing what common patterns there are for activities and events in my life that correlate with my positive days and negative days.
I plan on completing this by starting small and changing when I get reminders from this app. Currently I get reminders at 8pm but honestly have made a habit out of ignoring those reminders. When I say starting small, I mean I will focus on just selecting the mood rating, and at least 1 activity. Hopefully as it becomes part of my routine I can add more notes and details.
Also in case you are curious of what app this is, you can find it here.
Goal 3 – Drink More Water
Sadly right now most of my water intake comes from coffee. I would like to focus on drinking more water to make sure I am staying hydrated. I plan on doing this by using the MyFitnessPal to track the amount of water I drink and set reminders on my phone to make sure I do it every day. I have a water bottle that holds 30oz so my goal is to drink it twice every day.
Personal Goals
These are personal self improvement goals that related to learning and expanding myself.
Goal 4 – Read a Book, Dummy!
I can not tell you over the past few years how many books I have started and then never finished. I plan on completing this by breaking this out by quarter. I will try and complete a book every quarter and will know I am falling behind if I do not hit those checkpoints. I also hope to pick which four books I am going to read in the next few days. I am also thinking about reading books specifically about topics I plan on writing on this site (Business, Personal Finance, etc.). I might blog specifically about the books I read which would help me work towards two goals for this year.
Goal 5 – Blog Posts
The main focus in this category will be on this goal. I hope to write more than 52 posts this year, but building this site is new for me, so I need to be more realistic about what the level of effort it will take to create each post. I plan on accomplishing this by blocking off time every weekend to work on this site. I also plan on posting at least once a week. This will help me see if I am falling behind.
Goal 6 -“The Company” Data
I would like to continue to build out the “The Company” data and make it more useful for other purposes. I have a few ideas like adding Performance Management data, Learning data, Benefit data, continuously add new hires/terms, and expand the worker data. I would like to have two “major” updates a year and keep growing this. There is so much confidentiality when it comes to HR data (for obvious reasons), that I think it would be great to have dummy data that can be used for testing and examples when it comes to HR projects and analyses. Similar to #5 I plan on blocking off time to focus on this as part of my “weekend work”. I might even block off certain weeks just to focus on this data.
Here is the Trello board I am using to track these ideas: https://trello.com/b/0zX59dpz
Financial Goals
Plan to write a lot more about Personal Finance. These are just 2 goals I have personally set for myself for this year.
Goal 6 – Retirement Savings
Plan to invest at least 10,000 between my 401k and IRA. My goal is to max out my IRA (6,000) and put at least enough to get my employer match. I plan on doing this by “paying myself first”. My 401k automatically comes out of my paycheck. For the IRA, I will set up automatic payments as well.
Goal 7 – House Savings
One of my long term goals is to buy a house. Still trying to figure out exactly what I am looking for, but I want to start saving more money towards this goal. I have some money saved already but I really want to push myself to save a lot more in 2021. Like above, I plan on doing this by “paying myself first”. I will set up automatic payments using the account I have set up specifically to track this goal.
Want to share your goals? Feel free to share them with us at contact@koluit.com or if you are brave enough to post them on Social media. Let us know!
*None of the Apps listed are sponsored. They are used for my personal goals and tracking so I figured they would be good to share.
Happy new Year