Weekly Goals and Checkup April 30 - May 7

Setting written goals was a great motivator for me.  While I didn't completely fulfill my goals, I came much closer than I would have had I not written them down. 

Here again are last week's goals and how I did...

As a mom:

• Have morning devotions with the girls every weekday. We got 4 out of 5 days.  Friday was a crazy day and it never happened.
• Have 15 minutes of school with Grace three times.
• Practice "Jesus Loves Me" with Grace and Leah every morning (for a nursing home special).
• Brush up on John 3:16 with Grace at least once a day.  I did this one on Monday and Tuesday, and then totally forgot about it!
• Sing/teach the girls "I May Never March in the Infantry" once a day.
• Teach Grace The Goops poem. Practice before/during lunch.  I ended up ordering The Goops Book and decided to wait until it came to start this one. 

For me:

• Listen to 30 minutes of Crazy Love on four days.
• Read 1 chapter of Power of a Praying Parent each morning. The other book for this month, Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard came in first, so I've been reading that one instead.
• Run twice.
• Do two weight workouts.
• Write 4 notes. I only wrote 3.
• Blog three times.
• List two items on Ebay.  I listed 3 items!
• Have a date at home with Ben. (we'll probably hang out in the garage watching him work on something!) This didn't happen either.  Next week. :)

Here are this week's goals.

As a mom:

• Have morning devotions with the girls every weekday.
• Have 15 minutes of school with Grace 3 times.
• Practice "Jesus Loves Me", "I May Never March in the Infantry", and "He is Able" and John 3:16 with the girls every weekday.
• Get outside for a walk or playtime twice.

For me:

• Create April monthly finance spreadsheet for Ben and me to review together.
• Do two weight work outs.
• Run twice.
• Listen to Crazy Love for two hours.
• Write 3 notes/cards.
• Finish Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
• Do a batch of muffins and cookies for the freezer for Ben's lunch.
• Make Greek yogurt in the crockpot.

Weekly Goals April 23 - 29

I just finished reading an inspiring book called, Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. He begins the book by comparing those projects we procrastinate on to eating a frog.  No one wants to eat a frog, but if you must do it, don't stop and think about it, just step up and take the first bite. The book is an overview of what the author views as the 21 top tips to being more productive and tackling the big, hard projects. The gist of the 21 ideas is to find your priorities (what you alone can do and that will make the biggest impact on what you value most), write them down in order of importance, break those projects into bite-size chunks, and get busy on them. I am pretty excited to apply a few of the principles that he covers.  The book is written from a business perspective, but I think the ideas easily carry over to anyone's lifestyle, including my stay-at-home mommy career.  To be honest, overcoming procrastination and being productive really boils down to living a disciplined life, but I love the tips that he suggests to speed you towards that end.  The one I'm really going to work on right now is writing a daily list of most important tasks and tackling them first thing in the morning.

As I think about the things that I value most, they would be my faith and my family.  When I think about the things that I alone can do that will advance the values that I hold, my list becomes pretty simple.  Here's my practical list for this week:

As a mom:

• Have morning devotions with the girls every weekday.
• Have 15 minutes of school with Grace three times.
• Practice "Jesus Loves Me" with Grace and Leah every morning (for a nursing home special).
• Brush up on John 3:16 with Grace at least once a day.
• Sing/teach the girls "I May Never March in the Infantry" once a day.
• Teach Grace The Goops poem. Practice before/during lunch.

For me:

• Listen to 30 minutes of Crazy Love on four days.
• Read 1 chapter of Power of a Praying Parent each morning.
• Run twice.
• Do two weight workouts.
• Write 4 notes.
• Blog three times.
• List two items on Ebay.
• Have a date at home with Ben. (we'll probably hang out in the garage watching him work on something!)