Mid-year check in

Sarah Hart-Unger suggested a mid-year check in on her recent episode of Best Laid Plans , and it timed perfectly with a) my time off to go to Melbourne on a mini-break, and b) the start of my Q3 - which times with my daughters school term 3 and runs July to September. So on Wednesday afternoon this week after returning from Melbourne I took a couple of hours to reflect on the year so far, and do some planning for the next one. I did a goals check in, prioritisation of goals for rest of 2024, calendar review for rest of 2024, tentatively planning some paid leave, and net worth/retirement savings check in. Here’s some highlights from the process.

All planning done in my Erin Condren hourly weekly softbound Lifeplanner and notebook

Part 1: 2024 Goal Review and Plans

Here’s a few and how they’ve gone:

Personal goals:

• Start a blog - tick! My first post was March 1, this is 34th post, and I’m so glad I did this. I don’t have loads of readers (yet), but I do have a few dozen regulars plus some lovely commenters, and I even MET fellow blogger extrordinaire Elisabeth during a work trip to Canada, which was so awesome (blog recap here). Thank you to everyone who has read and commented so far (even if I haven’t managed to make the commenting easy so far). Already it’s fun to look back on old posts and it’s only been 4 months haha!

• Outline my novel - I made great progress in Q 1 (Feb-April), but then in Q2 work got super busy with travel, conferences and now grants, so I’m going to strategically put this on hold for Q3. I hope come Q4 in September I can pick this back up and finish the year strong.

• Start drinking tea to reduce my coffee intake - fail. In fact, no idea why I even thought this would be a goal, I have zero motivation to cut down my coffee intake right now. Maybe next year haha.

• Start a yoga or Pilates habit- umm, no, BUT I REALLY need to. My back and neck are often stiff and sore, and I feel far older than my 41 years some days. So this will be a big priority for the rest of 2024. Any suggestions for short (10 minute) yoga videos etc would be welcome. I want to start small and manageable.

Home goals:

• Set up all the rooms in the house so they function well. Tick! This has progressed really well. We basically swapped all the bedrooms so that the kids now share the Master, parents are in the second bedroom, and the third bedroom is an office. Also the living spaces are swapped. Still lots more setting up and organising to go but the layout now works great.

• Make a will. Fail. I know this is important, but zero Estate Planning has happened yet. I know this is a priority- it will be a Q3 goal for September- it’s going into the planner.

Work goals:

• Create 4 writing slots per week: Tick! This was so I could protect my “deep work” time, and to do this I’ve scheduled four 3-4 hour meetings with myself in my Outlook calendar. It’s gone very well. I’ve gotten a lot of writing done, and felt calmer, and it’s been good. Some writing slots get cancelled for urgent/important meetings, which is fine, but overall I get a lot of writing done. We often do have more control over our time than we think, as Cal Newport and Laura Vanderkam often discuss.

• Use Trello for my task management system. Mostly yes? I have a good system for this now, thanks mostly to Cal Newports system but with a few tweaks. BUT I’m not totally consistent with it (during busy periods I start operating out of my email again). So this is a work in progress.

• Create a professional website. Started. I did a lot of work on this in Q1, but did nothing in Q2 - so the landing page looks good but the other pages are not fully populated! I need to make finishing it a goal for the rest of 2024.

Priorities for goals for rest of 2024:

In addition to keeping up my blogging, reading, walking, and work writing slots, my Goal Priorities for the rest of 2024 are:

1. Create a yoga or Pilates habit

2. Create a will

3. Use Trello consistently

4. Finish my professional website

Part 2: Calendar audit and planned leave

Next I went through and looked at my calendar for the rest of 2024. I discovered that July, August, November and December are very busy with work (grants, conferences, travel) and kid activities (birthdays, school events etc). In contrast, mid-August until October are relatively calm.

Additionally, my birthday is in September, as is 2 weeks of school holidays (vacation). I also have a few weeks of paid time off accrued. So I have tentatively scheduled:

a) two days off for late August, for when kids are at school, for rest and fun;

b) one week off in late September during E’s school holidays, which will be a staycation and a mix of family fun, an annual massage with my best friend for our birthdays (both in September), and some time to myself (when E goes to vacation care); and

c) 2-3 weeks over Christmas/New Year - our summer. (I’ll lock this in closer once we decide on any travel etc).

After this, I felt much more excited about the next few months and the mix of activities planned.

Part 3: Net Worth check in.

I never used to do this, but now do this every few months, and its reassuring to see retirement savings (called superannuation in Australia) and house value increasing. Our budgets have been a bit tight in recent months (high interest rates and cost of living is a big challenge right now), so it’s nice to be reminded this is temporary, Our house value has increased 12% since we bought 18 months ago, and our super is steadily increasing too. So we are on track in the long term.

Part 4: Routine audit

We are in winter right now so we don’t have any dramatic changes to routine, but this was a good chance to reflect on anything not working. And I identified bedtime as the big issue. It should be 7.30 reading for lights out 8pm, asleep by 8.15 or so, BUT lately O especially was still full of energy at 8/8.30 and every night lately has been a fight. SO… it’s time to drop the nap. He’s 3 years 8 months old, so that’s about right. Today we did no nap and he’s asleep at 6pm! I’ll report back on the progress once we get a few days in (particularly daycare days as those will be the challenge).

Asleep at 6pm!

And that’s a wrap. Anyone else do a mid-year check in? Any big goals come out? Any fun leave/holidays planned? I found this a really helpful and fun exercise, so I’d recommend trying it out.