Goals 2020 Update #4

                                                 

And this is it, the final update of my goals for 2020.  What a funny old year it has been, but at least I have a pretty good excuse for not completing all of them.  Unlike the last few years.

British Sign Language Learning

Apart from this one, I don't really have an excuse for this one.  After all, I had a whole lot of extra time to work on this, but as I said in my last post I just lost the motivation.  It's a shame really as this is a great language to learn, but I have time still and will probably roll this over to next year.  I should also be able to concentrate on this more now that I have work, at least temporarily, and all the work that I can do on trying and get my money back from the airlines and travel agents is done - it's just a waiting game now.

Financial Fitness

I did manage to get my pension sorted out and rolled into one pot this quarter, so that'll make things easier moving forward (you can read more about that here).  I also now have a job (though it's closed down for the two weeks over Christmas and New Year) so at least there will be money coming into my account again.  However, we did have to buy a car for work and that, along with needing to keep aside six months rent to try and entice letting agents to rent us a flat when self-employed and with a zero-hour contract (it's turning out to be very difficult at the moment), has meant having to go back into debt.  It's upsetting but fixable with a bit of grafting.

Being a Tourist

I haven't been able to do as much exploring as I had hoped, but now with the car, this should become a lot easier to do.  We had a nice little walk on Dartmoor, which entailed getting slightly lost in the fog, and I've earmarked a number of other walks to do in the near future.  The biggest issue this last month has been getting the work schedules to match up and may mean that I just need to go out and do some solo walks in the future.  I have been a little unmotivated to go outside recently, but getting to work outside again has reminded me how much I enjoy it giving me a nice little kick out of the rut.

Paperless Productivity

I won't go too much into this here as I've already written a blog about it.  However, it's been quite an interesting time testing out all these new apps and, after a year of it, I've decided that OneNote has been the best note-taking one for me, and Cute Notes and Teux Deux have been the best apps for keeping an eye on my tasks.  I'll be making the full move next year.

That's it.  This really hasn't been a great year for getting goals done, but I still managed a couple and so I'm still going to classify this as a win.  It might not be a lot, but it's something.  I've decided that I'm going to end this year by really sitting down and deciding on some actual long term goals.  Normally I just make goals for the year, but really, if I want to actually get to where I hope to be, I need to plan a little more in-depth than that.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Goals for 2020 Update #3

Okay, we all know what I'm going to say here - this year has been a funny year, nothing has really gone to plan, circumstances have meant that what I had originally planned to do wasn't possible.........I could go on but I won't.  We know all of this already.  So, I'll just get into the goals and how they're going or not.

British Sign Language Learning

I seemed to have completely lost the motivation to carry on working on this.  It's not that I don't find it interesting or don't want to learn this language anymore, because I do.  It's more that after doing the job applications and trying to get money back on my cancelled flights I don't really want to do anything else that requires this type of brain activity.  For now it's taken a back seat, and that's okay as I don't want to make it into a chore I have to do.  I'll get back to it at a later date when I can make it a priority again and it's actually something I'm looking forward to.

Financial Fitness

As someone who is a self-employed subcontractor I was able to get a little financial aid from the Government over this period and this has made being unemployed at the moment much less stressful than it could have been, especially with the whole issue with the flight cancellations.  It did also allow me to get rid of the last little bit of credit card debt that I had from the car purchase in New Zealand, so that now I only have my student loan sitting there.  I am still being careful with my money at the moment whilst I carry on with the job search, but once I'm earning again I really want to put a good amount of money into my pension fund, as it's been almost a year now since I've been able to, and build up a bigger emergency fund in case this all happens again in the future.  Diversifying where my income comes from is also going to be really important as well.  The one thing I am going to do this quarter, and which I can do regardless of whether or not I have a job, is to find out how much of a pension I have at the moment and which companies I have pensions with (I have a few employment pensions that I've never really looked at).  Then I'm going to look at putting them all together in one place so I can really get a good idea about where I stand on this front and what I need to do in the future to research a good pension target.

Being A Tourist

This has obviously been put on a low burn right now as Covid-19 has meant too much movement in unadvisable if we're to reduce the spread of this virus, we're also experiencing a second peak here in the UK.  We did get to go to the South Island in New Zealand before we left, during their lull period of virus infections and when movement was allowed (you can read about this trip in part 1 and part 2).  We've also managed to do a little bit of exploring around where we are at the moment, but this has mainly been in urban areas and not the countryside walking we'd prefer to do.  Obviously the options have become even less now that the lockdown measures have had to become more strict right now, and lack of money is also having an impact.  But I am researching some day walks we can do and, now that I have a vehicle I can use, hopefully that gives us something to do to pass the time over the next few months.

Paperless Productivity

This quarter I looked at Journal It!, Memorigi, and Toodledo.  These are pretty good apps, but a little bit too complex for what I need at the moment.  S0, for now it's still TeuxDeux and TickTick that are at the top of my list, but there's a couple more for me to work with before I decide what is really working and if I'll move to the digital format entirely.

Of course, I have added other things to my day, mainly on the crafting front.  It just seems the most logical thing to do when you have a bit more time on your hands, quite a bit of crafting equipment you haven't really touched in the last few years, and a requirement to spend more time in your home.  One thing I do really need to add to this is exercise.  Now that I haven't done any path building in quite a while I've definitely loss the strength and fitness levels I had previously, so I'll be upping the exercise I'm currently doing to help ensure that it isn't too much of a struggle when I do finally get some work again.

Goals for 2020 Update #2

It's definitely been a strange three months for everyone, especially as pretty much all of it has been in lockdown.  It has had some effect on the goals I had set for this year, but not in the way I was expecting.  In fact, working towards most of my goals has been a good way of having some normalcy to my life during these times of change so I've actually appreciated them being there.

British Sign Language Learning

Now, this is one of the goals which I expected to do more of during this time than any of the others, but the truth is that I really haven't.  I gave myself a number of tasks to do whilst we had to remain inside and this one kept falling to the back of the queue.  I'm not entirely sure why.  Possibly because I was enjoying doing some hands-on activities again that I hadn't done in a while and possibly because of the difficulty in finding groups to talk to when you live on the opposite side of the world.  Whatever my excuse is this goal has fallen behind and I really need to play catch up now.

So, the plan moving forward is this.  Whilst I still can't be part of a group to help bring my learning forward I'm going to go back through the original course I learnt from and practise the words that we were taught there.  This will give me time to really get used to signing some very simple sentences and to using all my expressions to help when communicating information, which is important in sign language.  To be completely honest, I'm not a very animated person and it's important I learn to get over that if I'm going to pick up this language properly.  Once I'm back in the UK and able to meet up with a group to learn more I'll start looking into ones that are near me.  Hopefully, by that point, I'll have the basics under my hat.

Financial Fitness.

This goal is the complete opposite to the BSL learning in the fact that I was not expecting it to move forward much at all this quarter and yet it's done a lot better than I was expecting.  In fact, I've managed to finish paying off the credit card debt I incurred buying the car here in New Zealand and have managed to build back up my Emergency Fund.  Whilst I have managed to find some online jobs they haven't really been paying much and the main reason for me being able to do this has been due to some money I got back after doing my tax returns.  I have to admit I wasn't sure about whether to use it this way or whether to keep it in my current account in case I needed it in the near future, but I decided it would be better off making more money in my savings account and reducing the amount I would have to pay in the long run on my credit card.  I could always dip into these again if I needed to later.  Obviously getting a tax return isn't something everyone gets to have, but I almost see it as putting away savings every month during the year and then getting to use it once that year is over.

I am hoping to be returning to the UK by the end of this quarter and find a job pretty soon after that, which means that the next goal of building up a 6-month fully-funded emergency fund is still a possibility as long as we live quite simply and spend as little money on expenses as is possible.  I'm also looking to find some side jobs as well which will bring in some extra money and get us to that goal a little quicker.

Being a Tourist

Obviously, this hasn't been quite as easy as it should have been due to Covid-19, but we've been lucky in New Zealand in the fact that we've been given a bit more freedom earlier on than most countries have due to the low numbers of Corona cases here.  We've already managed to do some walking as the levels were dropped to 3 and then 2, you can read about them here, and then a drop to level 1 meant we got to visit the Sky Tower and Rangitoto Island.  Two locations we hadn't planned on visiting originally.  We're also looking at doing the trip to the South Island we had planned before it was cancelled due to Covid-19 at the end of March.  I'll keep you posted on that.

So the plan for next quarter is not only to, hopefully, travel south, but also start researching places in the UK we can visit once we've actually returned.  This will mainly be in the Devon area to begin with as that's where we'll be located when we first return to the UK, but we hope to go further afield in the not so distant future.

Paperless Productivity.

Still testing different apps to see if I can find the one that works best for me.  This quarter it's been Teux Deux, Actions by Moleskine, and TickTick.  Right now Teux Deus and TickTick are on the top of my list, but there are still a few apps to go before I can decide if using an app instead of a physical diary really works for me and if it's one of these.

And that's it.  Still working my way through the goals as best I can.  Whilst I do have plans for them this next quarter I have to admit that my main priority right now is actually listening to what's going on around me in this long-overdue civil rights movement and to learn as much as I can whenever I can.  So maybe my own goals won't go as far as I had hoped at the start of 2020, but I'm absolutely fine with that as long as I keep moving forward.

Goals for 2020 Update #1

What a beginning to 2020 it has been.  Whilst we knew about Covid-19 at the end of 2019, I don't think we realised just how bad it was going to get or that it would have the affect it would on everything that we now do.  It's easy to get overwhelmed about things like this, but there are things that I've been doing to help me feel calm and lead as normal a life as possible in these situations.  Part of that has been keeping up with my goals.  So this is how they've been going:

British Sign Language Learning

This has been a pretty good one for me.  I managed to finish my online course and got a lovely certificate for it (always pleasing).  I've been practicing my sign language as best I can since this has finished but, funnily enough, finding actual people to practice this with hasn't really been an option at this moment in time.  As soon as I can I'll be looking for a group I can join to keep practicing this skill and hopefully I'll be able to move to a fully fledged BSL speaker in the coming years. 

Financial Fitness

This first quarter has been quite slow, which is to be expected with not being able to work whilst in New Zealand. However, payments towards the credit card debit has still been paid and I'm hoping this will increase in intensity over the next few months.  Of course, this all depends on what work I can do during the lock downs right now.  I still think there's a possibility I can pay it all off by the end of June, but I'm just going to have to be a little bit stricter with myself over the next few months.  The plan is to do what I can to stay on tract with this and I have even registered with some side hustles to help reach this goal by the end of the year.  Having some of my work be online work should also hopefully mean that I'm not too affected by Covid-19 and can carry on earning whatever changes it brings.

Being a Tourist

This has been a pretty easy goal to do this quarter whilst I've been in New Zealand and whilst the corona virus hasn't been too bad.  Obviously it's entirely different now that self isolation is such an important part of keeping this virus as bay.  Looks like I'm going to be spending the next quarter planning what I'm going to be doing once I can finally leave these four walls properly.  Bit travelling around New Zealand has been pretty amazing, even if the virus did stop le from seeing two places I really wanted to see. 

Paperless Productivity

This one I've been keeping a monthly update on as I test out different types of productivity software.  So far I've tested Google Keep, Microsoft To-do, and Todoist, and you can read up on what I've thought of them through the links.  I'll keep testing throughout most of the year and will keep this blog up-to-date with what's been suiting my personal needs when it comes to being productive.

And that's been my first quarter.  Not as badly affected by Covid-19 as it could have been and it's still been satisfying to get as far forward on these as I have done.  A little bit of positivity for me at least at a time that's looking a little bleak.  How are your goals going?  I hope, despite everything, you've still been managing to tick things off your list to help you move yourself forward.  It's always good to keep yourself busy, even in times like this.

Goals for 2020

My inspiration photo.

As we all know from my last goals post, 2019 didn't exactly go according to plan.  At all!  But 2019 is over now so I'm drawing a line under it and resetting for 2020.  There are some basic habits that I have developed over the years through goal setting and which I will continue to do in 2020, running along in the background.  These are making more sustainable choices in my purchases and lifestyle decisions, getting rid of things I do longer need / use, and keeping my diet as healthy as possible and low in things like processed sugar.  But there are four larger goals I want to work on this year.

British Sign Language.

This is the roll over goal from last year and I really want to do this language the justice it deserves in 2020.  As the subscription to my online course finishes at the end of the first quarter it seems like finishing the last three lessons in the next couple of months is a good place to start.  Once I have finished the course I want to spend the next three quarters finding people I can practise sign language with.  To begin with this may have to be in New Zealand and I'm hoping that the connection between New Zealand sign language and British sign language should make it easy enough to cross over between the two.  Learning a new language (or at least attempting to) always makes me nervous and a bit stressed, and I think I've been letting myself make excuses to not do the lessons because of that.  But it's time to stop doing that and look the scary new language in the proverbial face.

Financial Fitness.

This was my goal a couple of years ago and I did pretty well in getting myself sorted, but I've kind of let things slide a little over the last couple of months (okay a lot - not helped by needing to buy a second-hand car).  I let some emotional decisions take over the more sensible ones and now it's time to get back on track.  I have some credit card debit to pay off, an emergency fund to rebuild, and I really failed last year at putting the amount of money I should have been putting into my pension fund.  The pension fund is especially important as I'm in my late 30s now and have never really had much of a great track record when it comes to contributing in the first place.  The time is now ticking and I really need to make sure I have financial security in my old age.

This isn't really a goal that I can break into quarters but, roughly, I would like to have paid off the credit card debt (including my partners) by the end of the first half of the year.  I then want to build back up my emergency fund and have started paying good amounts into my pension fund in the last half of the year.  This is going to be a little bit more difficult than normal as I only really know what's going on in the first three months of this year.  After that jobs and income amounts are all a bit up in the air, but I'm going to keep the goal and do my best to work towards it.   

I actually want this goal to carry on for a few years until I have gotten myself into a real sound footing when it comes to finances.  I think that'll take 3 years to do, as long as I'm sensible, and a long term goal should stop me falling off the wagon again.

Being a Tourist.

This one probably doesn't seem like it really fits with the goal above, but when I talk about being a tourist I'm not necessarily talking about travelling to new countries.  I'm talking about being a tourist in your own area and country.  When I look back on last year in Scotland, when I had the van I'd sort of converted to live in, I really didn't see as much of the country as I had intended or wanted.  Now, when I think about it, I'm a little angry with myself for not taking the opportunity that I had and really going for it.  I don't want to make that mistake again.

So, here's the plan for 2020.  When I move to a place I'm going to work out what the local attractions are and actually go and see them.  I'm also going to travel a little further afield and make sure that I really get to know the area.  And here's why it won't really affect my financial fitness goals.  Pretty much everything I'm interested in are based within the three overlapping circles of nature, trekking, and local history, most of which don't really cost anything to do.  The main cost will probably be fuel and possibly accommodation (though I do really enjoy camping so that reduces that considerably), but these won't eat too much into my budgets and will probably save me a lot of money on the boredom spending I do when I'm stuck at home.

Paperless Productivity.

I've already written about this in a previous blog, but as it's one of my goals for  2020 I thought I should probably give it a quick mention here.  I'm going to see if I can take all the paper I use when planning out my time, to-dos, and even work for this blog and make it digital.  The plan here is to reduce my paper waste and have a system that is a little more compact and portable.  I'll be testing out different types of software over 2020 to see if I can find one that really suits me and will probably do separate updates on each one as the year goes on rather than waiting to do a quarterly update.

And that's it.  Those are my goals for this year.  Most of them are going to be pretty doable, but I know my financial goal is going to be a difficult one to do and I didn't want to overload on too many challenging goals in 2020 that would be competing for my time and energy.  Especially not after last year.  I'll do quarterly updates as before so that I can see how I'm progressing, but I definitely feel better and more optimistic about this year's goals.  I think I'm going to actually manage it this time.

There is one other little goal that I'll be doing this year that I thought I would quickly mention here.  It's a pretty simple one that doesn't require too much planning or work.  And that's giving up the fizzy, black stuff. Wish me luck!