Making SMART 2021 Goals

At the start of the year, I made some Goals and Resolutions for 2021. It was hastily thrown together. The kids were getting back into their school routine and one caught a cold. Because cold symptoms and COVID symptoms are the same, we had to pause life and get him a COVID test. Thankfully, it came back negative. (That’s what I had expected since he always gets a winter cold and we didn’t have any real COVID risk factors.)

Sometimes you simply have to move forward with something. Trying to be perfect is the enemy of being good enough.

However, with 1/8th of the year done, it is as good a time as any to go back and put some more detail into those goals. This time, I’m hoping to make them SMART goals, by applying the SMART metrics. I understand that it will take more than these metrics to make them realities. I need to make them habits and stay properly motivated on them. Finally, I’ll need a little luck. In 2020 few people saw COVID derailing their year’s goals, but stuff like that happens. Usually, it happens more at the individual level than the global level.

Before I get to all the goals here’s what my goal spreadsheet looks like. I created the spreadsheet while I was writing this post. I was going to include it at the end, but it is more useful to have the visual at the beginning.

If I do all that and I fail to meet my goals, I can take solace in this Michael Jordan quote:

I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.

Money Goals

Make $60K of income

Last year I wanted to make $75,000 in income. COVID had other plans. I came in at around $50,000, but each month is trending worse and worse. I will need to turn things around just to make the $50,000 again, so $60K is a stretch.

I need to focus more on providing valuable services to people and working within the windows of childcare that I have. This is going to be a challenge, but that’s precisely the point.

Specific: $60,000 income. Check.
Measurable: I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of income and review it a few times a month. Check.
Attainable: Maybe. Currently, it relies on too many external forces that I don’t control.
Relevant: Maybe. My drive to earn $60K vs. $50K just isn’t great. I’ve always been more about quality of life.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Save Money for Wife’s Retirement

This is complicated and worth a separate article all by itself.

We’re trying to save $100K for my wife to feel comfortable with retiring. The hope is to do this in just a couple of years.

She will get a nice pension and I can usually make the aforementioned income. However, some of my income has been lost since COVID and I’m not sure it’s coming back. We also have a lot of short-term expenses with some 15-year mortgages in their final trimester and private school. The 100K would give us at least a two-year cushion where she wouldn’t have to think about working.

We are starting the year with it about 25% completed. If we combine other emergency funds and accounts we might be further along.

Specific: Nope. It’s vague on where we should be by the end of 2021. I’ll revise this to be $60,000, which is saving another $35,000 this year, leaving the final $40,000 for next year.
Measurable: Now, it’s measurable. In fact, we’ve set up an account for this and measuring monthly as part of our net worth review.
Attainable: Maybe. It’s a lot of money to save given our current income and expenses.
Relevant: It was very relevant until last week. We recently got some news that may change that, but we won’t know for some months. The 100K goal will need to happen at some point, the timeline may change though.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Business

Content Audit

This task was to review my old articles and refresh them to make them relevant and useful. I have a lot of articles that I wrote from 2006-2010 that you probably haven’t read. Even if you have, I can add 10 more years of wisdom and some much-needed proofreading to them. Search engines also like articles being updated and relevant.

I’ve been trying to refresh a new article once a week, usually on a Friday. The idea is that you’ll usually get a new article on Monday and Wednesday with the refreshed article on Friday. Sometimes, if I only publish Monday and Thursday, I won’t be able to get this refresh article in. On a busy week, maybe Wednesday and Friday are both refreshed articles. We’ll have to see how this goes, but I’m trying to keep the refreshed articles as “bonus” content that I haven’t been doing for years. I’m putting down a goal of 40 articles. That’s a lot since it would be every week.

Specific: 40 articles. Check.
Measurable: I’ll include this on my goal spreadsheet. Check
Attainable: Reasonably. It’s not all-or-nothing, so partial credit applies.
Relevant: This should help other business goals as well as be more useful for readers, right?
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Social Media

I want to be a lot better on social media. I still spend most of my time on Twitter, but haven’t grown much from my 6,500 followers. I’d like to grow this number, but I’m realizing that I don’t know how to get more Twitter followers. I’ll put down 7,000 followers for lack of anything better. I think most people are comfortable with the people they follow now. I should have put more time into learning Pinterest.

Specific: Nope I fail this one. It’s not specific and I don’t know how to make it specific. Please help me with some comments at the bottom of this post.
Measurable: Nope.
Attainable: Perhaps not. You’d think going from 6600 to 7000 isn’t much, but it is very difficult.
Relevant: Social Media seems to be extremely relevant when your business is a blog. Check.
Time-bound: I don’t have a goal, but everything here is 12/31/2021. Check

Website Design

I have a few things that I need to add to Lazy Man and Money. There are some minor theme errors and my RSS feed is still managed by Feedburner which Google acquired in May 2007 and basically shut down in 2011. It’s probably not the best idea to rely on technology that’s been obsolete for 10 years.

Specific: I have a website to-do list. I have to define that a little more, but this becomes a goal list inside of a goal list.
Measurable: I can measure it once I finalize the to-do list.
Attainable: Yep, I control all the code on the website, so the point of failure is simply me.
Relevant: The website is the business. Check.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Launch New Website

I had an idea for another blog, which is a passion of mine. It’s related to personal finance, so I’ll share it here when it’s ready. I want to do more than just another personal finance blog though. I want it to be a website where you do stuff not just read the latest post and move on. Unfortunately, creating the infrastructure for that stuff is not easy. I’ve been trying to feel out to other personal finance bloggers to see if they’d be interested in sharing it in some way, but that hasn’t gained traction. For now, it will just have to be a blog.

One problem is that managing two blogs is a lot of work. I can barely manage this one as well as I should. However, the other ideas is just too good to give up.

Specific: Launch a new blog. That’s vague, so let’s make it better. Launch with 25 articles already written.
Measurable: This feels like it is all or nothing, but there are a lot of steps. I’ve done a lot of it already.
Attainable: At this point, I could probably flip the switch tomorrow, but I want to do a bigger launch than that. Whether it’s manageable long-term is a tough question.
Relevant: I love the idea (which I’m purposely being vague about), so I’d say yes.
Time-bound: May 1, 2021.

Personal Goals

Lose Weight

I gained a “Pandemic 15” and got very close to a big number on the scale that I don’t want to reach. We’ve been doing a lot of cooking and comfort eating. My wife and I are challenging each other (her idea) to lose weight. We have a chart on the fridge where post our daily weigh-ins.

This worked for the first month, but we’ve both stopped updating it. I’m replacing it with a quick spreadsheet that I made for each week of the year. We’re going to put our average weekly weight from our Fitbit Aria into the chart. I’m hoping this will work better – and be more accurate since it is an average.

I’m going to try to lose those 15 pounds by following my extreme Lazy Man Diet. The diet is too extreme to stick to long-term, but I should be able to manage a majority of it four or five days a week a couple of times a month.

I’ll need to add more exercise than walking my dog… especially weight training and cardio.

Specific: Lose 15 pounds. Check.
Measurable: With my Fitbit scale and a spreadsheet, this is measurable.
Attainable: It certainly won’t be easy, but it’s possible.
Relevant: This is a little debatable. I usually have so many other things pulling me in different directions that I can’t put a full effort into this.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Make a Bucket List

I need to come up with some things that I want to do and experience.

Many personal finance bloggers with money travel the world. I know that I don’t like the act of traveling. Being in a new place is good. Getting to the new place is bad. Everything about an airplane is designed to make you uncomfortable. That’s literally the plan with coach seating. Some may say that we splurge for the good seating, but the spending necessary for that creates great internal conflict for me. It doesn’t get any better when you are at the destination, because then I have to deal with things like limited internet access… or paying outrageous prices for convenience.

Recently, I’ve settled on the idea of having a fancy house. I don’t know where it would be or how we’d get it, but I like the idea of a hot tub, indoor pool, and at least 3 monkey butlers.

As part of this, I’ll explore making a dream board. That will get me to the dangerously close place of scrapbooking. Now I’m starting to understand why I always put this off.

Back in January, I added this item. It was the easiest item to make progress on. With a little Googling around, I came up with a list of 20 items. I’d still like to do more and make the dream board, but I’m going to say this is half done for now. A lot of the items are hard or impossible to complete during COVID, so working through the bucket list itself is going to be a task for another time.

Specific: Create Bucket list… done (for now). Dream board… on the to-do list.
Measurable: This isn’t very measurable, so I’ll estimate that it is 50% done.
Attainable: It doesn’t get more attainable than creating a list.
Relevant: This is very relevant. I’m getting near a point in my life where I need to start living life a little.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Professional Training

I need to work on real skills this year. I have a problem with this since I don’t have a big block of time for deep learning. I’m basically putting out small fires all day, except for when I’m wasting time on social media or news sites. In short, I need to manage my time better and be more disciplined.

As for some of the skills I’d like to learn, I’ll go with Canva (for blogging), Pinterest, film making/editing, and AI. My degree in computational linguistics is over 20 years old now. I feel like I should be able to refresh those skills and see if there are good jobs involving computers and language processing nowadays. (Yes, this is sarcasm.)

Specific: This is one of those items that needs its own list or plan. This item, as it stands, isn’t specific.
Measurable: It’s not specific, so I can’t measure it.
Attainable: I can do a few of these items like learn Canva well and take a Pinterest course. Putting together the time is a whole other ballgame.
Relevant: As much as I want to do all these things, current commitments make these very difficult.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Family Goals

Travel to Eurpoe

Remember back in the bucket list where I mentioned that I don’t like traveling? Well, my wife likes being in a new place more than the pain of traveling. Back in January, she was mapping out a 3-week trip to Greece, Germany, and Venice, Italy. The timing of this is very specific for this summer too because the Greek leg is a pharmacy cruise. It seems we might be able to manage it for around $10,000 through a combination of military discounts and points.

I didn’t think it was likely to happen back then and she’s come to terms that the pipe dream won’t happen in 2021. We’ll push this one to 2022.

Finish the Basement

Since last summer, I’ve had a goal of finishing our basement to create more room for the family. Having a buffer of the main floor between our kids would be extremely helpful even without a pandemic. There’s a lot of decluttering work to do before we can hire a work crew – we’ve been storing baby and kid stuff for 8 years now… and had a lot of stuff before that. I think we are about 60% through the clutter.

We had a company come do an estimate and it seems like we’ll be able to move forward with this. It’s still a couple of months away, but I’m optimistic about finishing this in 2021.

Specific: Complete finished basement.
Measurable: This is all-or-nothing, but there are some steps in between.
Attainable: We should be able to do this.
Relevant: It’s very relevant as we’ve found that COVID creates the need for a little more space.
Time-bound: Deadline is December 31, 2021. Check.

Parenting Goals

It’s hard to come up with plans for the kids. Their interests are always changing. The things we can do during COVID keep changing as well. We’ll have to play it by ear. That said, I think we can try a few things:

YouTube Channel

I’m not sure if a YouTube channel is right for a 7 and 8-year-old. I think it is worth a try… as long as we manage expectations. There are some useful skills that we can explore with this. The kids (and their dad) can learn filmmaking. I can help them learn how to organize and outline their thoughts.

The boys fight each other quite a bit (as you might imagine given their age). I hope (perhaps naively) that they’ll be able to connect on their shared interest of Pokemon.

Specific: There are a lot of small steps to this one. There is also a wide range of doing this “just to get the checkmark in the box” and doing it really well. I prefer the latter, but we may have to settle for the former.
Measurable: I’m going to strive for 10 hours of work/play on this over the year.
Attainable: We’ll make little or no progress during the school year. The kids just have too much to do. This will depend on how much time during the summer they have, which depends on whether there is summer camp or not.
Relevant: It’s hard to say how relevant this is. The kids’ interests change quickly and I try to adapt to the next thing if something doesn’t stick.
Time-bound: December 31, 2021

Drone Flying

I got the kids a small drone for around $25. It’s enough to keep them interested and teach them the basics. I have a more advanced $70 one that I got on Black Friday last year, that we can move on to.

I don’t know where it will go, but maybe we can work our way to a side-hustle in drone videography?

(This may be a not-so-elaborate plan to justify buying myself a fancy, expensive drone.)

Specific: We’ll try to get 10 hours of flight time in. Drone batteries don’t last long, so it may be 45 minutes here and there. Five hours might be more practical.
Measurable: I’m not sure if hours is the correct measurement. Maybe I should aim for 10 days that have drone flight in them?
Attainable: We should be able to achieve any goal in this area if they stay interested.
Relevant: I’m not sure that drone-flying is relevant to much, but it’s some good entertainment and a welcome break from video screens.
Time-bound: December 31, 2021

Riding Bikes and Outdoor Stuff

I’m terrible with getting the kids outside in physical activity. I need to do better whether it is riding bikes or playing catch with a baseball.

Specific: I’m going to try to get 40 hours of this in. I’m not sure if that’s the right number or not. The kids did snowboarding so far this year and that was good for 5 hours. I’m not going to count the whole days that we spend at the beach as more than 1 or 2 hours. I want to be more consistent rather than fulfilling this in a handful of days.
Measurable: I don’t want to feel like I’ve got a stopwatch timing things outside. However, I need to keep this more at the forefront of my mind.
Attainable: This can be a tough one with COVID, the weather, and available time outside of school and summer camp (if camp happens).
Relevant: The kids definitely need their outside time.
Time-bound: December 31, 2021

Computer Programming

I really need to get these kids started in computer programming. I wish it was like when I was a kid, where the computer was an endless source of amazement. With YouTube and Alexa, it’s hard to get kids excited in making a computer print “Hello World” infinite times.

Specific: I think the goal for this should be 5 hours. I’ve got some ideas on how to make this more fun and interesting.
Measurable: Putting a specfic goal in terms of hours makes this more measurable. I was going to tie this to accomplishments (ooh maybe a progress test), but I’m not prepared enough at this time to make that leap.
Attainable: Like all of these goals in the parenting section, it’s a matter of carving out the time in an already busy schedule.
Relevant: I believe computer programming is very relevant. I was learning it in 1985 in school and at home. I was literally writing code on music tapes. The kids have their own iPads and laptops at school this year and they don’t much in this area. Sometimes, they drag some blocks of code in Scratch. It’s odd to me that there hasn’t been more progress in education of this area in a generation. I’m officially Grumpy Old man in the old SNL skits… back when SNL skits were awesome :).
Time-bound: December 31, 2021

Specialty Camps

We had to cancel many specialty camps for the kids last year – the first year they were old enough to do them. Hopefully, they can do Lego, cooking, animal shelter, theater, sailing camps. If that’s not possible, we can at least do Lego and cooking at home. We were able to save a lot of money last year, so that’s a silver lining.

Specific: Sign up for 3-4 specialty camps.
Measurable: Check.
Attainable: With COVID, who knows? We have the money if they off them.
Relevant: These enrichment activities help the kids grow in different ways over the summer school break. If they don’t have these camps, we’ll have to invent our own by doing them at home like last summer.
Time-bound: December 31, 2021

Final Thoughts

Wow, this was a lot of work to write all this out. I thought it would take only an hour, but I think I spent 6-7 hours over a couple of days. I feel like I’m hastily putting up this blog post just like before. That’s what happens to me when I get to 3,500 words.

Fortunately, it was much easier to put in this spreadsheet.

That didn’t take too much time. I learned a lot along the way about how I want to craft my goals. Before I had just an idea, but now I feel like I have a plan, especially in the goals that are more nebulous like “spend more time outside with kids.”