Goals: how do you hold yourself accountable?

This year I'm trying something new. I'm not a fan of the quick resolution set on January 1 that can be either kept or broken. Personally I prefer the larger goal that is tackled and maintained long enough until it becomes a positive habit not to be ignored. But how do I hold myself accountable? Often I set lofty goals, pressure myself, and ultimately feel guilty for not accomplishing them only to be re-set the following year. Yet as soon as I work with a personal trainer, for example, I'm all "look at me! I'm doing even more than you said!" and thrilled by my success rate. Financially a personal trainer is not in my budget, and often what I feel I really need is a life coach/parent/teacher/authority figure to report to or show off to or to look to for cheering, support, and understanding. I've got a lot of that within me, but I've been noticing lately quite a bit of laxness, followed by longing looks at my bed which is always all too willing to comfort me with a lovely nap which is quickly justified by my mind reminding me how healing sleep is... true, but surprisingly unproductive in binge quantities.

So, I called in a girlfriend who I felt was like-minded. Both of us are exercise-conscious, so we met for a walk one drizzly day last week and bounced around our individual ideas for goals, how to set them, make them successful, and help each other be successful. At the end of the walk we decided that by the end of that day we would email each other 3 goals we wanted to achieve, and under each of them we would detail the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-specific) aspects. Just this discipline alone was fantastic. We also responded to each other's goals, giving different perspectives to help alleviate things like guilt (e.g., doing things alone without pets or boyfriends) or pressure (e.g., don't use a scale as a goal, instead choose a cute skirt to fit into again), etc. We are both busy women with full plates, so we agreed that we don't have to jump through hoops to meet every week but we can provide weekly support via phone and email.

This whole process has also helped me to distinguish between goals and tasks. One of my big goals is to manage my time better... and, of course, I made this very specific for myself. This goal got me to create a chart of regular weekly and monthly tasks. I have a larger to-do list of projects and such, but these are regular things that help me with my business and personal life that really should not get back-logged. Here's an overview of the sheet (printed on a bright sunny yellow):

Here's a closeup of my weekly objectives:

I forced myself to be very specific, even with something like "Jewelry production," which I set at 10 hours minimum for a week. Often jewelry making is responsive for me because I get so many orders, and when I don't have orders I get caught up on other stuff (like emailing, blogging, or gardening) so everything is done in binge bursts and I always feel behind the gun, doing something I should've done ages ago. What an awful feeling.

This list will also give me something to look to/hold me accountable if something fun comes up... like a gorgeous day that's good for playing golf. If I'm way behind in my minimum weekly objectives, not only can I justify saying no but I also know what to tackle. Not that this will happen, because I like lists and checking things off and feeling like that little kid who wants to earn a gold star if I know what I'm supposed to do. And when these basics are done, I'll have more time for new designs and experiments and whatever else my heart desires!

For monthly objectives, my list looks like this:

I've left a space for notes so I can be more specific.

Today I printed 4 sheets because that seems like a good amount of time to put a new system into place and give it a test run. My specific items might change as I get more organized and focused. Obviously this list is a supplement to a daily to-do list or larger task list that I also have running because it glosses over multi-stepped projects (one is alluded to: establishing a new mailing list system). I'm really excited about this system, though, because I like it better than keeping a journal of what I've done... it's the road map to what I need to do instead. Hopefully it will help me to miss my former staff less as well... a lot of the business tasks are from their former to-do lists. Seeing it all in one place makes it a lot less intimidating to tackle what 5 of us used to do (which is also why I decided to put everything on 1 page as well). It's also important for me to integrate personal and business objectives since it's all part of my life as an artist.