Thursday, February 5, 2015

Monthly Personal Challenge Link-up: January Results

Not Entirely Perfect

I know that everyone says things like this, but I seriously can't believe that January is already over.  The month just sort of flew by for me, and I think that will become very obvious as I share my monthly personal challenge results.

It's ironic, really ... The theme for January's personal challenge was complete, yet I managed to only complete about 50% of my goals.  I'm kind of embarrassed that I did such a shitty job sticking with my goals last month.  And, honestly, I'm not sure why I couldn't bring myself to complete everything (other than the fact that I sometimes have difficulty following through on personal projects, of course).  It wasn't a particularly hectic month, and I feel like I had plenty of free time to finish these projects.  I just ... Didn't.

To recap, my original goals were as follows:

1.  Finish the 4 books on my January "to read" list in an effort to get a good start on completing my 50 book challenge this year.

2.  Write a review for each book I read and feature it on this blog.  Additionally, I wanted to start participating in at least one book-related link-up.

3.  Organize my blog's Pinterest account.

4.  Update my "About Me" page on Divulge and Indulge.

I already mentioned that I only managed to cross about 50% of these things off my "to do" list, but I'll discuss my results in a little more detail here:

1.  I'm happy to report that I actually finished 4 books in January and am currently working through book 5 of the year!  I've attempted the 50 book challenge numerous times in the past, but I've always failed.  I usually fall behind early on and really struggle to catch up, so this was actually very encouraging.

2.  I'll call this goal complete even though it's more like 50% complete.  I shared my thoughts on The End of Everything and The Dinner in this post, and also managed to finish part 2 of this goal by sharing my post in the Show Us Your Books! link-up.  I'll be posting reviews for the other 2 books I read in January (as well as the book I'm reading now if I manage to finish it in the next few days) next week when the next Show Us Your Books! link-up rolls around.  Although I didn't share a review for each book yet, I feel confident that I can mark this goal as "completed" since I have a deadline for finishing the rest of my January book reviews.

JanuaryBooks
These were the books I read last month.


3.  The Pinterest account organization was a big fat failure.  I logged into the account I created specifically for this blog exactly 1 time, stared blankly at the screen as I tried to determine exactly how I wanted it to look/what I wanted to share, and then promptly logged out, logged back into my personal Pinterest account, and started searching for recipes and cute outfits.  Clearly not my best effort.  This is something I'd really like to accomplish at some point this year, but I just wasn't in the mood to work on it at all last month.

4.  When I posted my January goals, I kind of knew I wouldn't be able to rewrite my "About Me" page.  It was by far the least time consuming goal on this list, but when I couldn't immediately come up with at least a few things I wanted to share about myself and my blog, I knew it wasn't going to happen.  It's funny because I post random shit about myself and my life on this blog all the time, yet I find an actual introduction strangely difficult to write.  What do I want people to know about me if they're checking out my blog for the first time?  What was my inspiration for creating this blog?  Why did I choose the name?  Why do I blog at all?  These are all great questions that I should probably be answering on my "About Me" page ... But for some reason every time I try to rewrite it, everything comes out in a jumbled mess and I'm like, "Fuck it, I'm done."  (And yes, I know that's a winning attitude.)  This is also something that really needs to be done at some point this year (preferably within the next month or so), so hopefully I can figure out what I want to say soon.

As I said earlier, I'm kind of embarrassed that I wasn't able to complete more of my goals last month.  I guess that just means I'll have to work harder this month on my new goals!

Speaking of my February goals, I'll be sharing those in a post either tomorrow or Saturday.  Since I started participating in this link-up, I've been writing separate posts for my results and my new goals.  I started doing this simply because it was more convenient (I didn't have new goals in mind when I sat down to review the previous month, I didn't have time to write a really long post, etc.), but I think I prefer to keep them separate.  (And, if I'm being honest, I don't have my new goals completely figured out yet anyway.)

This month's theme is "create."  While I consider myself a pretty creative person in some aspects, I'm definitely not a DIY kind of girl.  (Sorry ... There won't be any amazing craft tutorials or anything like that.)  I really need to figure out what I should focus on, though, because I don't want to set so many goals that I'll never realistically be able to stick with them all.  I don't want a repeat of this month, after all!

9 comments:

  1. About pages are hard, it's the strangest thing. I just re-wrote mine, but it's something you always have to tweak. You did awesome on the books though! I read like... 1 book in January.

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  2. I agree with Steph above...I think the about me page is hard. Which is weird, because writing daily blog posts is putting yourself out there just as much.

    I loved loved loved The Contortionist's Handbook. January is a good time to read books I think.

    What are you looking to do differently with your blog pinterest vs. your personal pinterest? I use the same account for both.

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  3. […] person, but it was kind of hard to come up with some goals for this month.  As I mentioned in Thursday’s post, I’m not a crafty, DIY kind of girl.  I think if I were, it might have been a little easier […]

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  4. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks "About Me" pages are hard to write!

    I didn't read much at all last year, so this year I was pretty determined to (finally!) achieve my goal of reading 50 books. It's definitely not easy when you have other obligations that eat into your reading time, though. It's also hard if, like me, you can easily get sucked into watching hours of Netflix on lazy weekend days.

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  5. I think that's the most frustrating thing about writing the "About Me" page if you're a lifestyle/personal blogger ... You put so much of yourself out there in your posts, yet you can't think of anything to say when you sit down to work on your "About Me" page. So weird.

    I'm glad you loved that book as well! I read it for the first time about 8 years ago or so, and I loved it at the time. I like to reread books sometimes, and it seemed like a good choice for a reread since so much time had passed. I still loved it the second time around (which isn't always the case for me).

    The Pinterest question is a good one. It kind of stems from my need for at least some privacy. Yes, I share a lot of personal thoughts and information on my blog, but there are some things I won't share (like my last name, for example). My personal Pinterest account is linked to my full name and my Facebook account, and I just don't feel comfortable linking it to this blog.

    In addition, I'm still kind of nervous about sharing the fact that I blog with a lot of my real life friends and family, so I wouldn't feel comfortable pinning any of my posts to my personal account. I wanted to use a separate account to pin my recipes as well as some of my favorite and/or most useful posts in an effort to generate more traffic. I'm sure I'll also use it the same way I use my personal Pinterest account, but my real life friends and family won't have access to it (unless they already read my blog, of course).

    This is a ridiculously long comment, but I wanted to answer your question as fully as possible. I assume if one person is wondering about this, others may be as well.

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  6. I just reread my comment, and I don't like the way I worded the part about my friends and family not having access to the account. Obviously they'll have access since it's a public account and they could easily stumble upon it. What I meant was that it won't be so easily accessible to them since my pins won't automatically show up in their feeds (or whatever it is that Pinterest calls the main page). Hopefully that makes more sense.

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  7. How do you find the time to read that many books? I am happy if I complete one personal book a year. I read lots of text books though and articles. Wish those would count. I need to revamp my about me page and so much more for my blog. Maybe you could add the "create" goal of your about me page! Thanks for link up with us and see you next month!

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  8. I'm glad you think I read a lot of books! I always feel like I'm not reading enough. As for finding the time, I usually read before going to bed (most of the time I end up staying up way too late!). I also try to set aside some "me time" every weekend to read, but the amount varies based on how busy I am.

    I considered making the changes to my "About Me" page part of my "create" goals, but since I wasn't sure if I'd even get to it this month, I decided not to risk the disappointment. I really enjoy participating in these link-ups!

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  9. […] have a couple of goals in mind, but this post has already gotten long enough and, as I mentioned last month, I like separating my results from my new monthly goals.  I’m weird, I […]

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