My Goals for 2020

Productive decluttering. Declutter productively. Less waste. Waste less. I had all sorts of flowery ideals and aspirations written out in a notebook. My plan was to simply transfer it into a blog post, slap a title on it, and call it my goals for 2020.

The problem is that none of those visions were concrete enough to measure in any true capacity. And I suck at goals and goal post writing enough as it is without adding bad goals to the mix. 

While they aren’t flowery or fancy (I couldn’t even land on a nice solid number like 5 or 10), these are the goals that I am going to focus on for the rest of the year.

My Goals for 2020

1. Continue my step goal by averaging 70,000 steps or more per week.
2. Actually rest by averaging 6.5 hours of sleep a night per week.
3. Invest at least $10,000 this year.
4. Shave $20,000 off our mortgage by next January.
5. Travel to at least three different cities.
6. Give at least $50 more each month than each month last year.
7. Declutter 365 things from our house.
8. Declutter 100 things from my classroom.

Some Observations About My Goals

1. I’m not very focused on money. Two of my goals focus on finances and one addresses giving. That’s actually something I’m really quite pleased about. I think my ultimate year would be a year in which I didn’t think about money at all. One day at a time. Errr. One year. 
2. It looks like I care more about debt than investing. On one level this is probably still very much true. But if you dig down deeper, I’m not committing to that much more than our required payments on our house.
3. I’m slowing down with decluttering in our home and ramping up again in my classroom. I do not have a Pinterest-worthy classroom. I spend about $50 a month on books, so coordinating binders with wall posters isn’t really my thing. It’s super cute, but that’s not where I want my money. This means I don’t have a ton of excess in my classroom, but I feel like I need to do some culling there. And no, I’m not tossing out any students. WINK.
4. I really am focusing on me. Woot! I think a significant amount of the stress in my life (whether it’s something I manufacture or not) could be reduced if I slept more. I don’t go more than a day without someone asking me how I get it all done. The truth is that I don’t sleep much, and I don’t like it. So I’m going to make sleeping and moving two priorities this year. 
5. Giving and traveling matter to me, so I’m going to do more of both. I feel like I’m really growing my giving muscles, and I’m proud of that. Travel is a chance for me to spend more time with family and friends with minimal distraction or interruption, and I am all about that this year. 

Final Thoughts on My 2020 Goals

Of course, there are other tasks that we are tending to. There’s lots to do in the gardens. There’s work to do in the basement. We have estate planning tasks, and we have things to sort out with taxes. (Will this be the year I actually take the writes-offs I am entitled to as an independent contractor? MAYBE!) But I don’t want to overwhelm myself with a list of 9,017 things.

I know every month, week, and day will come with its own set of to-do tasks.

But I’m going to let these goals drive our finances and our decluttering. Rather than worrying about crafting the perfect goals, I’m just going to start. Here goes nothing!

So Tell Me…What are you working on this year?