Week #1 Goals Update

[collingwest]

Yesterday completed week #1 of the new year, and it was a bit of a strange one. At the beginning of the week, I was still very much feeling the lingering effects of my bout with COVID-19 that happened during the last week of 2021. By the end of the week, I was asymptomatic except for a very occasional cough and roughening of my voice.

In the meantime, though, I worked from home the entire week — I usually only do this one or two days in the week — and have otherwise completely isolated myself. I haven’t actually left the house since December 26th, unless you count going out to the mailbox or pulling the trash bin to the curb. This has left me with more than a little bit of cabin fever, and it certainly hasn’t helped the routine.

That said, it wasn’t a bad week. On Monday, which I had off from work, I spent some time putting together a tracking spreadsheet for the year. By Wednesday, I knew that effort had been well-spent as it was already helping me be far more productive than I usually am in circumstances like these. I’m still behind at work, but I’m far less behind than I was heading into the week, and I have every reason to think that I’ll be caught up by the end of this next week.

So, while I didn’t exactly do well on the goals this week, I didn’t do badly either. If anything, I got a halfway decent start and am in a position where I’m primed to go into working on my annual goals, full speed ahead.

Writing

I wrote on six out of seven days this week, which keeps me on track for my Get Your Words Out goal of 350 days of writing during 2022. All but one of those days included a post to the personal journal; that left me with five out of seven days with posts, which is a tad low, but something I can recover from without losing all possibility of missing the goal.

In addition, I posted “Welcome” articles to both of the public blogs (Radius and Second Row), though admittedly I had actually written those prior to this week. I plan to work on this week’s articles sometime today or tomorrow.

I didn’t get any fiction writing done, but I didn’t figure I would this week. I have been thinking through and imagining some of the scenes from Nine Angel, though, so as I settle into the full routine I have a direction to work on. I also dusted off some of my unfinished fan fiction to work on as treats and snacks.

Career/Education/Finances

No movement here, other than I got my weekly deposit of $21 into the IRA. I have a goal of getting at least one of my continuing education classes done this next week.

Fitness/Diet

I actually gained weight this week, but I suspect it’s weight I had lost from being sick. All the same, that’s not a move in the right direction, particularly since I missed the goals involving cooked lunches and exercising.

I did, however, meet the goal involving sugary drinks; my average for the week was 2.1 per day (the highest single day count was 3), which is lower than the target average of 2.5; total was 15. I also became far more aware of my consumption, though, and if nothing else I call that a gain because awareness is the first step toward control.

Now that I’ll be back working in the office, I can probably start getting the diet a little more under control. That sounds counterintuitive, but it isn’t; in the office it’s actually easier for me to do things such as substituting a Slim-Fast and/or using a frozen meal for my lunch. The reasons for these are many, but the bottom line is that I’m hoping that I can post at least one lunch or exercise session next week.

In conclusion, while I could have done better, I don’t really feel like I’ve had a bad first week to 2022, especially given the extenuating circumstance of still being in recovery from COVID-19. But I do need to do a little better during the second and subsequent weeks. All the same, I’m still optimistic and looking forward to the rest of the year.

Originally Posted at https://blog.collingwest.com/2022/week-1-goals-update/.