First and foremost, I'm still not keen on year-long goals. Life just gets in the way too easily: adjustments and changes will always need to be made, and I want to use my blogs as an example. Last year, as I was starting this blog, I would have set a goal to get a post up every week, a goal which, in retrospect, would have just caused more problems.
Last month I was beset with the end of the semester which meant a combination of ending one semester and designing another. One moment I'd be grading essays and wrapping up one semester, reflecting on everything I'd taught my students, and the next moment I was busy preparing curriculum for the coming semester. And then it was the holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas. In light of this busy time of year, I concluded that producing blog posts on composition and literature were just taking up time I needed for grading, planning, designing, and other end of year obligations.
But time isn't even all of it. Last year, after only seven or eight posts, I had a lot of what I wanted to say, but halfway through the year I had gone from a long list of things I wanted or needed to address, to giving more specific information on topics I had already addressed and addressing issues as they arose. At the start of the year, I wasn't teaching any classes that required Toulmin or Literature Reviews; I was designing lessons and assignments on the Six Journalistic questions. When courses for Fall were scheduled, I had to write some posts that would deal with subjects I would address in my new courses. But I still didn't feel like I had enough to say, or even the need, to fill a post every week on composition alone. So after July, I cut back from every week to every other week, and started updating Narrative Nuance on the off-weeks.
This is why I don't like year-long goals, especially as I look back at a year and a half's worth of 3x5 cards, each detailing the activities of a given day or week. I'd hate to look back at last year's goals and think I hadn't met them – that I had somehow failed – when my needs and circumstances had changed. I'll take the flexibility planning out a day, a week, or a month in advance gives me over the limited perspective of what I'm doing now and what I could be doing in a year. I don't know what I'll be eating for dinner in a week, so why should I declare the accomplishments I'll have achieved in twelve month's time? I'll be productive now rather than planning out next December.
And productivity is what it is all about. I don't give myself goals and to-do lists because I want to accomplish something months in the future, but because I have work to do now. I may have a greater goal in mind – regular and consistent blog posts, a research project, ending the semester – but it's the smaller, day to day tasks that actually get it done.
Goal setting isn't about accomplishments. It's about being productive and getting work done and making sure you do it every day. That's why I like my stack of index cards. They're a reminder of how productive I can be, and it isn't because of the year long dreams. It's about the little things I have do every single day.
And here's looking forward to another great year!
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