You know you’re getting older when you are constantly saying to yourself and others that you don’t know where the time has gone. January is OVER? And the first week of February is almost gone too!? Well, no time like the present to figure out what my goals are for the next eight weeks.

My yearly focus is lightening the load or finding things I can remove from my life (distractions, toxins, burdens) to make things easier and better for me. This quarter (January-March), my secondary focus is rest so I’m looking at what I can take away from my life to help me feel more rested. March also happens to be when I’ll be transitioning off maternity leave back to a full-time working mama, so that’ll be interesting (honestly, I expect that to make resting easier. Stay-at-Home-Mom life is no picnic).

To find my goals, I looked at each of my goal categories (self-care, connection, resources, purpose) and asked myself, “What makes this load heavy? How can I make it lighter?” Here’s what I came up with:

SELF-CARE (mental and physical wellness)

What makes the load heavy? (or also, What drains my energy? What makes me feel stressed?)

1. Social media and self comparison — feeling like I should be doing more and/or better
2. Feeling physically tired almost all the time
3. Worrying about the future

CONNECTION (family, friendship, human connection)

What makes the load heavy? (or also What strains my side of the relationship?*)

1. Feeling pressured to keep my husband sexually and emotionally satisfied
2. Resenting my husband asks me to help him or be with him with his task priorities
3. Resenting everyone in my family because I don’t have enough ‘me’ time

*I’m particularly proud of the fact that I asked myself what strains my side of the relationship rather than trying to think of how I can improve the relationship by changing how the other person is thinking or feeling, which is definitely something I would have done in the past. One thing I’ve learned over the last year is that, though I may be able to influence the thoughts and feelings of others to a degree, I can’t control. But if I focus on improving the relationship from my side, it’s likely to strengthen to relationship as a whole.. or else, perhaps it’s not one that was meant to last.

RESOURCES (time, financial security, possessions)

What makes the load heavy? (or also What resources feel severely lacking or overwhelming?)

1. Having too much visual clutter and constantly feeling like I ‘should’ get it under control
2. Lacking quality alone time

I tried to come up with a third item so that I could have nice, balanced lists of three for all the categories, but ideas just weren’t coming to me and I realized whatever I came up with would likely never be prioritized anyway so I’m leaving it be.

PURPOSE (Creation and community contribution)

What makes the load heavy? (or  also What is blocking me from pursuing my passions?)

1. Not having enough time without a baby in my arms for me to work regularly on my blog or other hobbies
2. Fearing failure or imperfection makes me hesitant to try

Having already given myself permission to stop at two ideas for Resources, it seemed appropriate for this one too, which was the hardest of all the categories for me to come up with something.

Limiting and prioritizing

One of the things I struggled with last year, was being too ambitious with my goals for myself. Just because I technically can accomplish several goals, doesn’t mean I should commit to doing so and “lightening the load” can mean lightening my goal commitment too. When looking at my lists, I realized three out of my four categories reference a lack of time so that’s definitely something I want to tackle, oh, and lookie, the fourth category also mentions the negative affects of social media, which is a huge time suck for me. So…

Goal 1: Reduce time spent on social media

I want to keep myself to two goals, and looking over my list, the stress from all the clutter in my house really feels like the heaviest weight on me. I’m constantly shaming myself for it all, feeling overwhelmed by it all, and I’ve been convinced for awhile that the more items you possess, the more time it requires to take care of them. So, to reduce my mental stress and hopefully get even more time back in my day…

Goal 2: Reduce physical clutter

Getting specific

Goal 1: Reduce time spent on social media

When I pick up my phone, I usually end up on Facebook or Instagram pretty quickly and though I’ve uninstalled the apps multiple times to try to limit how much time I spend on them, it seems it is far too easy for me to reinstall them. Worst of all, while I’m numbing out on my phone, often my toddler and/or infant are present which means I’m neither connecting with them nor am I spending my time in a way that makes me feel rested or in any way better. Maybe this will prove to be too much too soon for me, but I’m going to try to approach this by ripping the bandaid off… on weekends and any other days when my whole family is home, I’m putting my phone in a drawer (and perhaps even turning it off) where it will stay until at least the two kids are in bed.

New Goal 1: Put the phone away on weekends

Goal 2: Reduce physical clutter

Something I’ve wanted to tackle for awhile is Courtney Carver’s Project 333. In short, it’s limiting your closet to 33 items for the duration of 3 months (roughly a season) and donating or putting away all the rest. The result (ideally) is less mental fatigue when selecting an outift and less time spent on each laundry load (because if you have fewer clothes, you have less to wash and put away each time even if you have to do laundry more often). I’ve also been interested getting rid of the big hulking dresser in my husband’s and my bedroom by moving everything to either a drawer under my bed or the closet.

New Goal 2: Limit items in closet to 33

Goal 3 (Pending completion of goal 2): Donate dresser

Stay tuned and wish me luck!