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Tag Archives: organize

March Start – Meh.

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress

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certifications, goals, health, home, money, organize

Well, things haven’t gone as smoothly as hoped, but they rarely do and some key things got done along the way.  Guess we’ll push through to the end of March and move some first quarter goals into the second quarter.  Rats.

So, let’s take a look at January:

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month (yep, Christmas present)
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts
  • Decluttering – File for 2013 taxes, set up 2014 files
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

And February:

  • Fitness – Sign up for the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K in March
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 MALC (Expert) qualification
  • Habit – Take or draw a picture every day
  • Home – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Financial – 2013 Taxes completed and filed
  • Decluttering – Scan/Shred old records
  • Cost cutting/saving – Cut dining out to one dinner and one lunch per week

Finally, March:

  • Fitness – Complete the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K
  • Professional – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Habit – [decluttering habit, see below]
  • Home – Front porch and walks (getting ready for spring!)
  • Financial – update wills
  • Decluttering – Declutter one thing per day (sell, trade, donate, recycle, repair)
  • Cost cutting/saving – Utilities review (gas, power, phone, internet, cellular, TV, etc.)
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Week One Update

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Geeky, Health

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geeky, goals, health, money, organize, updates

Completed bold green with strikethrough, in progress in bold with italic, notes, summary and updates inline.  Not started in blue.

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month.  Starting out with the preset 10K steps per day.  Laid out a walking/running schedule to be ready to go for the March 5K.  Naturally this week brought some of the coldest (and wettest) weather so far – will be looking to make up some steps as the month progresses.  Still, definitely heightened awareness of ways to boost steps.  Cool dat. 😀
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification.  Ordered up the SOA course from The Art of Service, did all my downloads and set up a daily task reminder.  Completed through Module 2 of 12.On Track!
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling.  Set up my apps – Endomondo, FitBit and Livescape on the phone, FitBit on the PC.  Completed some journaling every day but not consistent or complete yet.
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts.  Registered and set up the 401K for new employer.  All that remains is to review and update (as needed) the other accounts.
  • Decluttering – Filed the rest of 2013 and set up 2013 tax notebook, set up 2014 files (go label maker).
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

One complete and four underway.  Seems about right at this point, especially since the four underway are the build a habit kind of goals.

January – It’s Just a Day Away

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Cheapskate, Health, Home

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certifications, goals, health, home, money, organize

January

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts
  • Decluttering – File for 2013 taxes, set up 2014 files
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

I just got my Fitbit Flex for Christmas and so far I’m liking it even without a direct phone sync app.  I’ll be doing a review of the device at the end of January after I’ve used it for a month – the first goal it set was 10K steps per day which is more than doable.  I’m buying the ITIL Intermediate SOA course today so I can start studying for the qualification exam.  The app I’ll be using for the health journaling is the Fitbit dashboard so I can include it in the review.

The guest bedroom project will start with a list and some pictures and hopefully include some decluttering.  Definitely a post of its own and I fully expect it to require time during the catch up month.  I need to sign up for the 401K at the new job and then get all the various accounts sorted and into a single dashboard.  Filing is always fun, not.  But it is nice to see all those fresh new 2014 folders ready to go.  And finally, I’m pretty sure I’m overinsured in some places and underinsured in others, so time to get some quotes, check my policies and coverage and such.  Fingers crossed that it leads to a good chunk of savings or a better sense of what is and isn’t covered adequately.

Right now I’m planning to do an update post every weekend to keep on track, denoting which goals have been completed and anything I learned during the week while working on them.  I’ve decided that 2014 is the year of learning new things and trying new things – hopefully without any major injuries as a result of it. 🙂

Stuff That Works: SimpleHuman Butterfly Step Trash Can

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by cosmichomicide in Home, Stuff that Works

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Tags

home, organize

Yeah, I know.  It’s a trash can.  And it is an expensive trash can (though we did get ours on sale on Amazon, so it was a bit less painful).  But the entire family is in love with this thing and if you consider how many times a day you use a kitchen trash can, the cost per use is danged low.  So why is it so great?

  1. Dogs and cats cannot get in this thing.  Even smart and determined ones.  This is huge!
  2. It’s good looking and it is “slimline” – takes up much less space than similar volume cheap trashcans.  I can’t say it is 100% fingerprint free, but it’s pretty resistant (especially being hands free).  It does collect some stray paw prints as the cat likes to walk across it.
  3. Trash bags are easy to change out.  A standard kitchen bag fits this perfectly without fighting it on.  This was something I completely loathed about our oldSimpleHuman Trash Can Blog kitchen can.
  4. A pizza box fits in the can.  This was a bigger deal around here than you would think.
  5. It has a pedal open and a butterfly top – one hand trash dumping, slim profile, slow close.  Based on how slowly it closes, I’d say no issue with kid’s fingers but it hasn’t been determined kid tested.
  6. It’s solid and sturdy without being stupidly heavy.  Though it’s heavy enough that it doesn’t get knocked around (or over) by accident.
  7. It allows you to fill the trash bag up completely.  No more weird unfilled corners at the bottom and shaking the trash down to close the bag.

My son suggested it was time for a “good trash can” for the kitchen and I spent a few days researching trash cans (yep, I really did) to meet our requirements and eliminate all our complaints.  This thing scored a home run.  And looks good too.  Check out SimpleHuman for the Butterfly Step Can, really.  (They are also sold on Amazon and at Home Depot among other places – shop around, the prices vary by as much as $30.) 🙂

2014: Let the Goals Begin!

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by cosmichomicide in Changes & Progress, Health, Home, Minimalist, TEDTalk

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bucket list, certifications, goals, health, home, money, organize, TED Talks

Last year frankly worked pretty well with smaller monthly goals, so we’re gonna continue with that method though we are going to fiddle with the categories a bit and add one for “Habit of the Month”.  This came out of an earlier post about a TEDTalk that suggested doing one new thing for 30 days.  Some things are going to be prescheduled since the big fitness goal for this year is the Vegas Rock and Roll Half Marathon in November 2014.

Happy-New-Year-2014-Celebration-Black-WallpaperDaily habits I’d like to develop or improve upon include writing/journaling, exercising, reading for pleasure, taking a picture and so on.  I don’t know if I can come up with 12 right off the bat, but I’m expecting more to grow out of the initial ones.  The big financial goal is 3 months of living expenses in the bank on top of the money the heir will need for college, so we’re going to continue with the cost cutting.  We did pretty well last year, but we had a few major expenses and we can do better I think.  We shall see.  And we will, of course, continue with the decluttering and the home improvement with the long term goal of being “ready to go” should we decide to sell the homestead at some point in the future.  Professional development will continue to be on the list, though I’m shifting focus from technical to process and management.  And, of course, at least one bucket list item marked off.

New for 2014 I’m going to try to think out for a quarter so that if I see an opportunity to complete/trade off a later goal, I can.  I’m also adding “clean up” months or “bye rounds” throughout the year to catch up on goals that were perhaps a bit more than they seemed and to manage the months that just fly by.  Plus, it seems more sane and realistic.

So, let’s take a look at January:

  • Fitness – Hit my Fitbit goals for the month (yep, Christmas present)
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 Intermediate SOA qualification
  • Habit – Fitness and Food Journaling
  • Home – Guest bedroom
  • Financial – 401K and retirement accounts
  • Decluttering – File for 2013 taxes, set up 2014 files
  • Cost cutting – Insurance review

And February:

  • Fitness – Sign up for the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K in March
  • Professional – Complete the ITIL 2011 MALC (Expert) qualification
  • Habit – Take or draw a picture every day
  • Home – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Financial – 2013 Taxes completed and filed
  • Decluttering – Scan/Shred old records
  • Cost cutting/saving – Cut dining out to one dinner and one lunch per week

Finally, March:

  • Fitness – Complete the NC Half Marathon Twilight 5K
  • Professional – [month off to catch up if needed]
  • Habit – [decluttering habit, see below]
  • Home – Front porch and walks (getting ready for spring!)
  • Financial – update wills
  • Decluttering – Declutter one thing per day (sell, trade, donate, recycle, repair)
  • Cost cutting/saving – Utilities review (gas, power, phone, internet, cellular, TV, etc.)

Looks doable.  Here’s to having some fun, simplifying my life, and rocking 2014!

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