November 2016 Goals

November is upon us, which means I need to set some goals for this month.

• Read at least two books.

I really want to get back into reading. I am near the end of one and a third through another, so I need to get these finished because I hate not finishing books. My to-be-read list is forever growing and I took last month off so no excuses this month.

• Drink a litre of water every day.

This goal was a great success last month and it is something I want to continue. Maybe after this month I will up this amount.

• Revise Italian vocabulary for at least ten minutes every day.

Yesterday I was thinking about how little vocabulary I know in Italian. This is extremely worrying seeing as I will be going there this time next year! I really need to up my game with how much work and effort I am putting in, so that I feel a lot more confident by next summer.

• Watch two Spanish films this month.

I think my biggest issue in Spanish right now is listening. But, I am also massively into films right now (I watched four films last Sunday), so I thought why not combine the two? I would love to watch more international films anyway seeing as I am going travelling next year and it would be good to improve my Spanish.

These are my four goals for November. Sometimes I add a goal on if I think of another in the next week or so, but these are my goals for now. At the end of November I will review these goals to find out how well I did.

October 2016 Goals Review

Today’s post is an overview of how well I did throughout October with my goals, which I wrote about here. But here is a quick recap:

• Read two books this month
• Revise Spanish/Italian for 30 minutes every day
• Eat healthier
• Drink a litre of water every day (I added this one after making the post).

Okay, goal number one was a complete failure. As I wrote about it here yesterday, I did not manage to finish one book in October, let alone two. This is the first time this has happened to me this year and I do not like it, so I am determined to get back into reading throughout November.

Goal number two was again not great. I started my second year at uni this month and I have been getting into a routine for that, as well as keeping on top of all the work (which there is a lot more of than last year), so I have been pretty busy with that. However, only today I was thinking about how much more work I need to put into my languages, as this time next year I will be on my year abroad. I need to get to work.

Goal number three was a reasonable success. I have been eating healthy lunches and dinners every night, however, recently I have been snacking on a lot of things I need to cut down on.

Number four was a success! I have drunk a litre of water every day this month. For someone like myself who before drunk hardly any water, this is a huge step forward for me and something I will definitely continue and hopefully improve on even more.

This is a quick summary of how I did throughout October. I didn’t set very many goals as I was just getting back into goal setting, and I wanted to keep it vague to make it a little easier. Next month I will be setting more specific goals regarding eating healthier, getting back into reading and improving my Spanish and Italian.

 

October 2016 Goals

This post is very similar to something I use to do very often, which was called ClearTheList. This was, basically, a monthly goal setting chart. I want to get back into this as I think setting short term realistic goals are a great way to be productive and achieve more. These goals can be as little as changing one thing about your diet like ‘eat one more piece of fruit every day’ or ‘go walking for 20 minutes every day.’ Whatever it is, as long as you are improving yourself or your lifestyle for the better then everything counts.

My goals in the past, however, have been quite academic based… specifically language based. Because I study Spanish and Italian at university, I like to set myself goals at the beginning of every month to try and improve a certain area of that subject. For example, ‘revise vocabulary every day for 30 minutes’ or ‘read 10 pages of Spanish every day.’ But then I stopped doing this over the summer and now because I am only just getting back into goal setting, I am going to keep mine a little vague and cover a few areas of my life (university, reading, and diet) and then see how this month goes. I will review the goals at the end of the month and, hopefully, I will have done well and then I will set more specific ones in more areas like exercise.

But without further or do, these are my goals for this month:

• Read two books this month.

I could set a specific amount of time to read each day but in the past this hasn’t worked and instead I like to just set a number of books to try and read by the end. I have been in a bit of a reading slump (mentioned here) recently so I don’t want to aim too high.

• Revise Spanish/Italian for 30 minutes every day.

I can alternate each day with a different language or however I choose, but I want to spend at least 30 minutes every day doing something extra outside of uni work to improve my skills.

• Eat healthier!

I have just moved back to uni and this week’s diet has not been good. But I start uni tomorrow and I am looking forward to getting into a routine and eating better. I am going to say I have achieved this goal each day if I have eaten more fruit and veg, had a healthy smoothie, and drank a lot more water… anything like this. I am going to try to begin to do all these things but slowly entwine them into my every day diet. Otherwise, I think I will go mad all at once, be great for a couple of days and then burn out and pig out on all the normal sugary foods.

I know these are not many goals nor are they very specific. But they are just different areas I want to try do better in and I do not want to be specific yet as I am only just getting back into goal setting.

Clear the List: May 2016 Goals

I am a routine person. I am not obsessive but I know I function better with a little structure in my life. So, to be posting this blog three days late does not make me happy, but nonetheless, here we are. My reason for posting this blog late is because I was at home during the last weekend of May and did not have time to blog so in the future I definitely need to plan in advance. Anyway, today’s blog is a Clear the List in which I will be posting my goals for May:

1. Drink a bottle of water every day. This goal just doesn’t go away but it’s because I haven’t conquered it yet! I am still trying to make drinking more water a habit of mine.
2. Workout three times a week. I am lowering this goal from working out every day to just three times a week, this is because May is a very busy month for me with all my uni exams in the next three weeks, therefore, I know I will not have enough time to exercise every day.
3. Complete my daily goal on Duolingo. I want to keep this goal because I have been very successful with this so far and want to keep going, there’s no point in stopping really when it takes such little time out of my day to complete it.
4. Revise Spanish for at least one hour a day. With exams coming up, I need to be revising. I guess I should be revising at least for a few hours every day, but I still have lectures and Italian to study for. I am also spending a lot more time preparing meals recently to try and create healthier meals; therefore, I have less time in my day for other things.
5. Revise Italian for at least one hour a day. Same again. There are some days, like yesterday, where I spent four hours straight doing Italian work but then did no Spanish, hence why the goals are at least one hour of each language.
6. Blog once a week. I cannot wait for summer to have more time to start uploading content I am really passionate about. Whereas right now I do not have much time with uni. Also, my current phone has a broken camera so the picture quality is terrible which means I cannot upload any good pictures for blogs which is annoying, so, hopefully in the summer when I am at home I can use a different camera.
7. Read two books in May. Again, I cannot wait for summer to have more spare time to read more! I have a long ‘to-read’ list which I want to get stuck into but I also would love to try reading books from genres I would not normally go for. It can be so easy to get stuck into only reading chick lit for example but it’s good to vary your genres to vary your reading.

I think I will leave it there. I don’t want to set too many goals in May seeing as it is exam month and that should be main focus. I am so excited though for this month to be over and have more time to focus on what I want to do i.e. reading, watching more films, blogging, learning Spanish and Italian and German, all of which I will be able to set specific goals for. But until then, I need to get through May!

Clear the List: April 2016 Review

Apologies for uploading this blog two days late! The reason for my lateness is because I have been at home for the past week, rather than uni, because we got two new puppies! They are absolutely great but they are also a massive distraction from doing uni work. However, along with this and spending time with family and my boyfriend I did not have time to upload my Clear the List Review blog on its normal day (last day of the month).

Today’s blog is a review of the goals I set at the beginning of April here. This month has been a bit irregular because I was at home at the start of the month for Easter and then again at the end of the month. In between that time, however, I should have theoretically had enough time to complete all my goals. But I didn’t. Here’s how I got on (sorry for the awful picture quality) :

1. Drink a bottle of water every day. I am still on and off with this. It’s so hard to do when I normally drink everything other than water, for me I prefer squash, juice and coke. I am definitely trying to cut down on coke though as I am trying to change everything I eat/drink to lead a healthier lifestyle.
2. Workout/ Go to the gym every day. Again, this one is up and down. I didn’t do a workout at all in the last week when I was at home and then during uni it was a bit his and miss. It just depends what I am doing in terms of how much work I have been set, if I am seeing my boyfriend, going out etc. I have learnt though that I cannot workout in the morning. I wish I could get up and go straight to the gym but that is not for me, so, I normally workout in the afternoon. However, this fits around other commitments.
3. Complete my daily goal on Duolingo. I have completed this! I am now on a 99 day streak which means I have been doing a little bit of Germany every day, about 10-15 minutes, for the past 99 days on Duolingo which I am very happy with. My main goal was to reach 100 days which will definitely happen but I guess I could just carry it on, see if I can hit 200 maybe!
4. Read three books this month. I did not do so well on this L In fact I only read one book, which I will review in a blog post next week. Although, Instead of spending time reading books, I have been watching quite a few films this month. These include: The Huntsman Winter’s War, Man of Steel, The Book Thief, The Imitation Game, Due Date, The Secret Life of Water Mitty and Man Up. I would recommend them all.
5. Spend thirty minutes a day revising Spanish vocabulary. I did this at the start of the month when I was still at home for Easter, and then I did not complete this goal again.
6. Spend 15 minutes a day reading “Va’ dove ti porta il cuore.” This did not happen as well. I read about a quarter of the book which took me ages, however, in the summer when I have more time I hope to read more foreign literature to improve my Italian and Spanish.
7. Spend 15 minutes a day revising Italian vocabulary. This was almost a complete failure. The problem I am having with this is where to find a reliable resource to learn vocabulary. Do I use online sources which sometimes only give you about twenty words for each topic or do I try ordering a new book for some vocabulary? I don’t know. In class we do not get given almost any vocabulary so I really need to up this and spend my own time learning vocab to improve.
8. Finally, blog once a week! This one was almost a success, if only I had uploaded this blog on time! I cannot wait till summer to have more time and start posting more about what interests me. I want to post more language learning and healthy living blogs, whereas right now I am mostly doing Clear the List goals and reviews and monthly book reviews.

That is it for this review. I am happy with my results on Duolingo but I need to try get into a routine to exercise a set amount of times a week, which should hopefully encourage me to drink more water as well. As for the language goals, I am disappointed with how I did this month. In May I have all my exams so I doubt I will be able to set specific goals like in April but in the summer I hope to try again and actually complete them this time. I will be uploading a Clear the List blog post for my goals in May very soon.

Clear the List: April 2016 Goals

Are we really in April already? It seems crazy yet when I look back at the last four months, I have completed my second term at uni, visited home a few times, had my birthday and spent lots of time with friends and family, so I guess although it’s gone quickly, I have been busy and enjoying everything so far. Today is the first day of April, however, so I need to set some goals for the month.

1. Drink a bottle of water every day. I am going to keep this goal for another month! There have been times during the last two months that I have done this for a couple of weeks but then I just stop and go back to drinking sugary drinks. I need to change this and have more water every day. This goal links to number two…
2. Workout/ go to the gym every day. I joined the gym last month and really enjoyed going yet since I have come back home for Easter, I have stopped exercising so much. I am looking forward to getting into a routine and exercising every single day to become a healthier and fitter person.
3. Complete my daily goal on Duolingo. I am keeping this goal again too! I am on a 67 day streak at the moment which I am very impressed with and I hope to stick with it so by the end of the month I should be near 100 days? But I guess I could just keep going to see how long I can keep it up for. Duolingo isn’t very complicated; it gives you the basics in terms of grammar and vocabulary and sentence structure and there is a lot of listening practice too. This is perfect for someone who just wants a little bit of exposure to a language every day, and then in the summer when I have three months off from uni, I hope to really get into studying the language.
4. Read three books this month. I am currently reading a romance, which happens to be the second and last book in a series I started in February so I am enjoying this book, but I hope to read a couple of other books this month which I wouldn’t normally go for. For example, a biography or nature book. I would never go for a crime or thriller or detective based book but I am open to try other things. I want to try to vary my reading so I don’t just read romances all the time. Obviously at the end of the month I will be doing a March book review so you know what I have been reading.
5. Spend thirty minutes a day revising Spanish vocabulary. I feel this area of language learning has really gone down for me in the last six or so months. I think this is because I spend so much of my time now learning vocabulary based around history, politics, art, literature and film in Spain because that is what a lot of my course I based on. But through doing this, I am not spending any time keeping myself up to date with all the basics with topics such as food, health, the body etc. During GCSE and A level we were given really good vocabulary booklets absolutely full of words relating to topics so I am going to work my way through these again using Quizlet which is my absolute favourite vocabulary learning resource to use.
6. Spend 15 minutes a day reading “Va’ dove ti porta il cuore.” This is an Italian short story written by Susanna Tamaro which I have been set to read for Italian at uni. It translates as ‘follow your heart’ and is around 1200 words. I have to finish the book by the end of April because then I have to do some work surrounding the story, but obviously first I need to read it and rather than leave it till the last minute like I always do, I will try and read some every day.
7. Spend 15 minutes a day revising Italian vocabulary. This is one thing I have seriously noticed at university, which is that you do not get given any booklets or set any work based around learning vocabulary. This is a massive difference to GCSE where we were given this booklet and had to learn a topic (around 100 words) every week to be tested on every Friday morning. Whereas at uni, we work through a textbook and briefly cover some words which appear in topics. I don’t know if we are expected to find all our own vocabulary to learn it? This area is so vague, we have never been told how we are meant to learn vocab, and it wasn’t until recently I realised just how little I knew. I think my knowledge of Italian vocab has seriously decreased from GCSE to uni which is a depressing thought. I am always wary about using vocab off the internet though because I don’t know who has created the sites and how reliable and accurate the words are. So I will once again be going back to basics and using my GCSE Italian vocab book to revise every day.
8. Finally, blog once a week!

These are my goals for this month. I am happy that I have set specific goals for languages which will hopefully motivate me to do them, rather than last month I was very vague and ended up not completing the goals at all. I have also set more goals this month than previous months so I will see how do with that. I will keep you updated with how I get on by posting a review at the end of the month!

Clear The List: March 2016 Review

Today is the last day of March which means it is time for another Clear The List! (You can look at the goals I set for this month here) This month has gone so quickly yet at the same time very slowly. I have been very busy this month with uni deadlines and exams so this definitely reflected in my results:

1. Drink a bottle of water every day. I definitely improved on this goal this month! This was mainly because I joined the gym in March and started exercising a lot more, thus I drunk a lot more water. However, as the chart shows, as soon as my exercise went down so did how my intake of water.
2. Complete my daily goal on Duolingo for German. This one was once again a complete success! I am really happy with how I have stuck with this; I am now on a 67 day streak which I plan to continue, maybe make it to 100?
3. Read at least three books. This goal was not achieved L I read two books actually. This was because I was so busy with uni this month I just didn’t have the time to do my own reading, however, because it is now Easter, I hope to read more. I will be doing a more in depth book review blog post of the books I read in February shortly.
4. Blog once a week. I do not think I blogged exactly once each week but I did blog a total of 7 times throughout March so I am happy with that. I have now got into a routine of posting a Clear The List goals post for every month an then consequently a Clear The List review post, a monthly update of what books I have read and then there are the random posts but all related to what I have been up to, books or languages. I definitely want to blog more on languages.
5. Do something extra for Spanish. The goal of this was to spend at least thirty minutes every day devoting time to immersing myself in Spanish to improve all the necessary areas like listening/grammar/vocabulary etc. However, like I said, I have simply did not have the time with uni work and I have not even started doing this goal until the last three days when the term was over, the Easter weekend was over and now I am on my Easter holidays. I definitely need to spend more time doing this though if I ever want to become fluent.
6. Do something extra for Italian. This goal was a complete failure. For the exact same reason as above, I did not complete this.
7. Workout/ go to the gym. I didn’t make this goal until a week into the month because that is when I joined the gym and started becoming interested in exercise and becoming stronger and fitter. However, towards the end of the month, I started exercising less because I came back home and so I didn’t have the gym at uni. I did go for a few runs but I haven’t been recently. Starting from April (tomorrow), I will get back into this and I hope to write a more in depth post soon about exercise and becoming fitter.

That is everything! I really enjoy making this chart and filling it out every day; I feel so much more motivated to keep on at something knowing I get to colour in the box at the end of the day and then hopefully fill in an entire month’s row of boxes (well that’s the goal). I will be posting tomorrow all my goals for April! This time I will not make two goals which I know are almost unachievable because of other work and deadlines going on. But overall I am very happy with Duolingo and blogging and I hope to read more this month and get back into exercising daily.

Clear the List: March 2016 Goals

Since realising I have a lot of deadlines for uni this month, I have been unsure as to what personal goals to set. I know I will be spending a lot of time planning and preparing for my assessments and exams but I still want to set goals. I also want to try to set a couple of new goals every month so it doesn’t get too boring.

1. Drink a bottle of water every day. I want to keep this goal because it is something I think is important, and it should, theoretically, be easy to achieve. I just need to make it a habit, and when I do this it means I will be cutting out a lot of sugar in my diet.

2. Complete my daily goal on German Duolingo. I definitely want to keep this up. Although I study Spanish and Italian at university, I have always had an on-off relationship with German. It’s not a Romance language like the others I study, so perhaps this is the reason I have always had such trouble grasping it. I think it is the grammar and the word order. Either way, I am enjoying studying it a little bit every day on Duolingo, and in the summer when I have a lot more free time (I say that but I know I will just be replacing uni work with a full time job) I hope to really get stuck into learning it again.

3. Read at least three books in March. I am changing this from last month’s goal of reading for fifteen minutes every day because I have found that when I find a book I like, I will read it within a few days / a week. Then when I have done this, I will have a few days off and start another. So, in March I hope to read at least three books.

4. Blog once a week. This was a goal last month but it was a bit of a failure. I hope to change that this month, I still want to a lot more language specific related blogs, considering I am studying Spanish, Italian and German and am super passionate about learning languages.

5. Do something extra for Spanish. This is very vague and broad; basically I currently study Spanish at degree level with Italian. This means a lot of my time is focused on the content of the lessons, which is currently 20^th century Spain and the transition to democracy. I study similar modules to this, all of which involve the history and politics of Spain or Spanish literature and film. I do not, however, get the time to practice my own grammar, watch a Spanish programme, or read a Spanish short story for example. Basically, all the things that are essential to building your linguistic knowledge that you should focus on every day if you strive for fluency. I want to devote time to doing this, let’s say half an hour every other day.

6. Do something extra for Italian. The same goes for Italian, practising/ revising/ listening/ reading/ writing/ speaking…anything to improve. Again, I’ll try to spend half an hour every other day doing so.

 

I think I’ll leave it there. I could write a blog post twice the length of all my deadlines and assessments and exams in March which all seem to have been sprung upon me in the last two weeks or so, so you could say I am slightly stressed about those. This also means I don’t want to go crazy with setting myself personal goals that I know are unachievable. I will definitely try to stick to the ones I have set though, and will once again be doing a review at the end of March to see how I got on.

April will, theoretically, be a calmer month in terms of uni, although saying that, that is the month right before all my other exams so maybe I’ll be busy revising, but anyway I hope to set more specific goals in April. Perhaps rather than just read so many books, read a couple of books from a genre I would never normally go for to vary my reading. Or perhaps focus more on languages, rather than just doing something ‘extra’ (after seeing how that will go) I may focus specifically on listening for example.

Clear the List: February 2016 Review

Today is the last day of February, which means it is time to review the goals set at the beginning of the month, which I blogged about here. These are the results for this month:

1. Drink a bottle of water every day. I really tried to do this at the start of the month and did stick with it for a little while, but soon I fell back into my old routine of drinking squash or coke. I want to cut down on this as there is so much sugar in them. I think I will make this a goal again for next month to really try and make it a habit.
2. Read for at least fifteen minutes a day. This one I am definitely happy with, although as you can see on the chart that I didn’t read every single day, there were some days where I read anywhere between one to five hours. As a result I have read six books this month. So, I am very happy with this goal, and will probably keep it on next month’s goals because I really enjoyed reading more this month.
3. Blog at least once a week. This one, however, was not a success. Once again, I started well at the beginning of the month and even blogged twice in one week, however after that it just went downhill.
4. Complete my daily goal for German on Duolingo. This one was definitely a success! As you can see on the chart I didn’t miss a day. I think I am now on a 36 day streak so I am really happy with this.
5. Complete 2 pages in my Spanish verb practice book. I didn’t buy this book, and therefore start this goal till my second week into the month. However, I stuck with it for a while but then stopped towards the end of the month. This book has exercises which are kind of like little tests/revision for me, and therefore it is something I only do when I have the time. In March I have A LOT of deadlines coming up for uni, so I doubt I will stick with this. Whereas after exams, I may go back to it.

That is it! Overall, I am really happy this month, particularly with German Duolingo and reading more books. I wanted to create more specific goals for March related to my language learning. However, like I said, March is a very busy month for me. This either means I will not be blogging at all, or I will be procrastinating so much that I will blog very day.

Clear the List: February 2016 Goals

I know I am a little late in uploading this, but at the end of January I decided to set myself some daily goals for February. I came across this idea ‘Clear the List’ reading a few different blogs and I will be using the table I mentioned in my last blog in order to clear my own list.

I have already been using the table the last few days and I can already say I feel so much more motivated to do things, knowing I get to colour off that box for that day. At the end of the month I will hopefully have a very colourful and completed table.

But without further or do, here are my daily goals for February:

1. Drink a bottle of water a day. I am awful at drinking enough water but this is something I am trying to improve so that eventually it becomes a habit and I don’t even have to think about reminding myself to do it.
2. Complete my daily goal for German on Duolingo. I have recently started using Duolingo because it seems every language learner has used it at some point besides me. So, I thought I would give German a try. I am currently on a 13 day streak, and I actually really enjoy doing it and sticking with it. I hope to keep this up, and complete my daily goal every day this month on it.
3. Read for at least fifteen minutes a day. I used to read so much as a child and I don’t know at what point I stopped but I know I miss it. Since being at university, I have noticed how much of my time I have to spend reading set articles or chapters from books, but that is not the same as choosing a book for your own enjoyment. My thinking is, if I just set a small amount of time a day (15 minutes, for perhaps before I go to bed) then it will encourage me to read every single day. Obviously when I find a really good page turner then I think I will read a lot more than fifteen minutes a day. But I just need to actually find and read the books first! Another reason I am motivated to do this is because I got a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas and I am excited to start using it more.
4. Finally, blog at least once a week! I hope to actually blog more often than this, but for now I will set myself the goal of just once a week.

Those are all my goals! I know there is not actually that many, but obviously I am still spending every day in uni lectures and doing work for that, so it is just about finding time and getting myself into a new routine to fit other things around uni. I hope to complete all these goals every day (or once a week for blogging) throughout February so I can colour in the boxes on my table. I have some ideas for goals for March already, which are more specifically language related, but first I will see how these goals turn out. I will be doing a review at the end of February to see how well I did.