2018 Goal Setting Part 1: Brainstorming & Organizing

I take year-end goal setting very seriously.  Mostly because it’s the one time each year that many others get as crazy as I do about planners, habits, goals, and the like!

But, I’m also a sucker for a fresh start.  I’ve always ALWAYS loved the feel of a new notebook, school year, or calendar page.  Something about that potential and clean slate just speaks to me!

So, here we are.  2018.  I have a newborn but apparently she was game for some goal setting too, or at least napping while I did my part.  2018 is going to be quite a year — it will be my last (sob!) year of being a mother to a young infant, and I really do want to savor it*.  At the same time, there will be a LOT to lean into at work (maybe not ideal timing, but it is what it is!) as we launch our inaugural residency class, and I am still jazzed up about plans for this blog & the podcast (and maybe a spin-off project too).

I already do monthly and weekly reviews, so I tend to know what is on my plate.  But the year gets me to think a little bigger and encourages pruning of festering ‘to do’ items that maybe DON’T need to be on the list anymore.  I started by brainstorming a number of things that sounded like they would make the year fulfilling.  This was sort of my rough draft/round 1, where I came up with ideas but didn’t have a firm timeline for commitment.

Like many, I decided to choose a word for this year, and my pick was S P A C E, probably because if I don’t intentionally cultivate it, it will be a very crowded 12 months.

I then decided to break up the year into quintiles.  YES, QUINTILES.  I would have done quarters, but because of my maternity leave, it made sense to do things a little bit differently.  Then, I’ll be making my list of goals (combo of bucket-list-type items, habits, and big-picture projetcts!) for each. I’ll show the Q1 goals in part 2 of this post.

My Quintiles:

Q1 – January 1 – March 4 – Maternity Leave


Q2 – March 5 – June 7 – Back to Work


Q3 – June 8 – August 19 – Summer

Q4 – August 20 – November 1 – School push


Q5 – November 2 – December 31 – Holiday / end of year


Each will have a separate focus (or dual foci, for some – for example I hope to do a lot of fun with family in Q3 but it’s also a very big month at work as our residents orient and start!).


In case anyone is interested (and often people will ask, so I’ll assume SOMEONE is!) — I don’t write these in my planner.  I did the brainstorming in a nuuna notebook I use for random journaling, and I have another notebook I started for the new year, mostly because my new planner is soooo tiny (by my standards) that I needed a supplement.  The new notebook was a gift from my sister and it is a dot grid hand-sewn by the Plum Umbrella Studio (here).  I’ll be using it to brainstorm goals, keep random lists that are too big for my hobonichi, and keep track of analog blog/podcast/etc brain dumps.


* Interestingly, I am not sure it felt as fleeting or as special the other times.  Especially with C actually, because I was just so overwhelmed with 2 under 2.  Maybe it’s because I always knew I would go for 3.  Though with that hypothesis not sure why I would have kon-mari’d the #$*&@# out of all of our baby stuff.  Oh well.

PS: I know I’ve mentioned it, but if you want more pictures like this I have resurrected my planner insta shubox_plans.  My regular insta is the_shubox and the podcast is at  best_of_both_worlds_podcast (you can probably tell I manage this, and Laura does weekly themed posts where people often comment!).