Review week 39; goals, blog and GTD [How to be an Original]
On Sundays I’m looking back on the past week. How did I perform towards my goals? How did my blog do? And how am I keeping up with my GTD system?
Blog performance
This week was a very successful week. The series on Mastering Productivity generated a tenfold of normal traffic on the day of publication and elevated levels in the following days. I’m grateful that quite a lot of those visitors decided to subscribe to the feed, either by RSS or by email. The numbers this week look great, with an average number of 319 subscribers, but the total mark has even broken the 400 mark on a single day.
| Statistics week 39 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Average RSS subscribers: | 319 | +56 |
| Average daily visitors: | 367 | +274 |
| Technorati Authority: | 159 | +41 |
Technorati is also keeping up pace towards higher regions. The rank associated with the authority jumps up and down from day to day. My blog is somewhere in the top 40k. At days I’m closer to 40k and at days I’m closer to 30k, quite unpredictable.
And I won another book this week! Christine O’Kelly has started her own blog Self Made Chick, and she had a contest for people calling her out on her errors on a site she made from scratch in just 7 hours. Soon I can add The 4-Hour Workweek
Progress towards goals
I decided to rename this section from “Progress on habit change” to what it is now. I realized that my habit changes are part of attaining my goals. And since one of my goals was to weekly review my goals, I’m going to start to do that in this section.
| Material State | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Garden redone by 12-2007 | Goal is about 80% done. Got work done this week, mainly disposing of leftover material. |
| 2. | 2nd floor redone by 12-2007 | This one still needs a lot of work. No actual work done this week, but my father came up with a solution to a problem I was facing. I have to detail it a little further, but it looks good. |
| 3. | €500 passive income by 03-2008 | Only source for passive income is monetizing my blog at the moment. I’m nowhere near €500 a month (the fact that the dollar keeps dropping in value very fast doesn’t help). |
| Active State | ||
| 4. | NLP Practitioner certification by 12-2007 | I’m in training, progress looks good. |
| 5. | 2500 subscribers by 12-2007 | Got a step closer towards my goal this week. Organic growth will not get me to 2500 by december. Guest posting seems the best way of getting there. |
| 6. | Given first training as trainer by 03-2008 | No progress yet. |
| Social State | ||
| 7. | Rising early | ACCOMPLISHED |
| 8. | Contact friends and family 4 days a week | This goal starts October 1…tomorrow  |
| Emotional State | ||
| 9. | Review mission and goals weekly | This is the first week I’m doing it for my goals. I will keep this up. The weekly reviews are getting a habit already as you’ll have noticed the last couple of weeks |
| 10. | Quarterly retreat | Starts January 2008 |
| Physical State | ||
| 11. | Workout 5 days a week | I’m not succeeding in this habit yet. I have started to work out with the weights a little, but I have to start running. Haven’t got the right yet though and autumn is starting over here, so it’s wet, dark and cold. I need to get me the right gear. |
| 12. | Run half a marathon in 10-2008 | Well, I haven’t started running yet, but I have looked at training schedules. Haven’t finalized it yet, I want to get that done next week. |
One accomplished out of 12 and progress on most of them. It could be a lot better, but I’m satisfied with the progress. Reviewing them weekly will help a lot I think.
Getting Things Done - weekly review
At work I have set up a paper system for GTD. I preferred an electronic system with my PDA, but getting it to synchronize with Lotus Notes is a disaster. My PDA will be for private use only from now on.
The paper system consists of a set of folders, conveniently attached together. I made six sections:
- Today
- Tomorrow
- Projects
- Someday / Maybe
- Archive
- Inbox
And a spare section with blank paper to write on. I’m getting into a routine at the start of the day preparing the day, and adding stuff from my various inboxes into the folder Inbox. Throughout the day I use information from the today folder for the meetings I attend, and at the end of the meeting decide what needs to be archived. At the end of the day, I prepare the next day, clean out the Archive section and finish the inbox if there’s still something left inside it.
It’s a fresh start with a system, so I haven’t got a lot of experience with it. But it feels good now, and it takes away the electronic frustration with Lotus Notes.
On a private level I haven’t started the system yet. I’m reading a lot at gtdfrk’s Getting Things Done blog, as I like his setup with ListPro and his checklist for weekly reviews.
Original post here: Lodewijkvdb
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