Personal Goals for 2020

While I hate the term “New Year’s Resolution”, I love using the New Year as a time to set my intentions and goals for the following year. I am 100% guilty of saying “I’m going to eat better, work out more, and drink less” every single year and not actually following through with it, but every once in awhile I come up with a goal that I fully enjoy the process of achieving (e.g., my reading goals).

2020 is going to be a big year for us because we are moving from a one bedroom flat into a three bedroom house. There will be a lot of budgeting and furniture shopping and DIY to take up my time, but I’m still going to set a few goals for the year. And I think I’ve settled on a really good set of goals!

Here are the things I want to focus on in 2020:

1. Read 52 books

I didn’t feel like I had a great reading year in 2019, yet I still managed to finish 58 books (my goal was 60). In 2020, I am lowering the number of books that I aim to read because I want to focus on two different things when it comes to my reading life: quality and sharing my reading experiences.

Quality

2019 was the year of buy, buy, buy when it came to books. I really started filling my bookshelves and got totally carried away. In the end, I bought 59 new books and only read 30 of them. And 59 doesn’t even count the NetGalleys I applied for and received or the books I borrowed from friends or took out from the library. I completely overwhelmed myself with options to the point that I didn’t even know what I wanted to read anymore.

In 2020, I don’t want to be afraid to put down a book that I’m not loving. However, I want to actually attempt to read everything that I buy. In other words, I need to stop biting of more than I can chew…er, buying more books than I can read! I still want to allow myself the flexibility to spontaneously buy a book I can’t stop hearing about or pick up something from the library simply because I love the cover; but, I don’t want to buy ‘just because it sounds pretty good’. I want to put more thought into what I read and really open myself up to new genres and authors that I haven’t read before.

Sharing

Well, we are a part of the oversharing generation, aren’t we? You might not even care what I read; however, since setting up the @diversifyyourreading Instagram account, I’ve really enjoyed sharing more about my reading life. I want to be even better about this in 2020 – keeping a ‘2020 Reads’ log on Instagram, posting photos of books that I’m reading, sharing a ‘What I Read in X’ post on the blog, and writing more reviews on Goodreads.

I’ve even updated my own personal reading log spreadsheet to include some more details that will help me keep track of my reading habits – publication year, whether or not I’ve posted a Goodreads review, etc.

2. Reduce food waste at home

2019 was the year of minimizing single use plastic. I try my best to always have a reusable water bottle and coffee cup on me so I’m not contributing to plastic waste everyday. However, we massively contribute to food waste at home and I want to change that in 2020.

We often buy ingredients for a meal in a weekly shop and end up eating out or ordering a takeaway; sometimes, we’re savvy and freeze any meats that we don’t use, but many times food goes in the trash. Or, we freeze it and it sits in the freezer for so long that we never actually use it. In 2020, I want to shop smarter, come up with creative ways to use all of the food we buy, and start from scratch with our freezer so we get into a routine of actually eating stuff that we freeze.

My main ideas for achieving this are to become better at labelling consume by dates on frozen and refrigerated food, divide frozen veg into ‘ready to go’ packs for smoothies, stir fries, etc., and evaluate what we have in our possession before I do a grocery order in order to become a smarter shopper. I’m even considering started a freezer ‘inventory’ which sounds extreme but might work?

3. Create a home office I’ll actually use

Currently, when I say that I work from home, I mean that I work from the couch. It’s not great for productivity and it’s certainly not great for my posture. But, my desk is in our bedroom and I absolutely hate working there. In our new house, I’ll have a dedicated office space and I really want to make it a space that I actually want to spend time in. Hopefully, that will increase my productivity in all areas of my life and help me create a better work/life balance.

Here’s a peek at the Pinterest board I’m using to file away all of my ideas for the office:

4. Give an old hobby a second chance

I’m famous for going all in on a hobby only to abandon it a couple of months later. Most recently, I’ve done it with photography and calligraphy. It’s not even that I’ve lost interest in either; rather, I just got distracted at some point and never went back.

I’m not going to specify which hobby I want to pick back up (because really I want to pick all of them up again), but I’d love to pick up an old hobby again and build it into my weekly routine so I don’t abandon it. Hobbies are so great for creativity and mental health, so I’m eager to make time for one in 2020.

5. Become a morning person

Sean laughed out loud when he saw this on my list, but I really like waking up early when I actually do it. But I rarely do it. When I wake up early, I always feel more energized and I love getting personal or blog stuff done before the work day starts. It leaves me feeling more productive and more accomplished when I can tick stuff off my to do list before 9:00.

Separately (but kind of related), I want to become better at organizing my day. I keep buying planners and only using them for a month or two since I keep my calendar on my phone; however, when I stop using the planner, I for some reason also stop making lists. In 2020, once I become a morning person and actually have time in the morning, I would love to be better at planning what I need to get done each day. I’m not sure whether time blocking or bullet journaling or a simple to-do list will be best for me, but I’d like to figure it out this year!

6. Share more MOMENTS!

I’m not one to overshare or complain too much on social media (or so I think); however, I setup this blog to document the little moments of my life and I’ve completely stopped doing that. In 2020, I want to share more moments – moments at home, moments around the world, moments on my own and moments with my loved ones.

I’m consolidating our Instagram accounts to have just @monganmoments, where I’ll share travel snaps, snippets of our everyday life, and plenty of photos of Giorgio. We’ll no longer post on the A Pair of Passports Instagram, but the travel blog will still exist and I’ll continue to share our in-depth travel guides there.

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I chose relatively broad goals for the year because I know it’s going to be a busy one and I want to actually track these goals throughout the year.

Here’s to making 2020 a brilliant start to the next decade! Happy New Year!