January 2011: Lay the Foundation

It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.

Winston Churchill



A là Happiness Project, I have decided, for this month anyway, to compile a list of goals around a theme and track them every day. Gretchen Rubin was kind enough to send me a copy of her resolutions chart and it has been immensely helpful to this process. I don't know her personally or anything, she'll send one to anyone who asks. Check out her site here.

I haven't figured out the rest of the months, yet, nor am I sure I have completely finished January's list. The theme I've adopted is "Lay the Foundation" and unsurprisingly, this month will be all about taking care of myself: getting enough rest, eating well, fitness; and the house: tidying, staying on top of my chores, clearing out.

(I just requested her book from the library again. I'm #72 in line for it. I think I'll have to hunt down my own copy after the holidays.)

So, to get to it:

Plan the day
Use the Morning Routine Checklist
Exercise
Use the MM Cleaning Checklist
Put three meals on the table
Keep a food diary
Drink 3 pints of water
Follow the One minute rule
Tackle a nagging task
Do the dishes
Go to bed by 11pm


The Reverb folks sent out a wonderful link to this post full of links to tools you can use to track your goals. I haven't finished looking through it yet, but the Ben Franklin chart looks very similar to the one Rubin used in her tracking. I use 43 Things to send myself two emails every day: one tells me to declutter, the other to exercise. I think that about sums it up.