Goal Tracking - Sep '11 Status Report

So it's been about three months since the last status report. I'll put the absence of posts down to being busy combined with a mild case of winter depression, resulting in a lack of a clear focus on what is important.
So what's been happening lately? The key event of the last couple of months has been the purchase of a motorbike. Getting my L's again has been on the list for a while, and when a couple of my mates at work let me know that they were going to go for the test, and asked if I wanted to come, I jumped at the chance. Took a day off work and headed out to a training centre at Sandown, 6 hrs later BOOM, I'm street legal. Me and Dave pledged to buy bikes before our proper license arrived in the mail (which usually takes about 6 weeks), and we actually managed to do it. Since I bought the bike about a month and a half ago, I've gone out riding pretty much everyweekend, weather permitting. It's pretty awesome, can definitely start to understand the term 'the joy of riding' now. As a few of us ride from work, I usually head out with a little crew. Still got a lot to learn and need to keep practising to get my skills up, but a few of the rides have been fantastic. Haven't had the bike long but already done over 1000km's on it. Here's a couple of shots of the bike and crew.

Can't wait until the weather gets even better, plan to cover a lot more ground, see more of Victoria. Favourite ride so far has been out to St Andrews, up towards Kinglake.

Other than that I've just been chippin' away. Work's going along ok, too much to do as usual, and the challenge as always is managing customer expectations. Trying to hire some more staff to lighten the load a little, but it's also proving difficult to find good people.

So coming into the last quarter, decided it was time to re-visit my goals and see what can be achieved before 2011 runs its course. Aim is to outline the gap between my original goals and what's been done so far.

• Writing: 24 Blog Entries - Amber. Think I'm doing ok here. Including this post I'll have published 17 blog entries to date, so only need to punch out 7 more to hit the target. Admittedly some of the entries are pretty lame (short meditation ones etc), but hey, I'll take what I can get.
• Reading: 24 Books - Red. I've read 6. That sucks. Kinda got stuck on Dostoyevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' a few months ago and haven't picked up anything since. 18 more needed in 3 months, that's 6 a month hmmm going to be very difficult to achieve. May need to ban TV or something, or start reading my nieces Mister Men collection.
• Listening: 15 Gigs - Amber. So far this year I've seen Sia, Paper Kites, Avalanche City, Horrow Show, Architecture in Helsinki, Bliss n Eso, Birds of Tokyo and Drapht, totalling 8. 7 to go to close this one out.
• Save: $$$ - Amber. Doing ok. Problem with not writing down the target back in January was that I've now forgotten it, so hard to define success on this goal.
• Contribute: Red. Have pretty much clocked up zero hours of helping out society this year. Easy to make excuses (such as I don't want to give up time/flexibility from my precious weekends) but at the end of the day, that's all they are - excuses. Need to do something pretty significant in this area if I am to have any hope of passing.
• Health and Fitness: Amber. A little hard to define what a pass mark is, however I've been doing 10 minutes of Yoga everyday for the last two weeks, plus occasionally running to work. Daylight savings kicked in this weekend which should make going for a run etc after work a much more viable option. I haven't really been going to the gym to lift weights at all, however I'm generally making it to proper Yoga classes twice a week. I think if I stick to my 50% AFD rule, get in a bit more running and keep up the Yoga for the next 3 months I can give myself a tick.
• Work-Life Balance: Work Less - Amber. Have been making some grounds the past month by booking time in my Outlook Calendar for personal appointments, such as my Tuesday 5.30pm Yoga class. Makes it a lot easier to form a habit, and give me a reason to leave the office. Need to keep this up. Also going up to Byron bay for a bit over a week at the end of the month which should be AWESOME. Morning meditation sessions for the last week have reduced the stress/anxiety a fair bit, just need to keep these up.

Washup - it's going to need to be a big 3 months. Not much 'green' in the list above so need to get cracking.