This time of month again, straight to the point, let’s have a look at my October goals…
My main goal is to make my house a home.
Goals for October were
Personal and financial
Stop smoking: ahem ahem… some days were better than other. Still a November goal. FAIL
Spend less than $150 on going out: I was pretty good with that one, and spent $128. Paris is so expensive but due to good weather I was able to have picnics outside with my friends instead of eating in. PASS
Finish my mum’s living room deep cleaning: I postponed that one until mid-October but eventually washed all the walls and painted the ceiling. The result is quite nice, and my back hurt for a couple of days after painting the ceiling, though it was really worth it. One happy mum. PASS
Apply for short term jobs: I did and even went to three interviews, the first two said I was overqualified, the third, the person didn’t show up so I left after 20 minutes. Instead of finding a job, I booked an earlier flight to Guatemala to start working on the land. Let’s call it a PASS
Website
Have gravatars and threaded comments work: Thanks to some helpful guidelines from Veronica at Pelican on Money I was able to find the files to change, thought I was smart enough to change them myself, broke my site, got a big scare and was able to backup. Strangely, it worked. LUCKY PASS
Change the sidebars: I did that too 🙂 Inserted a bit of ads, added the last comments and the badge of Blogger Helping Bloggers, the support program I joined with my awesome mentor Jana from Daily Money Shot! It is still messy and not perfect, but better than before. PASS TO BE MADE EVEN BETTER SOON.
Break 500K Alexa:
I wrote that while at 777K, current rank is 194,256. The speed has slowed when I moved to Guatemala and I see that it requires constant work, so I am expecting a probable loss for the next few days. PASS
Reach 600 Twitter followers:
Done! PASS
Understand my RSS feed
Nope, still not good with that one! EPIC FAIL
Comment on at least 3 sites a day
I have gone above and beyond on that one, discovering a few nice sites on the way, and the results have been very positive in terms of getting acquainted to bloggers and have people come over to see my website. PASS
Overall a pretty good month considering I moved house and continent in between.
November goals
Personal and financial
Stop smoking
What? Wasn’t it an October goal… well, it’s still there. Not for long!
Zero waste on water and food.
Without electricity, food goes bad fast. And if I have to stock up for a week, I need to be organized. I can’t afford to waste water either since I carry it with buckets from the lake.
Swim every day
This will be my only sport for a while, except for lifting construction materials and furniture around. I love bathing but can get lazy at swimming.
Organize my time
I can’t afford to procrastinate all day like I did in Paris. I need to have enough time for my blog, while a house is being set up and built.
Blogging
Lighten my design
I am having a couple of issues with my theme, which is an old one so sometimes the formatting I see on WordPress will not be what will appear on the blog, and other little things that make navigation less optimal for you.
Guest post 5 times
Get Twitter followers over 800
Get my Alexa ranking under 200K and stay there.
Actually I wrote this a couple of days ago, so I broke it today (Nov 4th), but want to stabilize now.
Like the weight loss, no yo-yo!
I am going easy on myself because a week into arriving, I don’t know what my routine is going to be like. In December I will have a clearer picture.
Your site is looking good! I need to spend some time on my site redesign…I keep putting it off because I’m so busy with other stuff, but I really need to make it a priority over the next few months.
I think it is still a bit messy, but much better than it was. Are you happy with Thesis? I’m considering it too.
Congratulations on breaking the 200K mark for Alexa, that is something I am working on atm as well. It might be slowing down because you’re rank is getting so low. The lower your rank the slower it goes. Going from 180k to 170k is much better than going from 2 mil to 1.5 mil.
Good luck on the smoking and I’m jealous that you get to swim everyday. That is my favorite pass time ever, but it’s hard to do in Mich when it’s freezing out 😉
I know the Alexa is a bit artificial because mostly bloggers with the Alexa toolbar read my site. But it is a good motivation to keep going, and a metric outside people value.
Do people dig circles of ice to swim in the lake, like Russians do? There was a swimming club in the UK who swam every day in the sea, rain or snow, they were mostly retired people, very impressive!
Your Alexa will certainly continue to drop as long as you keep networking with other bloggers. Big congrats on getting some of the blogging stuff done! I just got a HUGE SEO report from Jeremy at Modest Money and I have a lot of changes I need to implement. Some of them are over my head and I’ll probably have to hire it out to somebody; I hate being ignorant with the tech side of blogging!
Thank you Jason. Most of the tech stuff is over my head too, but I think I will leave it for a while and just have fun blogging. Then maybe invest some of the income to make the blog better.
Good luck on your goals, Pauline. If you need somewhere to guest post, feel free to post on Add Vodka!
Thank you Daisy for the kind offer! Will DM you this week to take you up on it.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaseeeeeeeeeee stop smoking =)
It is really bad, I know. Doing great this week!
You’re doing great! Would it help if I started emailing your personal stories of the oral cancer cases I’ve diagnosed? Agree with Holly, PLEASE STOP I like you blog too much to risk you not being around to write it 🙂
mmm, no thanks! I’m doing great so far!
Good job on the goals. Congrats as well on breaking the 200k barrier with Alexa. Like Jason said, as long as you keep doing what you’re doing it will continue to drop. I too am a tech novice. Hopefully I can put more into that as time & income allows.
There are some really good tutorials if you have more time than money. I like smart passive income and online income teacher for SEO, wordpress forums for design but really don’t have the time right now.
Swim every day in November sounds like a great goal!
I am one happy and lucky swimmer!
The drop in your Alexa rank is amazing! Hey, you can go swimming at your private beach everyday when you take your bath. Enjoy the sun on behalf of all of us that are sitting in snow. 🙂
Happy to have escaped the winter! I am immersing myself in water so far, need a real swimming routine. Unfortunately it usually rains in the afternoon when work is finished. I have to make it a mid day routine. Is it already snowing in Canada?
Hey! Just caught up with your posts – your little house is amazing!! 🙂 Good luck on your goals and keep the travel posts coming
thanks!
Oh I can imagine quitting smoking is SO hard! Nice job on your goals! I’m glad I discovered your blog…and feel free to do a guest post on mine (although I’m sure you’ve had 100 offers at this point!)
It is a habit that I link with having a drink and relaxing at night. I don’t smoke during the day, but crave my cig with a beer. I just have to stop the association. Or stop drinking beer… I’ll work on the association! Thank your very much for the post offer, I’ll DM you this week!
Yes they do. They drill a holes in the great lakes and jump in. They call it the polar bear club, though I don’t think i’d ever do it.
brrrr me neither!! Shaking just at the thought of it!
I can’t believe you’ve kept up with posting and commenting while moving across the world. I’m so impressed. Tu es tres magnifique.(poor remembrance of high school French) I have so much that I need to learn about blogging, but it will come eventually. I learn something new most every week.
Merci! It hasn’t been too hard, nights are quiet here. Except when the internet acts up and I get tired of pressing refresh, refresh, refresh….
Wow you’ve definitely done a good job for someone who moved from Paris to Guatemala haha. I always mess around with my site’s files but I take screen shots first so I can change it back when I screw it up haha.
I am hosted by host gator and they have a great backup tool, if you generate a backup yourself, they will restore it for free with you. If it is a backup made by them they charge $15 but still better than losing your site!
Good luck with this months goals Pauline. I find it amazing that you are able to spend so much time posting, commenting and setting up a new life at the same time. If it was me, I think I would have died of exhaustion by now!
It helps that the days are short here. Sun is down at 530pm, so you have to go
restupdate your blog and write 🙂I’m with Glen. It’s a huge effort to post anything at all while you’re doing so much with such a huge move.
My goals you ask? To start exercising again. I did a half-marathon and then pretty much stopped running. I’ve got to start again before I become a gigantic fatty.
Good thing summer is starting for you! A half marathon is a pretty big accomplishment, you should get back into running easily. Posting your goals and progress on your blog is a great way to feel accountable and reach them!