Great week!

• Health/fitness:
  • Weigh myself daily –
  • Walk 30 minutes every day – This is turning into a general “exercise daily” goal. I’ve walked, biked errands, or gone to the gym every day this week.
  • Keep track of blood sugar and diet –
• Work:
  • Complete 3/6 small biz client projects – One project completed! The second got a big shot of work done this week. I’m expecting one last round of revisions before I wrap things up.
  • Bonus: I worked on some article drafts.
• Personal:
  • Keep up gratitude journal –
• House:
  • Finish reading book about buying first-time home. Done!
  • Look at budget and analyze to see if we could afford monthly expenses. Done, but it’s not looking very good. Sigh.
  • Talk to mom about borrowing money.

Also, I forgot to post updates about my blog action day actions:

• One-time: Swap the halogen light with the bedroom light. Did it later than intended, but done!
• One-time: Call our city to request a free compost bin. Delegated to hubby who made the phone call. They sent us a booklet to read through and we have to fill out a form to get the bin. Haven’t done that part yet.
• Ongoing: Start washing and reusing ziploc bags. Going well.

Applying some of the 4 Hour Workweek principles has definitely been a good thing.

• I make a short to-do list at the end of my day for the next workday.
• I don’t check my email until I get at least one of the major tasks done.
• I “hide” myself from IM when I’m trying to power through something.
• I do everything possible to get through my to-do list, keeping me from being distracted by other things.
• I try to be done with work by the time Steve gets home — if not before — no matter when I start working in the day. This has given me some “down time” (which I spend reading for fun) when I get done early! I think there was only one day this week when I went over by half an hour after Steve got home because I had a late meeting scheduled.
• I practiced saying “no” to a door-to-door salesman, a telemarketer, a friend who asked me to volunteer for an event, and a potentially stressful job that I didn’t think I could do in time.
• I provided my first fixed project quote.

In combination with GTD, I’ve been feeling more in-control and less reactive this week. I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend! The only computer task I plan on doing is updating our budget spreadsheet on Sunday afternoon when Steve goes to play basketball.

This was a good week for reflection. I revamped my goals and did a bit of bigger-picture thinking with work as I read through The 4 Hour Workweek.

Based on my revamped goals, here’s how my week has been going:

• Health/fitness:
  • Weigh myself daily –
  • Walk 30 minutes every day – Hooray! Well, to be honest, on Wednesday I didn’t walk in the morning, but Steve and I biked to the gym so I think that counts as exercise.
  • Keep track of blood sugar and diet –
• Work:
  • Complete 3/6 small biz client projects – I have two small changes to make to a client site, but then the invoice is off!
  • Bonus: I reconnected with some of my contacts about writing more articles.
• Personal:
  • Keep up gratitude journal –

I’ve also decided to add one more goal. Steve and I would really like to own our own home. We have been thinking it would take a long time to save up money, etc., etc., but after meeting with a financial planner it looks like we could do it sooner than later in terms of pulling together a down payment, although I’m not sure yet how our monthly budget would fare. So, here are some new milestones for me to complete by 11/11:

• House:
  • Finish reading book about buying first-time home.
  • Look at budget and analyze to see if we could afford monthly expenses.
  • Talk to mom about borrowing money.

Thanks to people who have commented this past week: Kate Davis, Sally, Diana, Kristine, ClickerTrainer, Margaret, BlueBeetle(one), Bog, vikas, and Penny.