2011 Goals are the Path to Where I Want to be by 2012

Goals in writing are dreams with deadlines by motivationalmugs
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I achieved my goal last year of joining the Giant 100 Club at Squidoo. I hope to serve some time as a Squidoo Angel this year and spend more time at the Lensmaster Lounge to give something back to the Squidoo community, which has been so good to me. I hope to complete at least one Rocket Moms session this year, which will give me eight new lenses. I hope to go back and revise at least twenty current lenses to make them more profitable, applying what I have learned at Rocket Moms. I would like to have a total of 20 new quality lenses by the end of 2011.

Last year I returned to HubPages near the end of the year, enticed by a contest in one of my niches. I entered and won some prize money. I hope to write at least ten Hubs this year and enter at least one contest. I also intend to explore the Forum at HubPages to become more a part of the Hub community.

I will be starting a new blog focused on local places and events in North San Luis Obispo County, and I hope to write at least one entry a week to it. I will use this blog to promote my lenses and hubs, as well as my Zazzle products and those of other affiliates. I also hope to write at least one blog entry a week at Of Cabbages and Kings, my main blog.

In terms of weekly goals, this means writing at least one hub or one lens each week, and two blog entries a week. Anything I write at Crabby Beach or on my Garden Blog will be extra and probably not consistent. I don't see myself as having enough time to put into a garden this year, and I don't have the physical and mental energy to fight the ground squirrels who destroyed my garden last year. It was a relaxing hobby that produced fresh food, but it has become stressful and I have too many business projects this year that may be stressful to take the time to garden this year.

Designing Woman !!! by Capriceharmony65
Create customized tee shirts using zazzle

My goal for Zazzle is to make at least one product a day, average, so that I will be able to double my products by the end of the year. I also plan to define two niches for my products and populate them with those products. My goal is to be having a monthly payout by the time June rolls around.

first Priority art prints Breathe in the Sunshine! by Basleeartprintgifts


I am still working through the personal goals. I know I need to maintain a healthy life style. I need to spend time with my husband and not ignore the rest of the real world. Gardening will have to go or be kept at a minimum. I can buy good fresh produce at Farmers Market, and it also keeps me in my community. I will have to limit myself to about three hours a month at Studios on the Park and visit only one new attraction or winery a month, incorporated into a walk. This should give me enough stimulation for writing activities. As time passes, I will probably get more ideas about what needs to go.

Social Networking Butterfly Shirt by krichard08


I will keep checking in on Rocket Moms groups I belong to, at least once a day, but will not check in more than a couple of times a week at Twitter. Since Facebook keeps me connected to real life friends, I will check in there for a few minutes each day. This kind of networking also helps me promote my writing. I will do more to develop my business page on Facebook and keep to announcing one new special a week on my Barb's People Builders Page I'd love it if you'd follow me there by "liking" it.

I added one more social network last year that I will probably be active on again this year -- You Tube. I find it complements my writing and enhances it if I can incorporate my own videos, as well as those of others. I have realized the potential of building a network there, and unlike the other social networks, it doesn't involve much time except for editing the videos, which I would have to do anyway.

I expect I will have to almost ignore Gather this year because when I get involved there, it takes way too much time spent with people I hardly know. I will also cut out Qondio, since it really does not make much for me and I always feel inhibited there. I haven't been to Qondio in months, and I have already cut way back on Gather. On other social networks I will accept friend invitations, but I won't really participate because I don't see the point in connecting with the same people in ten different places. I will stay on Linked-In because it does help me keep in touch with people who wouldn't be caught dead on Facebook. I added Google+ near the end of 2011, and I also added myLot , which at least pays a bit for networking. My goal is to make payout at least every other month on myLot, and to keep my presence active on Google + and Facebook, limiting each to half an hour a day.

It's interesting to reread these goals today. Some I'm keeping up with, but many I'm not.

Health: I dropped Kennedy Club Fitness after confirming what I suspected. I'm not the sort of person who should have joined a fitness club in the first place. I do try to walk for a couple of hours a week, spread between about three days, but I don't always make it. My diet hasn't changed as much as I hoped it would. I usually do not sit at the computer for more than an hour a time without getting up to walk around or do some other chore. And I am getting more sleep, though not always seven hours a night.

Update, December 6: The walks came less frequently than I had hoped, but I have lost a couple of pounds due to healthier eating.

Writing: I believe I have my 20 new lenses for this year written, but have not yet completed a Rocket Moms Session. I entered a HubPages contest in January many times but the competition was very strong and I didn't win. I will try again in the next contest. I did exceed my writing goal there for this year though, since I already have 20 new hubs -- twice the amount to meet my goal for the entire year. My blogs all suffered as a result of that, and I'm way behind on both of them. I did start my new blog, Tidbits from Templeton as scheduled, and many weeks I write more than one entry. As of today, though, I'm three entries behind. Part of the reason for that is that I joined Wizzley this month (or was it last month?) and wanted to get to five Wizzles fast so my links would become "do follow" links.

Update, December 6, 2011. I did complete one summer session for Rocket Moms, so I can check that off. I know I added at least 14 lenses after June 24. I did win a prize in a HubPages contest in July, which made me happy. I started the year at HubPages with only eight hubs, and so far this year I have added 45, for a grand total of 53. I have 7 pages on Wizzley now. I was not able to keep up with the writing schedule I had set for my blogs, and have let them get quite far behind. I have been using Tidbits from Templeton to promote some of my Zazzle products, though. I had also hoped to write at least one blog entry a week at Of Cabbages and Kings, my main blog, but I just didn't have the ideas I needed to make that work. It seems every two weeks is more realistic for that blog.

Zazzle: I have more than met my goal of adding at least one new Zazzle product a day, thanks in part to the RedGage Challenge on Facebook, for which we add one new floral or nature image a week on RedGage and also a new Zazzle product, usually from the same image. You'd better believe everything is coming up flowers on Zazzle. But I also opened a new Zazzle store, California Wine Country Memories and Gifts Why not stop by and have a look? The calendar below is my newest product in this store.

2012 Calendar: California Wine Country by cawinecountry
View other Wine country Calendars

Update, December 6, 2011: I think it's fair to say I added my product a day average to Zazzle this year, but I haven't counted. I know I've added at least 216 thus far, and expect to do many more in the remaining days of December.

My Business Goals: I'm way behind here, mostly due to frustration in not knowing how to verify the code for my pages, so I procrastinate. I have added products, but not at the hoped for rate. I see that I need to cut back in other areas, such as writing and Zazzle, if I'm to come anywhere near meeting my business goals.

Update, December 6, 2011: I did list a few new products on my web site this year, but not anywhere near what I should have. I've done little if anything on the code. I'm stuck in neutral, and I'm simply not motivated to put the time in on coding and listing. I will have to do better in 2012.

Social Networking: I have cut back on Gather, but do try to check in once a week. I'm more active on RedGage because of the previously mentioned RedGage Challenge. I have joined Posterous and Amplify, but so far have done no more than make profiles. I try to tweet more often, but usually I don't tweet more than once a week.

Update, December 6, 2011: I hardly ever check into Gather -- Maybe once every three months. I'm on and off at RedGage. I will get on an uploading binge and then disappear for a couple of weeks. I need to be more consistent. I have done nothing more at Posterous and Amplify, but I have joined Google + and am checking in almost daily there for a few minutes. I probably kill the most time on MyLot, a huge discussion forum that pays me just a bit for the time I spend talking to people I meet there. What keeps me there is the quality of the conversations and the people I am connecting with. That's where I'm putting all the time I used to put into Gather, and more.

As I look back on this year so far, I see I need to work harder on the book business and blogging and health. Wizzley has been good to me, and I need to add more pages next year. I want to continue to build my Zazzle stores at a reasonable rate and work more on writing to promote the products in my blogs, web site, and Squidoo. I will make those goals more specific in January.