In mid-January of 2019, I set a few late resolutions and decided to download a simple app to help me stay on track. The name of the app is Goal Tracker and it’s super simple to use.

You set up your goal, set how often you want to do it, and then you just check it off daily if you did it. If you didn’t do it, you mark the day with a red X.

You can also set up notifications to remind you to do the goals if you want. I set all of my goals to do every day, but with no reminders! I had reminders at first and those got really bothersome so I shut them off.

Here are the goals I set early in the year:

1. Read a book.
2. Read or write a poem.
3. Work on my novel.

Later in the year, I added two more:

1. Write a blog post.
2. Write in my journal.

Here’s how I did for the year for each goal:

Read a book: I read 332 days out of 346 days total. My best was 70 days in a row.

Read or write a poem: I completed this goal 297 days out of a total of 347. My best was 64 in a row. Most of this was reading, but I’ll mention writing in a bit.

Work on my novel: I did this 328 days out of 365. 64 in a row was my best.

Write a blog post: This goal isn’t very old. 29 out of 60 days. 8 days in a row was my best.

Write in journal: Also not very old. 47 out of 60 days. 14 days in a row was my best.

So what goals will I do next year?

I’m definitely going to keep reading every day! I read 32 books total this year (I track that at GoodReads.com.)

I’m not sure if I will read poetry every day, but I do want to keep writing it. I actually wrote 36 new poems last year. I’m quite proud of that. I haven’t written that many poems since my 20’s.  I also wrote poems 10 out of the 12 months last year. For now, I’ve set a goal to write a poem once a week for the new year.

I’ll definitely keep working on the book, and I hope to start writing a new one so that will also be on my list of daily goals. Writing in my journal will be a goal too for every day.

I haven’t given much thought to “new” goals for the new year, but I’m sure I’ll think of something in the next few weeks. I’m also not sure about the blogging goal – I can’t think of something every day so I set a goal to do it once a week for now.

What are you goals for the new year?