Goals for 2010–Must I really set some?

I don’t like to-do lists. Never have, really. I find them annoying for a couple of reasons. One is that I don’t know how to appropriately craft them. I’m usually overly ambitious when creating a to-do list and therefore list an impossible amount of things to accomplish in a day. The inevitable result is that I don’t complete the list, and I quickly sink into a state of depression with thoughts of failure mixed with apathy. “I only completed half of the tasks I listed!”

What I often end up doing to remedy this situation is put things down on my list that 1) I’ve already accomplished that day, or 2) Will quickly accomplish as a matter of habit. How pathetic is that? Of course, Jay is the complete opposite of me–he loves and lives by lists. The other annoying thing is that you must keep track of the list to ensure you’re marking off the items. And woe to you if you loose it in the abyss of your purse!

So, I keep things in my head. And this usually works very well for me. For instance, right now I can tell you what day of the week any day in 2010 will fall on simply because I know every Saturday date (and whose wedding I’m photographing). It’s not that I sat down to memorize all this information; it just happened as I made mental (“yeah, that’s pretty mental” ) notes. Of course, I also have these sorts of things written down, too…as well as any other important dates and information. I’m not that crazy.

Nevertheless–despite my aversions to making lists, I have been wanting to write down some goals for the year–just to challenge and keep me motivated. Recently, a local photographer friend blogged about creating 20 lists of 10 things for 2010, which I think is pretty awesome but way too much listing for me.

Instead I’ll settle for a list of 20 Things to Accomplish in 2010. Surely that’s doable! These are a mix of both personal and business goals.

1. Improve album design workflow to deliver the proof layouts within 2 weeks of the wedding.
2. Attend one photography workshop/conference (heh, I know I’ll be doing this one when I attend WPPI in March).
3. Shoot an e-session at Kennywood (I really want to do this).
4. Train for Pittsburgh’s half-marathon and run it at a 9 minute mile (or less) pace. I know this is ambitious–I was closer to 10 minute miles last May.
5. Improve packaging for DVDs and albums to match brand (already working on this one!)
6. Visit a national park.
7. Read one book a month. Remember this tome I was reading? Well I finished it over my trip, plus read another one.
8. Shoot two Trash the Dress sessions. I loved the one I shot last year and would love to do it again.
9. With that in mind: Hold 5 workshops (some can be small!).
10. Do 3 photo walks of Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
11. Create client anniversary cards.
12. Cook 1 recipe from every cookbook I own.
13. Submit work and have published in two magazines or blogs.
14. Finish and launch studio (more on this to come soon!).
15. Go horseback riding once (I really want to do this!).
16. Host a game night at my house and place Settlers of Catan (nerd alert).
17. Exercise 5 days a week for a month. I don’t know if this is possible.
18. Create custom thank you cards.
19. Keep my dresser top clean for a month (it attracts a lot of clutter–Jay really laughed at me for this one).
20. And my most ambitious goal: triple my blog’s subscriptions. Right now I’ve got 32 subscribers. Can I get to 96?? Frankly, I’m surprised I have that many people bothering to read this blog already. Thanks for your love, blog-readers!

And since every post should have a picture, here’s a random one from our Scotland trip last summer. If we climbed those mountains (sort of), surely I can accomplish some of these goals?