Dear family, friends, and followers,
Occasionally, people joke that they have no idea what I do. I will be honest, it is hard to explain sometimes. I tell people I’m an author, but the truth is I do a lot more than write books.
I like to look back each month and examine where I spent my time and how well I progressed towards reaching my goals. It helps me stay accountable and I hope it helps explain what it is I actually do all day.
My 2019 Goals
My One Word: Together
Professional Goals:
90% / Double the number of members of The Religion Teacher (December 2017 to present) (+0%)
5,000/5,000 copies sold of Christ in the Classroom (Goal accomplished!)
221,322/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+2,781 words)
2/4 new published works of fiction on Amazon.com (+1 published books)
7/7 paid speaking gigs (+0 / Goal accomplished!)
481/500 Resources (Videos/Worksheets) for Members of The Religion Teacher (+9 resources)
Personal Goals:
81/100 books read (+9 books)
21/73 Books: Read the entire Bible from beginning to end. (+0 books read)
94/100 30-minute workouts (+7 workouts)
Incomplete / Play Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” on the harmonica.
How I Spent My Time in December 2019
I track every minute of time I spend working on projects using an app called Toggl (here is why). Here is a list of the top ten projects I spent the most time on last month:
- 11:16 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 4:33 – Weekly Review
- 4:00 – Make It Book
- 3:36 – Daily Review
- 3:24 – Morning Preview
- 3:06 – Speaking Events Preparation
- 2:43 – Website Outage & Optimization
- 2:35 – The Religion Teacher’s Saints Worksheet Collection
- 2:24 – The Religion Teacher Videos
- 1:55 – Formative Fiction Friday Newsletter
Total Time: 52:53
December 2019 Highlights & Lessons Learned
December 2019 was a very difficult month. My mom passed away on St. Nicholas Day, December 6, 2019. It was a very long and hard-fought battle with leukemia. I was there with her when she passed away. She was surrounded by family during her days of passing.
Needless to say, work was not my highest priority during December. Soon after the funeral services came the Christmas festivities. It was a month focused on family.
At times like this, priorities get into perspective. Reaching my goals or getting more work time in just wasn’t as important as being with family. I published my second work of fiction for the year the day before I left for Ohio to be with my mom.
Launching, reading, writing, exercising . . . all those things fade into the background.
I will miss her.
