Here is a report of where I spent my time and how well I progressed towards reaching my goals last month.
My 2020 Goals
Professional Goals:
92% / Double the number of members of The Religion Teacher (December 2017 to present) (-1%)
369,525/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+20,777 words)
551/600 Resources (Videos/Worksheets) for Members of The Religion Teacher (+20 resources)
Personal Goals:
42/75 Books read (+3 books)
30/73 Books of the Bible read from beginning to end (+1 books read)
82/100 30-minute workouts (+10 workouts)
How I Spent My Time in July 2020
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:
- 18:14 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
- 14:14 – The Religion Teacher’s Saints Worksheet Collection
- 11:51 – The Adventurer Saga
- 10:58 – Buying/Selling Our House
- 10:09 – The Religion Teacher Blog Posts
- 9:26 – Daily Review
- 8:03 – Morning Preview
- 6:55 – Weekly Review
- 6:43 – Speaking (South Bend-Elkhart Chapter of Legatus)
- 6:45 – Daily Bible Devotional for Kids
Total Time: 139:39 Hours
July 2020 Highlights & Lessons Learned
The Sprint to 100 Saint Worksheets
I realized last month that I’ve been spreading my goals too thin. When you focus on five projects at the same time, none of them will be finished. So, I sprinted through to create my 100th saint worksheet for members of The Religion Teacher.
I’ve been a big fan of time-batching for a long time. The problem was I time blocked each day instead of each week or each month. It was amazing how much more productive I felt focusing on one main project instead of many.
I’m really pleased with how these worksheets turned out and excited for the many kids who will quickly learn about the lives of the saints and how they can live like them today.
A New House!
This was unexpected!
Most people wouldn’t move the month before a new baby was born, but my wife is crazy and she knows it. We needed another bedroom to fit our little guy. A great house in our neighborhood went up for sale and we jumped on it. We will have a lot more useable space for our growing family. I will get an actual office that isn’t in the basement under the daily dancing children in the living room.
Selling our house was stressful, but turned out to be a blessing. We had ten showings and four offers in the first day it went up for sale. I never would have predicted it especially in the middle of a pandemic. We loved that house and put a lot of money and love into it. It’s the only house our youngest daughters can remember.
But, as I said, the baby was coming soon . . . very soon. More on that in the August project report . . .
Second Speaking Event of the Year
Usually by this time of the year I have traveled and spoken five or six times. Instead, I gave only my second talk of the year in July. It was in a church and we all wore masks and kept six feet apart. The attendance was low and the event organizer didn’t quite know what to expect.
I spoke about keeping kids Catholic to a group of Catholic business professionals and their spouses. There are so many great parent saints to learn from! I’m sure I would be able to learn a lot from the parents who attended. I have a lot of respect for the Legatus chapters throughout the world and it was a blessing to speak for our local group.
