Hi Ask Anna readers, it’s Leah from Simple.Home.Blessings! I am back in the swing of things after having baby number three, last November. This might be a slightly different swing, but I am still living in the same house with all the same household demands for cleaning, project doing, and decorating. With all the things beckoning my attention, I have a tendency to get unfocused FAST, and I find myself frustrated at the lack of progress toward my specific homemaking dreams. So, I thought I would share with you the routine I have been doing every year, for the past 5 years, to stay focused in my homemaking pursuits: setting goals for my home.
It is really easy and helps me to stay focused on what really matters in my home for the coming year. Last year was pretty funny, many of the goals I had at the beginning of the year, got thrown out the window with the news that we would be expecting a late-year arrival. But we were still able to accomplish many of our homemaking goals because I had them written down!
Here’s how to set goals for your home each year:
First walk through each room of your house, doing the following things. For me, it usually takes about a week or two to complete my goal setting process, but take it at your own pace! As you go through each room:
Tidy up
It is really hard to dream in a cluttered, messy space. I do my best dreaming and goal-setting in a room that is tidy, so I can see all the surfaces and see clearly what needs to be done. This does not mean you need to do a deep-cleaning of the entire room, just get it back into shape, so you can see it clearly, in order to do the next couple steps.
Dream a Little
This is the part I really love! Sit in the room and consider what you would most like to see for this room. Ask yourself how you want it to function and what changes need to be made to make it function that way. Think about small changes, that could make a big impact and of course, it’s always good to look for ways to better organize the space.
Set 2 Goals
After I have a dream, I set 2 goals for each room of my house. These goals have to meet 2 requirements, #1, they have to be attainable, #2 they have to be autonomous. I say attainable because you may have lots of dreams for your space but you need to be realistic at the same time. 🙂 Our dream to add 3 sets of French doors to back end of our house will just have to wait until our budget meets our dream, but I can hang new curtains instead, to refresh the space in the meantime.
The goals must also be autonomous because they should be something you can do yourself. Too often, I have had dreams and goals that would require someone else to complete the project, but I can’t be in charge of the goals and dreams of other people (and I am a builder’s wife, so you remember what happened to the cobbler’s children?). So, set goals that you can do by yourself, or if you have a dream that would require a little extra help, ask your spouse if they would mind if you signed them up for it.
Write down a dream for further consideration
This is where the bigger dreams come into play. This is where you will write down the things that you’ll need to discuss with your spouse, because they will require a bigger budget or help from an outside source.
For example, as I was working through my goal-setting process for our dining room this year, I wrote down “Rug?”. I have been dreaming about a rug for a while and I wasn’t sure if it was practical, or we could afford it. So, I wrote it down and started thinking about what kind of rug I would want, how much I would want to spend, and I mentioned it to my husband for further consideration. Then I found a perfect rug for our dining room, at an amazing price and I jumped on it. My goal for our dining room to feel cozier and more inviting is starting to be realized!
I love this process of goal-setting for my home because, as I said, it keeps me focused and task oriented. I also love that it creates a checklist to work throughout the year. I know Anna does the same thing for her home and it’s always fun to look back each year at her House Projects in Review posts!
Do you set goals for your home? How to you do it? I would love to hear from you and what some of the goals for your home are this year!
Leah
