Category Archives: progress

I have undertaken monthly reviews as well as wheel of life reviews for some time, however I felt I should be getting more out of these reviews to ensure I was working towards my goals. Although I think the wheel of life is a great tool to help develop your desired life balance, my concern was that it was subjective and therefore probably not a good monitoring tool.

New wheel of life method

To try and resolve this, during May 2009 I kept a note of the tasks and activities I completed, and plotted the number against each of my goal areas. Of course, it is not perfect as I have not been able to make a note of every single task, plus the number of tasks does not necessarily equal time spent on tasks or importance of tasks, but it is fairly quick and easy to keep track.

What I hadn’t expected was how difficult it was to categorise the tasks into my goal areas and they are not necessarily sitting where you would expect;

• sorting files on my computer and reducing emails are under Surroundings
• writing posts for my blog are under Free time

In the last month I feel that I’ve started to complete things for me as well as looking after my daughter, however progress has still been slow so this is a combined post reviewing personal progress as well as activity on my blog.

Blog – I am still slowly making it back to writing on my blog with one post in the last month. One of my biggest problems has been coming up with ideas for what to write about; my days (and therefore my head) are filled with baby and I’m not keen to turn this into a mother and baby blog. However, as I’ve found time to read other blogs during March as well as reviewing my goals I now have a list of topics; so fingers crossed you will see some more posts in the near future.  Despite this lack of posting I still had over 180 subscribers at the end of March, which is higher than this time year.

Goals – I have been looking at the first draft of my goals I wrote last year to check they are still relevant after having a baby

Every project needs to come to an end, but what do you do if not all the parties agree on the completion? My biggest project this year has been my pregnancy and unfortunately my baby and my body disagreed on when it should be completed.

My due date was the 10th November and as a good project manager my contractions started soon after 1 o’clock in the morning on 10th November. The mid wife came out to check on me about 6 o’clock and as my contractions were 3 minutes apart they suggested it was a good time to go over to the hospital.

However, my daughter disagreed and was not ready to be born and so refused to finish the rotation required to come out and my waters did not break.

But after 19 hours, a lot of perseverance and jelly babies, my daughter, Beth, was born on her due date in the birthing pool at the local community hospital; weighing in at a healthy 8lb 3oz.

I didn’t write a making progress report for June and I think that says a lot about the lull in enthusiasm I’ve been going through, but hopefully I’m on my back now. I’ve been helping out on several projects at work and it started off at a good level, but towards the end of July it was getting more difficult to juggle so many project in the available time. However having got away from it completely on my sailing holiday has given me the opportunity to re-evaluate my workload and I will be sitting down with my manager next week to discuss it.

Goals – I have a first draft of my goals that I put together a week or so ago. I have looked at them several times and discussed them with my husband and there are just two areas that I’m considering changing slightly.

The first thing that is noticeable from the shape of my wheel this month compared to last month is the improvement in the vision area. I have finally committed to paper the first draft of my high level goals. The interesting thing is it didn’t take that long in the end due to the work I had done earlier, however I guess I was scared about finishing them. I don’t think they are correct yet, however I am happy to give it ago and see how it feels; expect a post about it soon and I would be very interested in your comments.

I have also increased the score for career slightly. My role changed at the beginning of April and combined with going on maternity leave shortly I am finding there are a lot of short term opportunities arising for me in the company. This is great because I have worked in the same area for the last 6 years and I am now starting to see other sections of the business.   An additional benefit is it should be easier to return to work after maternity leave if there is a reason why I can’t return to my current area. I am also currently on a week long course that will (hopefully) result in a recognised project management qualification, not only will this be good within my current company, but is obviously something that I can also take to other companies if I decide to move.

May has not been as productive as I was hoping, as you my have noticed from my lack of posting. Due to the changes to my job, my work is now at a very pleasant level and I feel I am making good progress through my tasks, but I am also aware this could be temporary as two of my projects are currently paused. At home I have been very lethargic and unfocussed so although I have been completely tasks it is not very noticeable if you look around the house. We have spent both bank holiday weekends in Dorset, unfortunately they were both rainy, but we still managed to get some walks in.

Goals – Hmm, not much to say on this one really as I have not progressed it at all

Fitness – I have been to a couple of classes at the gym and last week had a programme reassessment and I am planning on going to the gym at least twice a week. I have also been for three walks along the Jurassic cost in Dorset. My weight is continuing to increase and in the last month has increased from 71.4 kg to 72.4 kg

April has been a strange month. It was quiet at the start as I had left one of my projects and was able to pass all outstanding actions on to someone else, however I have now started on an additional two projects so my workload now is as busy as ever, just over a larger number of projects. The good news is my energy levels seem to be picking up again after several weeks of very low energy so I am planning on increasing my productivity levels, particularly when I’m at home.

Goals – I have not progressed this at all during April, however now that I have started catching up tasks around the house this is quickly rising up my to do list and I intend to write a post on this during May

Fitness – I have continued going to Body Balance once a week and I also had my first experience yachting. However, my weight has increased, from 70.2 kg to 71.4 kg

Tasks – My backlog is currently 26 days long, however if I move all the tasks for a project I can’t currently work on to my Someday / Maybe list then it is only 2 days; a definite improvement. The current task list is now 40 days behind; perhaps it is time for my current task list to become a new backlog