Okay, so old habits die hard… REALLY hard and I’ve gone back to more than 5 goals.  You heard me, I have crowbarred in a few more goals.  Though in my defence, my goals haven’t hit double figures.

I know, I know… you are all probably giving me the stink eye.  To be fair, they aren’t CRAZY goals and I have got them all planned out throughout the month rather than doing nothing for the first two weeks then panicking as I try and cram them all in.

In fact, I’m feeling pretty damn good about these goals.

↑ How I feel about starting my goals. ↑

Last Month’s Goals

01 – Write 28,000 Words – DONE (holy crap Batman!  I actually did this…I wrote (almost) EVERY single day…I just missed ONE day!)

02 – Update ALL blog posts – PARTIALLY DONE (okay, what I SHOULD have done…was check just how many I needed to update. It was 300+ so in hindsight, not a surprise that I didn’t complete it).  I did get that number down to around 200 left.  I also made some important changes to my blog including updating my bio, stacking pages, condensing all disclaimers onto just one page.

03 – Read 1 book – DONE in fact I completed 4 books, 2 in the first week of January!  

04 – Sort Keywords and Titles – DONE– I managed to sort out the titles for my items and fix the *cough* bad SEO.  Unlike Google spiders that take around 3-4 months to come back to an active site, Etsy’s spiders only take about a month.  So hopefully I’ll see some good results from these changes. 

05 – Go through all notes and checklists – DONE – Managed to block some time, turn OFF my phone and actually get this done – but it was touch and go at one point.

That is an awful lot of Green 😀   So, despite a little stupidity on my point where I failed to actually acknowledge the amount of work needed for one of these goals, I did a bloody good job!

This Month’s Goals

01 – Write 27,000 Words

I’m a little busier in February so I’m dropping this by 1,000 words but still on target for completing the 85K Writing Challenge.

As before, I will keep my overall total word count update on my Friday blogs as a form of accountability.  (Thanks to everyone who has been cheering me on!)

02 – Update 50 Blog Posts

Okay so rather than being stupid like last time, I’m setting myself an actual REASONABLE blog goal.  Though I am hoping to actually BEAT this goal rather than just reach it.

03 – Fix Issues on Google Console

So I appear to have a few issues flagged in my Google Console in regards to problems on my blog that can affect my ranking.  I need to get those sorted.

 

04 – Read 1 Book

Despite doing well last month, I’m sticking to just 1 book as my aim.  Firstly, January could have been a fluke and secondly, the first week of January I was still technically on holiday which always allows for more reading time.

05 – Go on a Date

My partner and I try and go on a coffee date once a month, it’s a great way to connect and spend real quality time together.  After all, we’re all busy and it is too easy to fall into familiar patterns and complacency.

So I’ve decided, to give these even more weight, they are going to be added to my goals list.

 

06 – Run a Month of Updates

I like to run experiments in my shop to see what works and what doesn’t.  Since Etsy’s spider cycle is only 30 days, one month of updates should give me some idea of how well they work.  So this task will involve planning, prepping and uploading images for the updates.

07 – Update ALL of NuMONDAY’s Listings

NuMONDAY is another platform I am currently testing out and it allowed me to export my Etsy listings so I can have two platforms instead of one.  The only problem with that is exporting means all the titles and descriptions are exact copies as the ones on Etsy.

This is NOT good as Google reads this kind of duplication as bad and spammy.  So I need to make sure my titles and the first part of the descriptions are different from my listings on Etsy.

 

08 – Create a Timeline

In order to stay on track with this secret project, my friend and I have to create a timeline schedule of what needs to be done by when so we actually hit our deadline.

Friday Update: 35,696 words (tracking my word count for the 85K Writing Challenge).