Monday, December 31, 2012

2012 Goals - The Moment of Truth

So here we are at the end of the year again ... and now I have to fess up as to whether I was able to accomplish the goals I set for myself in January.

1. Obtain the addresses, birth dates, and anniversary dates for all of my first cousins on both sides of my family … and names and birth dates of spouses and children. Oh and all my half siblings’ spouses and kids too.
I'm still missing 3 ... but I got the others!

2. Attend at least five (5) Scanfests (or equivalent) this year - and actually scan stuff.
I completed all my photo scanning before September, so I didn't need to attend all 5 (see #3 below).

3. Scan and label at least 15 photos and/or negatives each week, or until they are done, whichever happens first.
This goal is complete.

4. Attend at least two (2) genealogy conferences.
I attended FGS in Birmingham in August, but wasn't able to get to the Family History Expo in Atlanta in November.  Instead, I started the NGS Home Study Course.

5. Give at least two (2) presentations to my genealogical society.
I only made one presentation, but submitted two articles for our quarterly - the first on employment records of our ancestors and the second on census records.

6. Index at least 200 records per month at FamilySearch Indexing.
My total for the year is 3,260, which is around 270 per month.  Of course, I really slacked off in the last few months.

7. Add at least five (5) individual ancestor stories to my website.
I almost managed to complete this goal!  I managed to get 5 ancestors in My Ancestor Spotlight series, but only got 4 of them on the website.  Clearly, I'll need to get the last one on there immediately.

8. Blog at least twice per week.
A grand total (not including this post) of 106 posts for the year, which comes to 2.03 posts per week.  I'll call that goal met!

9. Finish reading Greenwood's "The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy."
I finally finished reading the book!  The SecondLife Book Club didn't have presentations for 3 months; otherwise, we would have made it all the way through the book too.  Unfortunately, we still have 2 chapters left to discuss. 

10. Add at least three (3) website links per week to my online toolbox.
I met this goal a while back, and I've been doing pretty well at keeping my "pending" folder cleaned out.

So I completed 7 out of 10 goals, and sort of completed 2 of the last 3.  Not a bad year!


I haven't decided if I want to have specific goals for the entire year in 2013 or if I want to do monthly goals.  Maybe I'll do both - break my yearly goals down into monthly goals.  I just need to stay motivated and not feel overwhelmed.  I appreciate your thoughts on different approaches.


Do we share any ancestors? 

Please email me at lostancestors [at] gmail [dot] com

2 comments:

Debi Austen said...

Congratulations - job well done!

Unknown said...

Thanks Debi! Hopefully I can keep up the momentum for 2013! Happy New Year to you!

Post a Comment