30DLBL - Days 8-11

** FIRST UP: I now have the photo of Em's big win in my post from Wednesday!!**

OK back to regular programming LOL!

Far Out! The past couple of weeks here have been rather busy and I'm exhausted. We've had birthday parties, kindy excursions, school excursions, a win for Miss E, and just life in general!

So I was rather pleased when Days 9-11 were deemed catch up days in the 30DLBL Challenge!

Day 8's task was to concentrate on our To Do Lists - rather than just writing a standard list, though, we classified tasks according to their long-term benefit towards living a better life. I enjoyed this task immensely because I'm a list lover, and being able to sort the tasks into the 2 columns made sense to me and I've already seen its benefit.

For Days 9-11, I'm going to go back over my notes, fine tune anything I may have left a bit rough, reflect on my work so far, and the big thing I want to do, is sort out what I'm doing with all the notes I'm writing, plans I'm creating and monthly planners - where am I going to store it all, how am I going to display it etc... I suspect I am going to actually clean off my office desk and use my big corkboard for a lot of these things, but I'm also looking into electronic organisation as well.

But for now, the next list on my new improved "To Do" list is to review my goals for the past 10 days. (I am going to do this weekly from now on, but today will cover the past 10 days).

So, how am I going on those goals I set myself back on Day 1?

• I have set up my fortnightly contribution to my Superannuation account, and my first payment has gone through.
• I haven't bought any new clothes or accessories. I haven't even been window shopping or opening emails announcing "HUGE SALE" from my favourite stores!
• The Coke Zero is completely gone, and I haven't bought any more! I also haven't bought any fizzy drinks whilst out either. I don't even really miss it. The first day I went "hmm I could do with a coke now", but as soon as I thought it, I knew it wasn't going to happen and it was just a habit.
• I have exercised 3 times per week - very proud of that!
• I have been having dinner each night.
• I sewed last week and have it scheduled in again for tomorrow - the pattern is prepared, so all I have to do now is pick the fabric!
• Goal #7 has actually been something I've been thinking about - I'm going to ditch this one! Purely because its putting the horse before the cart! I need to focus on the creating part before the selling part.
• Yep, continuing to declutter - and I've scheduled fortnightly cleaning sessions into my planner - if its in there it will get done, and as I clean I always declutter so it will do two things at once.
• Still getting up at 7am and in bed by 9.30pm! I've found it easier and easier to get out of bed - sometimes even before 7am so I'm looking forward to making my wake ups a touch earlier next month. I have been dreaming quite vividly though, and that's usually a sure sign I'm exhausted.
• And of course, YES, I'm on track with all my tasks for this Challenge!

As for my other goals:

• I have made a point of avoiding shops and am doing extremely well sticking to my budget.
• I actually made a realisation that if I carry cash for all my non-essential purchases I'm much more likely to be even more discerning! I will continue to use EFTPOS/Internet Banking for my regular things like groceries, fuel and bill paying, but for the next few fortnights, I'm going to try withdrawing my "Other" spending (school excursion fee's, hair cuts, birthday gifts, school supplies and so on) as cash and see if it does indeed work as well.
• I have opened up my new savings account, set up all my regular transfers to my new and old savings account to start from my next pay fortnight.

So I'm pretty happy with where I'm at right now - I'm sticking to my plans, I'm meeting my small milestones, and I am really concentrating on setting up my calendar to actually include all these things that I used to just keep in my mind to happen - and of course they never did!

And on that note, I'm really looking forward to the next part of the 30DLBL Challenge - I'm sure it will be just as rewarding!