My 2016 Goals and Objectives

Since starting this blog many years ago, I have tried to give myself goals and objectives for the upcoming year.  These are not new year’s resolutions. Resolutions are when someone whines that they want to lose weight, rather, these are tasks I want to accomplish. It is the difference between someone saying, “I want to save more money” versus “I am going to order in for dinner more than 2 times a week.”

Knowing that I am going to have to look back on the post at some point next year provides me with some type of accountability.  It also lets me take back at past years to see what was important to me at that time (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 and 2015).  Last year, when reminiscing, I wrote,

it feels like a completely different world when I take a look at my 2013 goals where I am preparing for our eventual move – we have been in our new house for almost 2 years now!  or in my 2014 Goals and Objectives where I place baby making as priority number one – and now I have a beautiful 3 month old daughter! or the fact that I am referring to my now 4 year old as a baby in 2011!  This blog regardless of whether anyone is reading it or not provides me an opportunity to look back at myself and my situation years and year later.  It is an opportunity that most people just do not have.

Good is the enemy of great

• Personal Life
• Professional Life
• Blogging World
• Online Income World
• Financial Goals

Professional Life

I break this down into two categories: Career and Law Practice

Career

Looking back on my goals and objectives, I usually make the statement that I love my job, and damn it is still true.  I think it is rare for someone to feel this strongly about their position in a particular organization/firm, but I do.  Two years ago, when I discovered I was woefully underpaid, it took all but one conversation to raise my salary considerably. The partners have asked me to continue to build my relationships outside of the office.

My goal this year is to join and cultivate my standing in two professional organizations focused on estate and insurance planning.

Law Practice

My practice is tiny, reserved to friends and family.  Last year I wrote,

I do not have any current plans to grow this stream of income, and will continue to take referrals as they come in.

Given my overall theme that good is the enemy of great, reading this makes me cringe with anger.  My goal this year, is to put real effort into building my law firm’s site.  I completed the project about a year ago but it has largely sat stagnant.  My goal would be to get some real meat into the site – I am thinking some keyword reach articles.  Do I believe I’ll ever get a client from the site? No, but I may lose one by not having an appropriate site.  There isn’t a person my age who doesn’t google someone before calling them.

Blogging World

Last year I wrote,

While my traffic is a fraction of what it once was, I don’t see myself doing anything all that different on the front end.  I will continue to do what I am doing which is posting a handful of times per week whenever I am so inspired.  On the back-end I plan on going through a thousand or so posts making sure all SEO information is filled in.

I didn’t start working on the SEO project until the last quarter!  My goal this year is to go through 5 posts per week on my site to update them.  In addition, I will have at least one new post per week.

Online Income World

Two years ago I wrote

I feel pretty lost here currently.  

I have a great side business with a partner, but it has consistently decreased in revenue and income over the past few quarters.  It is still ridiculously profitable, but decreasing revenue is freaking frustrating.  I’d happily throw money at it, but I don’t believe it to be a “money” problem.  If I am going to give myself a goal here it is to proactively email advertisers on a more often and regimented basis.

Then last year I wrote

Unfortunately, I feel the exact same way.  Over the past year, I have done just that and it seems to work, as such, I am going to give myself another schedule to follow when contacting old advertisers.

In the last quarter I made a push with old advertisers, and you know what? It worked! This year my goal is to go through 3 months of old emails the first week of every month.  I know that may not mean a lot to those reading the blog, but it basically means I reach out to old advertisers and reintroduce myself.

Financial Goals

I want to continue my $500/mo to my dividend investment fund.

Personal Life

I saved this one for last…b/c I have no real specific and measurable goals. Things are great at home, and all this other stuff that I do happens after the kids are down (and usually The Wife as well).  Everyday I get home at a normal time (5:30ish) then I get a fantastic 2-2.5 hours of hardcore play time with the kids.  Its awesome!  If I had to stretch for a personal goal it would be continue to go to the gym two times a week.