The end of each year always brings with it a whirlwind of activity and with all that activity comes the realization that the list of things you meant to complete continues to grow in length. Then come the New Year’s Resolutions, those items you want to see happen or get done in the coming year. In 2013 Forbes posted an article titled Just 8% of People Achieve Their New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s How They Do It. which stated “But for all the good intentions, only a tiny fraction of us keep our resolutions; University of Scranton research suggests that just 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals.” Wow, just single digit successes. And, sadly, I’m among the double digits who did not succeed with New Year’s Resolutions. Thus, I stopped making resolutions years ago because of this. A few years ago I began to realize that maybe it was simply time for a reorganization of my resolutions. Instead of resolutions, I would set goals to be completed throughout the year. Well, it’s taken a couple of years but I think I’m finally beginning to understand how to create goals that I can complete successfully. And now I feel like I can go back to creating a list of goals at the beginning of the year for completion during the year.
And it seems to be that type of year. Amy Johnson Crow recently posted about setting SMART genealogy goals in her post How to Set a Smart Genealogy Goal. Family Sleuther also referenced the SMART goals system in his post Genealogy Goals in 2016. These posts were a great reminder about the structure I should be using for my goals for the upcoming year. The concept of S.M.A.R.T. goals has been around for many years. One of the earliest references to S.M.A.R.T. goals is found in a November 1981 issue of Management Review. According to Wikipedia “The November 1981 issue of Management Review contained a paper by George T. Doran called There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives. It discussed the importance of objectives and the difficulty of setting them.” The S.M.A.R.T. goal system has stood the test of time and still provides a good structure for goal setting. So I decided to use the S.M.A.R.T. system along with the information from Five Golden Rules for Successful Goal Setting which was posted on MindTools.com to set my goals for 2016. Here’s what I came up with for my 2016 genealogy goals:
1. Submit assignments/homework for my ProGen class on-time or early each month.
2. Watch or participate in at least 3 genealogy education events each month. This would include things like webinars, online discussions, society meetings, etc.
3. 
Fully participate in and complete the 2016 Genealogy Do-Over. I’ve been playing with getting my genealogy file cleaned up for the last year. Since the announcement of the discontinuation of Family Tree Maker I’ve been considering whether to change to a different software program for my family tree information. I downloaded and played with several programs and finally made the decision to change to Legacy Family Tree software. It was a difficult decision between RootsMagic and Legacy but Legacy seemed to fit my needs better. And since I was switching software and it seemed like a good time to go all in on the Genealogy Do-Over. Plus the new timeline of the Genealogy Do-Over suited my current work load much better than the previous timeline.
4. 
Actively participate in and complete DearMyrtle’s FINALLY Get Organized challenge. I struggle with organization anyway so interests or hobbies that require storage of anything really tax my few organizational skills. DearMyrtle has created a weekly checklist challenge to help those struggling with organization to finally get organized. I’m interested to see what DearMyrtle has in store for this challenge. It sounds promising and I can use all the help I can get!
These are the goals I’ll be starting out with in 2016. Since I’m participating in ProGen, the Genealogy Do-Over and FINALLY Get Organized I’m not setting any goals specifically for researching. I may set these types of goals after seeing where my time falls between family, work and the goals set out above but I want to set myself up for success on my goals this year instead of failure. And my wish for you, dear reader, is success as well. Success in whatever goals you may choose to set for yourself.
Here’s to all those that I love.
Here’s to all those that love me.
And here’s to all those that love those that I love,
And all those that love those that love me!
Author Unknown
