So, I told you last week how you can set goals with your family in just three simple steps. Since I expect you to set goals with your family, I figure it is only fair if I share our goals for this year with you.
Be more productive and follow through
I have already mentioned that this is going to be our Year of Productivity. Bill and I want to cast off the procrastination and make stuff happen. As a longterm goal, we plan for 2013 to be the Year of Progress where we see our activity this year continue to grow and then 2014 will be the Year of Reward where we anticipate seeing tremendous benefits for the time investments we are making.
In order to see this happen, we need to break some bad habits. For instance, all of us in our home have a habit of starting a project and not finishing it. Bill took down our Christmas lights and left the extension cord laying haphazardly in a pile in the backyard. The children will start cleaning and leave half of their toys strewn across the floor. As for me… I cannot begin to count the number of piles and boxes that I have shuffled from here to there and back again instead of just putting it away the first time.
Train the children to get things done
Since we want our children to be a part of our productivity, Bill had the amazing idea of making a list with the children of what they need to do each day. They decide what needs to be done. We help our non-writers to put their list on paper and then hold them accountable to what they said needs to be done. We want to see them become finishers and not just starters.
We also want to give the children more responsibilities. Lira is now 8 years old and despite Autism, she is very capable of doing many things around the house. Franc is also expanding on his ability to complete household chores. Bill and I want to take advantage of their budding maturity and put them on the “family team” right away.
Improve communication in our marriage
The most persistent struggle we have in our marriage is in the area of communication. Part of that struggle is that until last month, Bill had been undiagnosed with ADD. Unbeknownst to us, this was causing a huge strain on our marriage. We look forward to the benefits of having the ADD treated but also realize that part of our communication issue is just typical boy/girl differences.
Bill is the typical man and boils his conversation down to just a few words. The problem with that is “I want to go to the movies and go out to eat this weekend” becomes “I want to relax.” If you tell me that you want to relax, the mental picture I get is sitting on your duff and reading a book all weekend. So, we are working on filling in those blanks and plan to get away once or twice this year without the children for what we are calling “marriage retreats.”
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