Genealogy Goals for 2013

Just as I hit my first goal last year, it seems I forgot to blog about my goal progress. Maybe this year I’ll remember a little better. It also seems, even before I’ve written this post, that my goals this year will be very much similar to last year’s. I did, however, create a new goal during that down time of my goal reviews, and I finished it too.

So a quick review of last year’s goals. I went to Europe! I think I blogged more. Business related, I think I did a little better on both emails and invoicing, but better on the former. I didn’t get pictures on my family web site, nor did I get back to organizing my documents since Europe (I did a lot before the trip). I haven’t indexed much lately either. An added goal never blogged about that I did finish was posting pictures from my Europe trip; I created one page for every city/town/village.

So here goes… my genealogy goals for 2013.

1. Go back to Europe (and let the clients pay). I’m already trading emails with a few people. I don’t know if they’re serious enough to realize the added costs of the trip versus paying for me to do research locally, but I’ll stay hopeful.

2. Organize my genealogy documents. I have been scanning papers like crazy, creating a stack of recycling about one foot high. Just a few folders are left unscanned, then onto all the genealogy files.

3. Blog more genealogy. This will be easy. I didn’t count posts in previous years to know if I really blogged more last year, but I can definitely blog more about genealogy. I will soon begin analyzing the documents from Europe, in addition to the previous goal.

4. Publish a family newsletter. This should be a relatively easy goal, but I didn’t make it last year. First I have to figure out how to email all of my relatives. Was I using the mailing list program?

5. Keep up with business. The new computer should make this one a little easier. Now that QuickBooks doesn’t take so long to start up, and it can run in the background easily, I should be able to invoice more often. I’ve been doing pretty well with keeping my email inbox to reasonable levels too.

6. Keep up with UJGS. I’ve slacked off a little. I need to meet individually with my board members to get them to work. When I have less that I have to do, I’ll probably do more that I’m supposed to.

7. Learn Russian. Last summer, I had a working knowledge of Polish, enough to get by in the country. I barely got started on Russian and felt quite lost in Ukraine. (Yes, they use Ukrainian there, but everyone also knows Russian, and it will be useful in more countries.) The great thing about this goal is that I just got started again on my Russian lessons in the last week, so already off and running.

Yep, very similar to last year. I do have a few specific projects I’d like to work on also. Maybe listing them here will get me to work.

8. Create research reports for everyone. I mean this for the people in my own database. While writing reports for clients, I always find things that I missed and have to go back for them. It could be very useful to do for my own family.

9. Begin my Feldstein one name study. I have been collecting Feldstein records and indexes for years but I haven’t actually done anything with them. I’d like to.

Those last two will be the harder ones to get done because they’re big. I already have the organizing to do.

I think I got more work done when I first moved my office into the living room. And now with a new desk, I’ve been inspired to get a lot of things done again. I sometimes forget how much I require change. If I start to slow down, maybe I’ll paint the room a different color to get me going again.

The URL of this post is http://idogenealogy.com/2013/01/01/goals-for-2013/.

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