January milestone review of goals and commitments

Well, it's Super Tuesday, and the results are in.

As promised, here's the recap for goals and commitments as laid out in my post at the first of the year. (thank you to everybody for the great feedback on that, by the way!)

I'm not going to do a full break down against each, but I will cover some of the highlights and the low lights for my New Year's resolutions (maybe I should rewrite them for this Thursday...?), goal, and commitments.

Resolutions
Of the ten resolutions I made, I am making good progress on painting every day for at least an hour, and meeting with family and friends at least once every week.

Same goes for the walking 2 miles (although I didn't make it last week, because of a case of the busys).

I am also happy to report that I am about halfway through my Dickens novel, David Copperfield (it's Harry Potter sized!). So far I really like it.

Other resolutions are in varying stages of progress, but one month is too small a sample size to determine if they're on track or not. I did meet a very nice masseuse who is up for trade...

Goals
2 shows of 5 down, and I have 2 more scheduled!
I am roughly on target for meeting my 1/3 of yearly spend goal-- but again, one month is really too small a sample size.
Some slight progress on getting into additional galleries, but I'm not prepared to talk about it yet (I haven't figured out if this particular deal, which is outside of the country, will be worth it to me OR the gallery in question)

Commitments
There are mixed results here.
I have posted a new painting for sale everyday, and have been drawing in my sketchbook regularly, but I have had varying degrees of success with a) painting larger canvasses (I'm behind by 2-3 of each size), and b) learning and development (I haven't yet been able to hit 10 hours a week, and one week it was only an hour!).

I have not completed any of the 50 +2 hour drawings.

Nor have I applied to any juried shows. I have been looking and figuring out which shows I will apply to, so that's not really too bad there.

I did hang two shows this month (the QAB show, and the Cafe Ladro show), and each took at least 2.5 full days of work to get on the walls.

That time certainly cut in against my ability to produce larger work.

I do feel that in a couple of areas I didn't manage my time well at all, and that also contributed to being behind on larger work and learning (not to mention the drawings!).


Moving forward
In February I'll try to continue to execute on the things I was successful at, while seeking to improve areas where I was not. I have started monitoring my time (for example, I bought a stop watch for when I get on the computer) to keep an eye on how I spend it, and I've adjusted some things schedule wise to try and maximize the likelihood that I'll get bigger pieces done (which is where I feel the most pain of failure).

All in all, there was much to be proud of for the first month, and the areas for improvement still feel, well... improvable.
In June I'll evaluate the commitments (and goals), and will see if adjustments (up or down) need to be made.