Last year, I began writing monthly to-do lists to help me keep track of what’s on my plate. I thought it might be interesting to share these lists here, and to report back each month on what I was able to accomplish.

My October list focused on launching some new things while also building in time for rest. Here is what I was able to accomplish in the last month:

  • Wrapped up a coach training course and launched the final course of the year. It felt great to keep moving these trainings forward in October and the final course of the year is already halfway done! It’s amazing how quickly time is passing for me this fall.
  • Launched a big project at work. Done! We kicked off a task force at work that I’ll be facilitating through the end of March. It felt awesome to get the task force members finalized, construct our timeline, outline our deliverables, and get the group started on thinking through some really important questions together.
  • Started our house renovation project. We were able to finalize some additional details for this project in October, but it looks like demo and work will start in early to mid-November. Since we won’t have a lot of our current kitchen amenities during that time, delaying the official start of the project is fine with me!
  • Took a day off. This was so wonderful! I spent the morning catching up on watching YouTube videos and then took myself shopping for some new pants that I needed now that it’s getting colder out. I also picked up a few home decor items that I’d been looking for. An afternoon nap and some reading rounded out the afternoon, so my day off felt very successful!

October went by so quickly! And now it’s time to plan for a new month of to-do items. I’m ready to launch into November and all that it will bring my way.

Here are some of the items on my November to-do list:

  • See my family. We are trying to plan a visit with my mom and sister, their respective partners, and my niece for early in the month. I’m really looking forward to seeing them since it’s been a couple of years since our last in-person visit. One of the benefits of moving to Colorado is that I’m in the same state as one of my sisters, which makes these kinds of visits a little easier to coordinate.
  • Make progress on our kitchen and bathroom renovations. This timeline is not entirely in my control, but I’d love to see this project start this month and see how far we can get before December is upon us. We aren’t planning to host or do major cooking for the Thanksgiving holiday, so at least that isn’t a concern for our timeline.
  • Draft a book chapter. As I mentioned in my recent 10 Goals to Complete by 2022 post, I committed to writing a book chapter on the “post-pandemic university” and it’s due by the end of November. I need to get a first draft done asap so that I have plenty of time for revision and refining. This is definitely a priority on my list this month.
  • Purchase bookcases and unpack our book boxes. The supply chain challenges have made purchasing bookcases a little more challenging, but I’d love to get this done in November so that we can start to unpack a lot of the book boxes that are stacked up in our basement. Fingers crossed that our local IKEA has the bookcases I want to purchase available this month.

Once again, this next month is looking like it will be pretty full! What are you looking forward to in the month of November?