treat yo' self: make your goals "check-offable"

i am a BIG calendar person. this is probably because i have the world's worst memory, and if i don't write things down immediately, i completely forget to do them. 

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my productivity as a human being shot through the roof when i went from having a mile-long to-do list to actually calendaring in exactly when i would do those things. my calendar of choice is the iCloud calendar. 
i take the to-do list and divide them into days when they need to get done (ie. put away the christmas tree!). i knew i wouldn't have time to put it away before the weekend so i dragged that item to saturday. i always mark my items initially as "all day" items so that they sit right at the top where i can see them if i am doing a quick glance of my week. 
once i know my schedule a little clearer (ie. i wanted my saturday afternoon free to do a lot of other things), i dragged it from my saturday "all day" list to a 20-minute block on saturday morning. easy peasy, lemon squeezy. 

and that is how i generally calendar.
HOWEVER, when i sat down to calendar in my goals for may to make sure i actually complete them, i found it to be a bit more complicated since most of my goals require a daily commitment. it would take way too much time for me to figure out when i am going to do each of the items every single day since my schedule changes pretty drastically on a day-to-day basis, a few items are just things i need to keep in mind, and a few things are ones i can do whenever i have a free moment. suffice it to say, my regular labor of love in calendaring was just a bit too much.
i went on the hunt for windows-friendly checklists i could use instead (since my mac needs to be repaired and i am chained to my 500-lb work laptop for the foreseeable future). i came across a few, but my favorite has been swift to-do list 8. i LOVE this, and i am NOT being paid to say so. it's great because it's a super simple interface, and you can make recurring items. 

so when i check off writing my daily thank you note, it resurfaces as a task tomorrow without me having to do anything. this is a BIG DEAL for me!!! it also links up with outlook, which is a pretty cool feature since i have to use it for my work email. it's another thing that i check everyday, but it's been well worth it for how quickly i was able to type in my goals and hold myself accountable.
how do you manage your goals to ensure completion?

♥

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