March 2019 Goals Update: How Am I Doing So Far? (Plus New Ones!)

So we’re on our way through March 2019.

We’re a quarter of the way through the year almost! I’m halfway through the semester and 75% through my junior year! Wow, time does pass by quickly.

Goals Made in December 2018 (Plus Updates)

When I wrote my goals post for 2018 and recapped at the end of the year, I found I kept myself in check and accomplished more over the year. Besides, it’s always nice to review goals because we can easily forget over the months (and I’m in a blog writing mood). Now that it’s almost April, I thought about looking back into the goals I made before the beginning of the year and see:

• How much progress did I make?
• What do I need to work on still?
• Did I take out any goals? Why did I take them out?
• What kind of updates can I add on to those goals to improve myself?

Continue posting at least once a week

Not only am I posting once a week, but I’ve also jumped up to two posts a week since January. The jump was made because near the end of the year, I began reading… a lot. And when there is a lot of reading, there tends to be a lot of reviews as well (even though I’m not writing some of them).

Update: continue posting twice a week

I’m going to try and continue posting twice a week, though I’m not going to pressure myself if I’m not in the mood to do so. While I love creating content and writing about my ideas, I don’t want to stress myself – I’m not making a living off this blog. Okay, maybe I will eventually with the things I’m passionate about.

Finish formatting, updating and cleaning

I don’t think I’ve started since school started if you want my honesty. I’ve gotten to page 21 out of the 48, which is nearly halfway through, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. I’m focusing more attention on book reviews, so we just gonna ignore the others kind of.

But since the second half of the semester is only one class, I want to try getting to page 30 or 35 before summer actually starts. Bonus if I get further.

Continue working on branding

Honestly, the true goal is “Figure what in the world I’m doing with my graphics and ask if it’s matching the blog.” This is constantly a work in progress, but I think I’ve nailed blog post graphics?

Continue blog hopping and staying on top of comments

Oops, I’m falling behind again… I’m behind by at least a month? I’m somewhere in February, so that’s not too bad… yet.

Work on bookstagram

Back in December, my goal for this is more accurately described as “Be more active on bookstagram” rather than “work on bookstagram.” But in order to actually work on bookstagram… I do have to be more active? So far since January I’ve:

• Worked on and improved Instagram Stories templates for currently reading, reviews posted and blog posts
• Achieved 350+ followers 😱
• Post weekly, sometimes even daily

Update: continue posting daily if possible, but don’t stress

Bless Lupe for this reminder because I have a habit of overwhelming and overworking myself. It’s good to post daily because the algorithm is shit but it’s good to keep in mind not to stress myself out over not posting a photo. Because at the core, I’m taking photos and capturing memories for myself.

Update: figure out my theme (for reals)

While I’ve figured out my theme (kind of) thanks to my photography class, it’s only because I have a flash and a camera that’s borrowed for the semester. Actually, I own the flash because I got lucky. My room lighting sucks and only certain weather conditions make the black foam board work. 😭

But I’ve been spending the past few days brainstorming, and I think I have an idea after playing with a visual layout of sorts on Canva.

Update: batch take photos (and not forget them)

I have a habit of taking multiple photos at a time but forgetting to ever post them. It’s bad enough that I’ve resorted to taking pics as I go and then posting it after editing, which probably isn’t a good idea if I want to be less stressed out when it comes to Instagram. I should probably rectify that.

Send out those monthly posts and reviews

After much thought, I’ve decided to scratch this out completely and focus only on all blog posts. Perhaps I’ll do more in email marketing for the blog in the future, but right now, I’m not too concerned. I have too much on my plate to keep up with all of that.

Create a Patreon and Ko-Fi

I’ve created an account for Patreon, but I haven’t done anything with Ko-Fi yet. I originally planned on doing this during the winter break, but I’m going to aim for finishing this sometime before or during the summer break.

Find an in-person internship

Throughout February, I applied to two internships. Now that I only have one class for the rest of the semester, my goal is to apply for more I find interesting. There’s no excuse not to put the effort into them now.

Post more reviews at The Arts STL

I’ve been doing well with posting, though I’ve gone from once a week to once a month (more or less). But hey, one review a month is better than one random one out of the blue after 8 months? My last review was This Cruel Design by Emily Suvada – come watch me screech.

Update: post twice a month at The Arts STL

Okay, okay, no pressure for me here, so this goal update isn’t set in stone. I can only read so much in a month, after all. When I have content running between three different sites, it’s probably not going to happen.

Stay more on top of ARCs

Okay, I’m past one publication date for an ARC, but I’ve been doing really well??? I spent a lot of winter break reading ahead so I was good… until everything caught up and I haven’t been wanting to read lately. The slump bug bit me in the butt hard.

Past Sophia did not regret little break, but Present Sophia is regretting because time management skills are A+.

Convince Lupe to join the New Bloggers Discord server

The first thing Lupe did in the New Year is joining the Discord server! Talk about knocking out the first goal of the year, muahaha. Right now she’s on hiatus though, so she hasn’t been active in the server.

Adding on some more goals?

Although I haven’t achieved all of them, I’ve definitely started them! They’re not complete, though, but I’m not expecting them to be complete. I am, however, adding on some goals that I’ll come back to later in the year, though.

Work on Pinterest

Now that I’m somewhat done figuring out Instagram, I want to try and work on Pinterest if possible. I’ve had my Pinterest account for years and used it early on, but then abandoned it completely. So in February, out of sheer boredom and urge to procrastinate, I sat myself down and did a few things:

• Pin a few times a day
• Get rid of boards from freshman year that are secret and used as inspiration
• Get rid of boards that I will never use
• Merge boards together as needed, even though I lose followers (because I’ll get them back later, right???)
• Reorganize my board for blog posts
• Upgraded to Business account for fancy data even though they’re sad
• Reorganize other boards as needed

I also created some manual Pinterest worthy images throughout February because I didn’t feel like going through all of my scheduled posts to add them in. But I’m adding them in most of my future posts.

I feel I still need to do more work on Pinterest along with researching and experimenting, so I highly doubt I’ll complete this goal by the end of the year.

Batch create blog posts

If anyone’s wondering how I’ve been staying sane while blogging, it’s because I’ve been trying to get into the habit of batch content creating. So far, it’s not really working? Oops. I’ll get there eventually.

(Wonder why and how? A post about this topic is being fired up for the future!)

Plus I have a habit of scheduling a bunch, forget about it and then um… boom I realize I need to schedule some more. Whoops.

Do you check up on your goals occasionally? How do you track them? How are you doing on your goals?