How did I do on my 2009 goals?

Well, it’s officially 2010. One year ago I set a number of goals for myself and throughout the year I tried to see as many of them through as I could. Let’s see how I did.

• Use Traineo.com to track diet and exercise for one month

  Done. For the month of May, I wrote down and recorded everything I ate and every time I exercised. I’m fairly self-aware about most of what I do to my body (a habit that took years to set into place), but there were still a few surprises. The biggest was that, as I said on Twitter, using weekends as an excuse to eat worse means you do so roughly 40% of the time (assuming you go from Friday through Sunday night).

• Finish functionality on my website

  Yep. Didn’t take much work at all. I’m satisfied with what I got done. I also realized along the way that I shouldn’t make a combined personal and professional site. People who want me to make a website probably don’t need to know my opinions on food habits in America. If I ever venture more seriously into the world of freelancing, I’ll set up a business name and separate site just for that.

• Write 5 blog posts a week

  You’re looking at it. Aside from the two trips out of the country and a random day here or there, I blogged five times for every week of the year. Not always on time and I rarely worked ahead, but I did it.

  Blogging will probably slow down some in 2010. I have intentions of writing regularly; 2009 just proved I could do it. I’ll make sure to ramble and huff here as much as I have time for. It’s going to be a busy year.

• Practice using my recording/DJ gear for one hour a week

  Ehh… I got about halfway on this one. I was good for a few weeks, but I got behind and gave up. A few recording opportunities in the past month got me caught up to halfway. Not complete, but good enough to reach its purpose: I know what I’m doing better than I did at the beginning of the year.

• Learn five songs on piano

  Another semi-fail. I got a keyboard. I messed around a few times when I had spare time. I started learning chords to three of the five songs I picked. But the one I considered “finished” I couldn’t play any more. I’m guessing later this year music will become a bit easier to prioritize for (more on that another time), so I am satisfied for now.

• Read all the books on my reading list

  I went above and beyond here. I read all of the 21 I listed, one of my “if I have time” books and, by my best count, four or five others throughout the year as they came up. And, of course, I blogged about pretty much all of them.

  Considering the momentum I’ve had for the past few years with reading, I don’t think I need to make this a goal each year any more.

So there you have it. I think I did well enough this last year. Rock on.

2010 is going to be a crazy, busy and full of change. For that reason, I’m not going to set any strong goals for myself. I’ll probably do more of a month-to-month observation and make shorter-term goals as are appropriate. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, though. Setting goals and a creating a system to make it easy to plan and achieve them has been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done for myself in the past few years.

At the very least, I recommend getting on a goal-oriented social network like 43 Things where everyone is encouraging and provides useful tips for reaching your goals.