Goal Assessment-11 for 11: Motivation Monday

It is hard to believe two months of the year are here and gone already.  I decided I should do a quick assessment on how I am doing on the goals I set for this year.  I listed 11 goals for 2011 earlier.  Overall, I think setting goals has focused my research and made me more productive.  Having goals to work on motivates me.  I find I am not going off on research tangents.  I use to start by looking for one record on one individual and would think well as long as I am looking this up I should look up (fill in the blank)! I ended up searching all over the place for many different ancestors.  I am more deliberate in my research.  I do notice when I work on my research, my blogging lags a little.  Oh well, eventually, it all gets done.

Here are my 11 for 11 goals and my progress toward completion.  Overall, I am happy, I just need the weather to cooperate so I can venture outside without fear of snow and ice overcoming me.
1.Scan pictures!

• I have been very successful at this.  I have scanned hundreds of pictures.  I scanned all my childhood pictures.  I took my flip pal to my parents and scanned hundreds of pictures.  I have pictures of their childhood and other family members.  I even discovered a photo album I never knew existed, while at my parents.  

2.Work on my brickwall, Daniel Fenn.

• I haven't worked on this and am thinking I should have put a different goal in it's place.  He is one hard bugger to find.

3.Make a concentrated effort to source every fact as I add it to my software program.

• This is a success.  I have sourced every fact as I add it this year.  If I don't have time to source it, it doesn't get added until I do.  I am going back and making sure my other facts are sourced properly.

4.Visit Miami County, Indiana to research Casper and Mary Graf further.

• Waiting for nice weather to do this.

5.Obtain my grandfather's, Otto August Fredrick, obituary.

• I want to go to Manistee Public Library and get the obituary myself, so I am waiting for nicer weather to do this.  I have a list of other obituaries I need to get in Manistee, so a day or two might be scheduled.

6.Attend a genealogical conference.

•  I am registered to attend September's FGS 'Pathways to the Heartland' in Springfield, Illinois.  I have my hotel reservations and reserved two nights at my daughters in Chicago (to cut down on travel time).  I even have a preliminary list of sessions I would like to attend.  Saturday's sessions are so good I am having trouble narrowing it down to just one per session.  I am looking forward to this. 

7.Start researching my son-in-law's ancestry.

• I started this one just last week.  I have researched his paternal grandfather's side back five generations, so far.  I have researched his paternal grandmother's side back three generations.  On his mother's side I have only begun the research.  I am glad I am doing this.  His ancestry has taken me to states and countries I haven't researched before.  It makes me feel like I am accomplishing something.  I have reached some walls in my own research and having another focus is actually motivating.

8.Talk to my mother and find out about family heirlooms in her possession.

• I have done this a little.  I want to go back and talk some more to her about a couple of things.

9.Carve out a regular research time.

• This one is hard to assess.  I have not regularly set aside a time to research.  I do good some weeks and then others not so much.  I feel I am researching more now than the last few months of 2010, so I guess the regular research time isn't as important.  It is a poorly written goal.

10.Make contact with newly discovered cousins and share information.

• I have been in touch with the newly discovered cousins I had found at the end of last year, I share what I have, but haven't heard back from one, yet.  I made a new contact and was able to help her determine her great grandmother's birth date.  I shared obituaries, civil war pension file,  and pictures.  I got information on her line, and was thankful for that.  I think this will be an ongoing goal throughout the year and one that will never be complete as I uncover new ones.

11.Research myself! Add my personal facts to my genealogical software.

• This is almost complete!  I spent a couple of days scanning and adding facts to my genealogy program about myself.  The things I added were related to my birth, baptism, residences, education, marriage, etc.  I would like to go back and add notes to each, to flesh out the facts with stories.  I wrote a blog post about this and one of the comments I received had to do with privacy.  I use Roots Magic as my genealogy software and one of the benefits of this program is the ability to mark facts as private.  I had been doing that on all living persons so it wasn't so much to keep doing it for my facts.  I have also added lots of facts on my two children, and am currently working on my husband.  I plan to do our parents as well. 

I have made good progress on six of the eleven goals, so the year is off to a good start.  How are you doing on your goals for the year?