Allschool – Adventure. Create. Relate

February 2023 Goals

February 3, 2023Posted in accountability, Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersTagged accountability, Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersLeave a comment

I have heard so many people talking about how long January felt this year, and I have to disagree. January was the break that I needed after an extremely busy fall and before we launch into the craziness of the theatre and senior spring seasons. I am extremely sad to see the month go because I know what is coming. Starting tonight, there will be 5 theatre performances, 3 choir concerts, 2 choir competitions, 2 spring breaks, a choir trip, an art show, 4 birthdays, graduation, and countless parties in the next 5 months. I will be longing for a break by the time we hit May, so I tried to soak in as much down time as I could in January. I actually read 2 books and I have worked on goal setting and my vision for my businesses. I am proud of myself for letting things stay slow as much as possible.

Having said that, I did still have goals I intended to meet, so let’s recap those:

Get my goals for 2023 and my first quarter goals ready – I am working through 12 Week Year and plan to implement the goals I am working on starting later this month. I am excited about this and can’t wait to share a special goal post about it soon!
Get matte screen protector for iPad so I can photograph Valentines products and get previews made – This is half accomplished. I have the matte screen protector. I am still stalled on product previews. I am sure that I am making them into something far bigger than they really are.
At least 1 adventure and 1 create date with blog posts – We did this! It was close, I was worried, but we pulled through.
Film 12 craft videos for Crafty Phonics – L Sound FLEX class – This is done. In fact, I have all but the last week of posts created/scheduled.
List a sewing class and a Communicate and Create for the Make Your Year Edventure Conference with classes to continue after – I have listed these classes and several others and not had any enrollments. None of my one time classes have booked in the last year unless they were specifically requested and created for a current student. I have been marketing and tracking stats, so I will be ready to make a new game plan after this month.
Finish the ACE Educator process – I did not do this. I chose classes and then they all disappeared because a new month started. I feel like this is probably going to happen again, so I better get with it.
Walk outside or on treadmill 20x – I hit 15 walking workouts in January.
12 hikes – finish my last few for 2022 and begin 2023 52 Hike Challenge – I did 3 hikes. I added the two that were technically within a year for 2022 to that year, but then I went ahead and counted them for this year. I make my own rules. I have been struggling with hand pain that gets worse in cold, so I just need to figure that out so I can get out and hike. We have lots of fun hiking planned in March, so I need to build up my stamina before then.
Make dinner 20x – I am actually pretty sure we hit this. I have been cooking so much more which is good since we have the new budget now.
Pay off $1500 in debt – We had a car repair that caused us to add about $25 in debt this month in spite of my aggressive payments to our credit cards. We are refilling our emergency fund, so hopefully we will be better equipped to pay for things like this in the future.

I see a lot of growth here. I am at 6/10, which is pretty good compared to the last few months. I have made the decision to just let TpT be for a while and focus on my main income over at Outschool. I have also made the decision not to pursue Allschool since they raised their fees to almost as much as Outschool so there really isn’t any benefit to moving over. With that in mind, here are my goals for February:

Adventure and Create Dates.
At least 4 blog posts.
Get new email list up and running with a freebie.
A Random Act of Kindness every day.
$1200 income across businesses.
2 new classes – look at insights and topic requests to see what would be best fit.
Hit 900 learners taught.
Pay off $1000 in debt.
Close Stand and Move rings daily.
5 hikes to get back on track.

I think this is a good mix of business and personal, and it seems like something I can accomplish. I am actually really excited to have a pretty solid plan for my business and personal life this month.

Do you have any goals for this month? Let me know in the comments so we can support each other and have accountability! 🙂

January 2023 Goals

January 4, 2023Posted in accountability, Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersTagged accountability, Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersLeave a comment

I am having a very hard time believing we are in a new year – but I am super excited by the possibilities! I am currently working on reflecting on my goals from last year – what went well, what I need to update, what I want to add, what I want to leave behind. I can tell you that I did accomplish so much in the past year. I can also tell you that I had several goals that I did not even start or that I made progress on and then lost the progress. I do think I need to make my yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals line up just a little better. There are definitely monthly goals that were lovely but didn’t move the needle on my big goals. There were definitely things I could have been more consistent with. But there were also things I did very consistently and things that did impact my goals in big ways.

Let’s start this month by reflecting on my goals for last month. I think this is going to be a mixed bag because I was very sick for 2 weeks in December, so I did not do anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. But I know I also tried to plan goals that allowed me time to get ready for the holidays and celebrate with my family, so we shall see….

Add previews to my Time, Winter, and Arctic products – I did not start this. I am obviously at a block here, so I need to start really small with a goal for January that I can accomplish and that will move this forward.
Market my January classes on Instagram and Facebook groups to fill my classes – I have been doing this – I need to make a big push this week. I actually have decent enrollments right now for my classes that start next week. It could definitely still get better, though. 🙂
Add 20 Pinterest pins – I did not start this. Again, I know it is important to move the needle here, but I just need to rethink how it will work.
Figure out sewing machine logistics in my classroom and list a sewing class – I did not do this. But I do have ideas for a sewing club and will try to get it listed this week.
Make 4 blog posts – I did 2 blog posts – and then this will be the 4th one for this specific day in the beginning of January. I’m going to count this as a done.
Hang blinds and plates in my office – I did not start this one. I completely forgot about it, actually. Adding it to my list for this week.
Send Christmas cards to friends and family – I did this! And they probably even received most of them before Christmas!
Make dinner 12 times – I am pretty sure I did this as well.
Hike 4 times – visit 4 winter hike series parks – We visited 4 of the winter hike series parks and we did 7 hikes total in December!
Do my 20 hours of continuing education for my SLP licensure – I actually ended up doing 22 hours of CE this month.

It looks like I get about a 6/10 on this one. I am super pleased with this because, as I said, I was out of commission for a good chunk of the month. I have been feeling really, really frustrated with having 2 businesses I am trying to grow at the same time recently. When I started my TpT business, I was averaging about $1500-$2000 a month on Outschool. I thought it was stable, so it seemed like it would be easy to maintain while also building my TpT business. Instead, I have really had to put in a lot of time into both. I am feeling stretched and need to find balance there. So, I think adjusting my goals a bit to fit where I am in my businesses and life will really help.

So, for January, while I am still working through goals and my visions for my businesses, I am going to make some pretty simple goals. Here is what I have:

Get my goals for 2023 and my first quarter goals ready.
Get matte screen protector for iPad so I can photograph Valentines products and get previews made.
At least 1 adventure and 1 create date with blog posts.
Film 12 craft videos for Crafty Phonics – L Sound FLEX class.
List a sewing class and a Communicate and Create for the Make Your Year Edventure Conference with classes to continue after.
Finish the ACE Educator process.
Walk outside or on treadmill 20x.
12 hikes – finish my last few for 2022 and begin 2023 52 Hike Challenge.
Make dinner 20x.
Pay off $1500 in debt.

I’m not going to lie, a lot of this list is things that is already in progress. I am working through writing my goals. I have chosen the workshops for my ACE educator pillars. I have already hiked twice. I ordered the matte screen protector last night. I am paying bills this morning. But, if I write this list and actually finish the things on it, I know that it will propel me into February with so much momentum. I am excited and hopeful and feel more in control of my businesses already.

What are your goals for January? Do you have goals for this year to share? Let me know in the comments!

December 2022 Goals

December 1, 2022January 3, 2023Posted in Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersLeave a comment

Is it just me, or was November a downhill slide? I never quite got my feet under me, so I did not even get to set goals for the month. I did make it through a lot of additional volunteer obligations, but I seriously feel like I have been just surviving for the past couple of months. I never even recapped my goals for October, so let’s see what the damage was there before we start with December as our clean slate. Here is the good, the bad, and I’m pretty sure the very ugly.

Figure out photography and previews for 10 TpT products – I still didn’t do this.
Add 10 new TpT products – I did not do any TpT the past 2 months.
Create an Outschool and Allschool schedule that feels doable – I did create a good Outschool schedule, and tried to add in some Allschool without any enrollments.
Finish organizing our front room – I did this!
Hang blinds in my office – I did not do this.
Figure out classroom set up for live sewing classes – I did not do this.
Make 4 blog posts, 20 Instagram posts, 20 Facebook posts, and 20 Pinterest pins – I know I made 3 blog posts, but I don’t think I did much with any other social media.
Make dinner 10 times – I got into a really good pattern here. I am proud to say I did do this.
Hike 6 times – I hiked 3 times in October and I did not hike in November at all.
Do 6 strength training workouts – I did not do this.

So, to recap, I earned a 3.5/10 over the course of 2 months. This is better than the 3 that I gave myself for September, but in 2 months I would have hoped to accomplish more. There were family and volunteer things that kept me from getting everything I would like to done, but I definitely still had time I did not use towards my goals. I feel a deeply tired, whether from my businesses or from the rest of my life. So, I am going to claim that Fall 2022 was a season of rest in my business and growth in other areas of my life. I have continued to have at least one sale each month in my TpT store, and I am still teaching many loyal students on Outschool, so that has allowed me to coast for now. I would like to think that I can start to pick up the pace a bit, but I know that this month is going to be hectic with the holidays. So, my goals will be:

Add previews to my Time, Winter, and Arctic products.
Market my January classes on Instagram and Facebook groups to fill my classes.
Add 20 Pinterest pins.
Figure out sewing machine logistics in my classroom and list a sewing class.
Make 4 blog posts.
Hang blinds and plates in my office.
Send Christmas cards to friends and family.
Make dinner 12 times.
Hike 4 times – visit 4 winter hike series parks.
Do my 20 hours of continuing education for my SLP licensure.

I feel like this is a really good mix of personal and business goals, and it should set me up for success in the coming year. I also got really specific with some of these goals in the hopes that they won’t seem as overwhelming to me. I am looking forward to seeing if this plan will bring me more success with my goals this month.

What are your goals for December? Let me know in the comments so we can cheer each other on! 🙂

October 2022 Goals

October 3, 2022Posted in Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersTagged Allschool, Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachersLeave a comment

September felt really busy. We started the month with a college visit and it just kept rolling from there. We are officially back to all the activities, and I find myself thinking wistfully about the time we weren’t so busy. I am loving seeing all of our friends, though! I just need more down time than I used to, I think.

Last month I tried to scale back my goals a little bit, so let’s see how I did for the month.

Figure out photography and previews for my TpT products and add them to 20 products – I did not do this.
Add 10 new Fall products on TpT – for the first month since I started my shop, I did not add any new products on TpT.
Write one time Public Speaking classes for Outschool to covers ages 3-18 – I wrote 2 classes to cover ages 3-7 and so far they are crickets…
Write a series of craft classes – live and flex – I wrote Fall and Halloween FLEX craft classes, and have drafts started for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Finish organizing my classroom and the front room – my office is done and front room is 75% done.
Figure out how to set up my classroom for live sewing classes – I did not do this.
Make 5 blog posts, 20 Instagram posts/reels, 20 Facebook posts/reels, and 31 Pinterest pins – I wrote 2 blog posts, 12 Instagram posts, 14 Facebook posts, and no Pinterest pins.
Make dinner at home 15 times – I probably cooked 5 times.
Hike 6 times – I hiked 3 times.
Do 8 strength training workouts to start building some muscles – this didn’t happen either.

This was obviously a down month – I’m giving myself 3/10 and that feels generous. I am a little surprised because I felt like I was accomplishing things, but I see that I was accomplishing things for my volunteer obligations as I was neglecting my actual tasks to move the needle in my businesses. I costumed a show, sized kids for choir attire, measured and organized our costume plan for our high school fall play, sent sponsor and donor letters and also created a budget for our performing arts boosters. I was definitely busy and productive. But I was not focused on these goals.

Last week, I signed up to also teach on Allschool. I have yet to create any classes, but I am hopeful that I will be able to get a little traction there at times that don’t seem to be working for Outschool. With all of this in mind, here are my October goals:

Figure out photography and previews for 10 TpT products.
Add 10 new TpT products.
Create an Outschool and Allschool schedule that feels doable.
Finish organizing our front room.
Hang blinds in my office.
Figure out classroom set up for live sewing classes.
Make 4 blog posts, 20 Instagram posts, 20 Facebook posts, and 20 Pinterest pins.
Make dinner 10 times.
Hike 6 times.
Do 6 strength training workouts.

I think this looks like a list I can stick to. I just need to hang it in my office and check it when planning my days. Hopefully this will be the month that I get to say I did it all – wish me luck!

What are your goals for this month? Let me know in the comments so we can cheer each other on! 🙂