Clear the List: March 2016

Hey guys! Happy March! Is the weather starting to feel more like spring where you are? (Well, if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere at least…) It’s not here; we’ve had little snow flurries today and horrible wind. I hate the wind.

But it’s not going to get me down – it’s a new month and so it’s time to start fresh again. I know I didn’t achieve every goal I wanted to in February, but I did put in some hard work and had a good time.

Let’s see what I did get up to, though.

 Alright, so let’s have a look at those goals from last month:

• Study Japanese for 20m a day. – Argh, I didn’t manage this again! So it doesn’t look like I studied much from my habit tracker, but I did do on more days than this – just not always for 20 minutes or more. I’m refusing to change this goal for March, but I am going to make it more of a priority in my day. There’s no reason for me to not be studying. (Also, I am embarrassingly far down the 6WC leader board… so I’ve gotta work on that!)
• Study the language of the day for 20m a day. – Also no and I also studied more than on my tracker. Sometimes it was the wrong language of the day (I’ve been reading in German a fair bit); sometimes it was for less than 20 minutes. Again, there’s no reason for me to not be hitting this goal, so I’m going to try and put more effort in this month.
• Keep up my Memrise streak. – YES! Okay, so I’m really sad because I think I’m going to end up losing the streak in March (when we go to Morocco, we want to do a desert tour and I somehow doubt they’ll have wifi) and I’m currently at 61 days! That’s amazing; it’s the best streak I’ve ever had on that site. I’m also concerned that if I lose the streak I won’t go back to Memrise for a while, so I need to look out for that. But yay, hit this goal!
• Make some progress towards my New Year’s goals. – I mean, yes? I didn’t make this super specific, haha, but I have made some progress in the last month. It’s not tons and tons but writing out my monthly targets was helpful, so I’m going to do that again for March.
• Complete the #uTalkChallenge for February. – Yes! I finished it at one minute to midnight my time on the 29th (which actually meant I had over an hour left UK time) and I’ve picked my new language for March: Mongolian! Eventually I might pick a more similar or simple language, but for now, these are fun tasters of languages I might try out in the future. (Oh and the reason there aren’t many boxes coloured on the tracker for this goal is because I only let myself colour them in if I finished at least three games, which didn’t happen most days… Hence my rush to the finish line!)
• Blog at least once per week. – I actually didn’t manage this in February, despite writing seven posts. I did get some of my series back on track though and worked on some new ideas, so I’m feeling optimistic about March.
• Work out for 30m a day/four times a week. – No, I didn’t manage this, though I did a lot better than in previous months. I’ve started going to the gym semi-regularly for running (seriously not running outside in this weather) and last week I ran/walked 8km, which is the most I’ve managed so far. I’m not quite where I should be, but I’m not too worried about the race; I know that I even if I have to walk the whole thing, I can do that.
• Write 500 words a day. – No, though again this was a lot better than in previous months. That’s entirely thanks to the #FebWritingChallenge participants on Twitter – they’re so motivating. I’m going to take part in the #MarWritingChallenge and see if I can hit a few more days in March.

Here are the posts that went up last month, if you missed any:

• Language Tag
• Clear the List: February 2016
• New Year’s Challenge: Progress Report #004
• 猴年大吉！新年快乐！Happy Lunar New Year!
• New Year’s Challenge: Progress Report #003
• My Top 10 Twitter Accounts for Learning German
• Learn English Through TV: Modern Family S01E03

And here are my March goals:

Language Goals.

• Study Japanese for 20m a day. – The reasoning is above; plus I want to prove that my idea of learning a language for free can work, but I don’t want to sabotage that by not studying enough. 10th April marks 100 days from the 1st Jan, and I’d like to see some marked progress by then.
• Study the language of the day for 20m a day. – Again, I need to keep things up. My main aim here is to make the language of the day a priority, even if I don’t feel like doing any work.
• Make some progress towards my New Year’s Goals. – Same as last month, with the reading/writing/listening aspects. I’ve just worked out what I need to do this month to be on track for the goals I listed (which, in hindsight – some of them are ridiculous, so I’m not expecting to hit all of them):
  • German
    • Reading: 475 pages
    • Writing: 1,000 words
    • Media: 6 hours
  • Mandarin
    • Reading: 80 pages
    • Writing: 1,000 characters
    • Media: 51 hours (This one. This is the ridiculous one. Although, I say that – but I watched 24 episodes of House of Cards this weekend, so…)
  • Spanish
    • Reading: 125 pages
    • Writing: 550 words
    • Media: 11 hours
• Complete the IGLC. – I’ve started this over on my new Instagram account with the following image. I’m completing each prompt this month in Mandarin, German, Spanish, and with an English idiom.

Non-language Goals.

• Blog at least once a week. – I mean, I only missed it by a tiny bit last month, but I’m hoping to manage that this time around. I’m away again from the 21st-30th March (Easter holidays; we’re exploring Spain and Morocco this time!) so I’m also going to try really hard to still have content going up during that time. It might be a little reduced, but I don’t want a week and a half of silence.
• Work out for 30m a day/four days a week. – I really need to get ready for that half marathon, and I also really need to get myself back in shape. I’m feeling pretty good, but I know I was feeling better this time last year, so I’m putting in more effort. I’ve actually already done a Blogilates workout today, so yay, day one is complete! 🙂
• Write at least 500 words a day. – I mentioned the #MarWritingChallenge above and I’m hoping to do most of the days; unlike Memrise, this is one where I can write somewhere else and then check in later, so I don’t need to worry about losing a streak while I’m away!
• Walk at least 6,000 steps a day. – This is just because I can be so lazy at the weekends if I don’t have plans. I literally spent all this last Saturday and Sunday watching House of Cards (I’ve never watched it before and I’m catching up for a viewing party we might be having for season four on Friday) and so I didn’t walk around or do really any exercise. For me, 6,000 steps is a lightly challenging but achievable goal, because I can’t drive so I walk a lot; but it means I have to put in a little extra effort on those days I’m not working.

Well, there we go! Let me know what your goals are for March as well! How was your February, with the extra day? Anyone else looking forward to the Easter holidays? 🙂

(And, as ever, if you fancy joining the Clear the List linkup, here are the rules:

1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted.

2. Link back to this post. You can use our button if you wish.

3. Follow the hosts: Esther from Local Adventurer, Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages, Mariah from Food, Booze & Baggage, and Shannon from Eurolinguiste.

4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.

5. Share on social media using #ClearTheList.)