Nettio Designs

Design + Creativity + Adventure = LOVE

You are here: Home / Archives for Goal Setting

It’s Time to Get Goal-tastic!

POSTED ON IN Goal Setting, Shop News & Releases

Happy Sweet Shoppe Saturday everyone and welcome to my first new release of 2013!

I love the beginning of the new year. I love the chance to start fresh with new goals, intentions and projects. But let’s face it, for us creative types, the process of goal-setting can be a little bit, shall we say, boring and intimidating.

Which is why I’ve always loved the idea of One Little Word.

You choose one word to represent your intentions for the year – just one. That’s not so hard, right? But what they don’t tell you is that choosing your word is the easy part! And I’ll admit, despite my love for OLW I haven’t always been the best as keeping my word front and center all year. I’m guessing the same is true for you. We have busy lives! In our tech-driven world, it’s easy to get distracted by important stuff like news and work…and…Facebook.

Which is exactly why I designed this week’s new releases: to give you a fun and creative way to capture your goals and stay focused on your One Little Word all year long. 

Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal-Setting

This week’s release is a tag-team of two scrapbooking template products: Goal-tastic: One Little Word and Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal Tracker. Each set of templates can be purchased individually or as a pair as part of the Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal-Setting bundle:

My reason for packaging these two template sets together is simple. The key to achieving your goals is pairing action with intention. It’s not enough to think about what you’d like to achieve – you have to actually do the work to get there.

That’s one of the things I love about One Little Word – it’s all about intention. You choose one word to focus on throughout the year and then you set actionable goals to bring that word to life. Which brings me to the next release…

Goal-tastic: One Little Word 2013

This first piece of the Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal-Setting bundle is the Goal-tastic: One Little Word 2013 single template. This 12×12-inch template features 5 journaling prompts designed to get you thinking about your true intentions for why you chose your word for this year:

My One Little Word for 2013 is DETERMINATION. You can read more about how I chose that word here, but for now, here’s a closer look at the layout I designed using the Goal-tastic template:

Here are a few more sample layouts from Team Awesome. I love seeing the mix of words: enjoy, magnify, active, time, intention. Since Brook isn’t doing One Little Word, she chose to use the template to record some of her favorite sayings from her daughter – which is a super cute way to use this template as well!

Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal Tracker

The second piece of the Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal-Setting bundle is the Goal-tastic: 2013 Monthly Goal Tracker. Once you have set your intentions with your One Little Word for the year, the next step is to take actionable steps toward making your intentions a reality.

But I don’t know about you, in the midst of a busy month, it can be really really easy to completely forget about the goals I set no matter how good my intentions may have been. Which is why I designed these 6×6-inch monthly goal trackers – to give you a creative, fun and easy way to capture your monthly goals and keep them front & center all month long.

Just write down your goals, embellish your page in a creative way that inspires you, print it out and hang it in a prominent place where you’re sure to see it all month long.

This is why I kept the design of these templates clean & simple – so you can embellish them however you like, whether it’s with photos, scrapbooking products or anything else. Because that’s the key, the more you want to stop and admire your design, the more often you’ll be reminded of your goals!

But if you’re looking for a little monthly goal tracker inspiration to get you started, here you go:

Here’s a look at what my January 2013 goal tracker looks like printed out. I have it hanging on my white board where I write out my to-do list so I’m sure to see it everyday.

For my husband Adam’s January goals, I went with a more bold & graphic looking using a photo he chose:

Sugarbabe & Team Awesome member Aly paired her goals with her One Little Word “Be” by creating an embellished phrase using some of her favorite digital scrapbooking products:

And since Team Awesome member Inga isn’t doing One Little Word this year, she decided to pair her monthly goals with an inspiring quote and digital scrapbooking paper:

That’s what I love about these Goal Tracker templates. They can be creatively dressed up or down however you see fit. The only rule is that it inspire YOU to take action on your goals.

New Release Discount: SAVE 20% thru Saturday

As with every Sweet Shoppe Saturday, you can save 20% off all three new releases thru Saturday.

Want to save 20% off this weekend? Pick up Goal-tastic: 2013 Goal-Setting here today!

Fraudulent Drugs Are A Huge Global Problem

My One Little Word for 2013 & January Goal-Setting

POSTED ON IN Goal Setting, One Little Word

Welcome to One Little Word 2013. If you’re new to the idea of One Little Word, it’s super simple. All you do is select one word to keep in mind throughout the year. Last year I chose the word connect and I’ll admit, it manifested itself in a much different, but still good, way they I thought that it would when I chose it last year.

This year, I had my word picked out several months before the end of the year. That word was time. I was so sure about it that I even created a layout for it at the beginning of December as part of the Sweet Shoppe January Portfolio Challenge:

Nettio 27 2013OLW

Layout Credits: Oh Happy Day by Mari Koegelenberg and Zoe Pearn; Kraftelicious No. 2 Alpha by Mari Koegelenberg; Inked Edges Alpha by Kristin Cronin-Barrow; Grey Alpha from A Beautiful Thing by Zoe Pearn; Small White Alpha from One For The Boys by Zoe Pearn; Wordy Bits and Clock from Time Flies by Meghan Mullens and Julie Billingsley; Clock from A Christmas Countdown by Kristin Cronin-Barrow and Zoe Pearn; Curvy Corner Stitched Blocks by Anna Apnes; Fonts are Lobster and DJB 4 Lynnette by Darcy Baldwin

But when January 1st finally rolled around, something about the word time didn’t feel right. It wasn’t that was a bad or irrelevant word, it just didn’t feel bold enough or actionable enough. It didn’t feel like it encompassed all I wanted to focus on this year. It was a fine enough word, it just didn’t feel like my word anymore.

Later that night, Adam and I were talking and I mentioned how I was nervous about the start of the year because I had a lot I’d like to accomplish and I didn’t know if was really possible.

And he turned to me and said,

“You have the skills, you just need the determination.”

And something about the word determination clicked. It felt right.

But I wanted to be sure. So I did what any tech-lovin’ gal would do: I googled it.

And after looking at the definition and synonyms like these…

Perseverance, boldness, bravery, constancy, conviction, dedication, drive, heart, purpose, willpower

…I knew this was the word I needed for this year. Because it encompassed everything I had really wanted to get from the word time but in a way that’s much more powerful and really at the core of what I was looking for.

My 2013 One Little Word: Determination

So determination is officially my one little word for 2013. I even made a new layout for it – hey, why not use what you’ve got – that’s the beauty of digital, right?

Nettio 01 OLW2013 Determination 700

She Believed She Could by Kristin Cronin-Barrow; Inked Edges Alpha by Kristin Cronin-Barrow; Grey Alpha from A Beautiful Thing by Zoe Pearn (clipped with paper); Small White Alpha from One For The Boys by Zoe Pearn; Curvy Corner Stitched Blocks by Anna Apnes; Fonts are Lobster and DJB 4 Lynnette by Darcy Baldwin

January 2013 Goal-Setting

One thing I’ve known for months was that I wanted to combine my One Little Word this year into my goals for the year. If you follow Elise’s blog, you’ll know she did something similar for her word “choose” last year. And in her  Big Picture I Choose class (which I highly recommend by the way!), she talks quite a bit about the importance of not only setting monthly goals but of also capturing them in a creative way.

So I knew I wanted to do something similar to what she did but with my own spin on it. Something I could share here on the blog but also print out as a reminder of what I want to focus on that month. And I knew it to had to be simple enough to put together every month or else I wouldn’t do it.

I came up with the idea to make a 6×6-inch goal-setting inspiration card to go with my monthly goals each month. My plan is to set 4 goals each month encompassing a good balance of life areas (something else Elise talks about in her class. You don’t want all your goals to be say, work-related since you’re likely to get burnt that way).

This is what I came up with, themed around the phrase “This Month I’m Determined To:” in reference to my 2013 OLW Determination:

Nettio Jan13 4Goals

And here’s what it looks like printed and hanging up on my white board all pretty like:

Nettio Jan13 4Goals InspoWall

Fun, right? I just printed it out here at home on Epson Premium Presentation Matte paper and trimmed it out with my paper trimmer. I like that it’s clean and simple but still a little scrappy. Very me, haha.

Well that’s it for this January installment of One Little Word Goal-Setting! If you’re interested in making your own OLW layout or Monthly Goal inspiration cards, have no fear – both products will be hitting the Sweet Shoppe on Saturday. Just consider this an extra early sneak peek for all you lovely blog readers.

How about you – did you choose a One Little Word for this year? Did you set any monthly goals? Are you doing anything fun to document them? I love to chat so feel free to share what you’re up to in the comments below.

Can diabetes cause erectile dysfunction

Introducing the Plan for My 30th Birthday Year: 30 Creative Adventures

POSTED ON IN 30 Creative Adventures, Goal Setting, Project Love

As I’ve mentioned before, I love setting birthday goals. For my 28th birthday, I went with a 28 at 28 list. For 29, I chose to set 5 intentional personal goals.

But I’ve known for months before turning 30 that I wanted to do something different this year.

I mean, it’s the big 3-0, it has to be something extra awesome, right?

The last year and a half or so, I’ve been really inspired watching Elise work on her 26 Projects and 27 Materials birthday projects. (Yay for fellow birthday goal makers!) I loved that her goal was a defined challenge but with still enough flexibility to evolve throughout the year as her tastes and interests changed.

And so I’ve come up with a plan that’s definitely inspired by Elise but with my own Nettio-style twist on it. And I’m really excited about it. In fact I’ve been eagerly anticipating my birthday just so I could get started!

That’s one way to get excited about turning 30, no?

One of the things I’ve realized the last year or two is I’ve been in a bit of a rut creatively. Not necessarily uninspired to create but not exactly LOVING what I was doing either. I’d gotten to a place where I felt comfortable and as a result, started playing it a bit too safe and not pushing myself as much as I did back when I was a newbie scrapbooker.

And so I came up with this idea as a way to break me out of that rut.

Introducing 30 Creative Adventures

Nettio 30creativeadv logo b

My goal for my 30th birthday year is to complete 30, as I’m calling them, creative adventures.

What exactly is a creative adventure, you say? Well my loose definition is this:

A creative adventure is anything that pushes me outside my comfort zone and inspires me to think about design, creativity and my world in an interesting and unique way.

As Apple would put it, I want to be inspired to think differently.

Some of these adventures will be big projects and some will be small. Some will be scrapbooking related and some will most definitely not be. Some might not be projects at all, at least in the traditional sense of the word.

But that’s exactly why I’m SO excited about this birthday goal. Because it’s an opportunity to spend a year try all those different creative or design based things that I see but never do. And I’m hoping these adventures will lead to more inspiration in my day to day life and work as well.

My goal is to have all 30 creative adventures completed before my 31st birthday on 05.24.2013 and half (15) of them completed before my half-birthday in November. Which means I need to keep on an every other week pace with a few extra ones thrown in here and there.

Update Jan 2013: Due to a little something called life (namely my grandma passing away), I’m giving myself until the end of 2013 to complete my 30 Creative Adventures. Still the same awesome goal just a little extra time.

I’m sure it won’t be easy but considering I’m already feeling way inspired about it, I’m thinking it’s 100% the right goal for this year. And of course, if you’re feeling inspired to go on a creative adventure of your own at any point, you’re more than welcome to play along!

So that’s my birthday goal plan for this next year! What about you? Could you use an extra dose of creativity like me? Are you working on any fun goals of your own right now?

How Can Customers Lower Their Remedy Costs

5 Personal Goals for the Big Two-Nine: A Final Update

POSTED ON IN Goal Setting, Life Adventures

You thought I’d forgotten all about these little birthday goals, didn’t you…

Well the good news is despite my not posting a blog update on my 29th Birthday goals since last September (for shame, I know!), I actually have been making progress on them all year long. And since I said goodbye to 2-9 and turned the big 3-0 a few days before we hit the road for vacation, I thought today would be a good day to do one final goal-tastic update before moving on with my plans for my 30th Birthday year.

If you need a refresher, you can read about my love for Birthday goals and my 29th Birthday goals here or read my 4 month update here.

1. Become a Time Management Guru

29goals 1

Can I say I achieved time zen? No. Guru status? Not so much.

But I can say that in this past year I’ve come a long way from where I started.

I mentioned in my last update I had started using a sketchbook as a place for all my random thoughts, notes and well, sketches. Considering this past week I started sketchbook number 2 because the first one was filled to the brim, I’d say the sketchbook and I are very much in paper-lovin’ non-techy love.

But beyond the sketchbook, I learned two very important time management things this year:

1) Saying NO is key. 99% of my time management problems stem from the fact that I simply take on too much. The look on Adam’s face when I’ve listed out everything on my plate has told me as much. But it’s tough because I have a million ideas and love to help, so it’s way too easy for me to say yes, both to others and myself, when I really need should say no. Or at least, “no for now.” I can’t say I’ve mastered this quite yet but admission is the first step to recovery, right?

2) Paper & digi can go hand in hand. One of the reasons I’ve always struggled with so-called time management systems is that they always seem to be mutually exclusive: either you use a digital to-do list or a paper one. But I’ve come to realize that for my paper & tech-lovin’ brain I need a combination of both. So as of right now, I’m using The Hit List & iCal for tracking long term projects and deadlines and hand written to-do lists in my sketchbook for my daily/week to-dos. It’s not a perfect system by any means (is anything really?) but I’m definitely liking it more than anything I’ve tried previously.

2. Be More Eco-Concious

Some days I dream about starting a green-related blog. And then I remind myself about saying “no for now” and snap back to reality, haha. But how we can be better stewards for the earth is definitely something that’s on my mind a lot, even more so after our outdoor-heavy trip.

We’re still using all the reusable bags I mentioned in my update post and even I have mowed the lawn with our green-friendly push mower. We chose to scrap both the rain barrel and compost ideas because a) we have to rain gutters which made it a bit difficult and b) we were never sure how long we’d be here. In the past 6 months, we’ve thought we might be moving at least 3 or 4 times.

But for now I’m focusing on what I can work on: using less paper in the house (anyone have a paper-free kitchen?), using reusable bags and just trying to find the right balance between good choices and less-good choices. And maybe one day my dream of a super eco-friendly house will become a reality.

3. Make Each Photo Count

I don’t know if I’ve actually taken less photos this past year than previous years but I know that slowing down has pushed me to think more about composition and light which is exactly what I wanted. Now if I could just get all my photos all organized, I’d bet set.

4. Turn Our Rental House into a Home

29goals 3

A funny thing happened this past year. I don’t know if it was because we actually did take the time to hang up some artwork or curtains or replace the dining table (with chairs ordered and arriving soon!) but our rental house has slowly started to feel like a home. A temporary home for sure but at least a little bit more like us.

It’s far from being done but it’s been fun seeing it start to come together even if it ends up doing so just in time for us to move again.

5. Document my 29th Year

29goals 5

Sooo…my plans for Project Life got scrapped pretty early on. But even up to my 30th birthday last month, I was still toying with the idea of putting something together-something that covered more of the highlights.

But as I wrote in this post from January, for me it comes down to busy vs meaningful and where I want to be spending my time. If at some point I feel inspired to put together this album I will, but for now I’m ok with calling this goal done, or uh, undone. There’s way too many other things I’d like to do to guilt myself over an unfinished project of the past. Been there, done that. I must be getting wise in my old(er) age. 

Well that’s my official final update of my 5 personal goals from my 29th Birthday year! I wish it included an HGTV-style or Biggest Loser reveal but well, this isn’t TV, it’s life. And in life you set intentions and take little steps that add up to big ones over time which is exactly how I’d describe this past year.

So goodbye 29th birthday goals! I’m sure we’ll meet again as I keep making little steps on all of you this year too.

Can diabetes cause erectile dysfunction

A 1st Quarter Update On My 2012 Scrapbooking Resolutions

POSTED ON IN Goal Setting, Memory Keeping

Well, it’s official. We’re one quarter of the way done with 2012. Have you made a quarters worth of progress on your 2012 goals? Yeah, that’s what I thought – me either.

To be fair, I didn’t technically set new goals at the start of the year as I’m still working on my Scrap-i-versary and Birthday goals from last April & May. (Which by working on I mean, largely ignoring before realizing it is, uh, in fact now April and I need to get a move on.)

But I did write out a list of “wants” I wanted to focus on with my scrapbooking for this year, so now seems like a good time to reflect on how things have gone so far.

Here was my list:

I WANT…to trade the busy in favor of the meaningful.

Busy? Yes. Meaningful? I’m not sure.

To tell you the truth, I’m at a bit of an odd place in my scrapbooking right now – a place where I’m not totally sure I’m in touch with what exactly “meaningful” means to me anymore.

In a way I’d say it’s the fallout of too much focus on busy scrapbooking the last couple of years. Once the busy-ness is stripped away, I’m not sure I know what I want to fill it with now. But I’m excited to dig into this idea more this year and really focus on finding out what meaningful means to me.

I WANT…to push my creativity to the next level.

Design and creativity are two of my favorite aspects of scrapbooking so for me this one was easy. I’ve definitely  been pushing myself more this year and I’d say I’m happier with my layouts now than I was at the end of last year. Am definitely excited to continuing playing and exploring this year.

I WANT…to stop allowing disorganization to limit my creativity and storytelling.

Of all the items on my wants list, this one is still the biggest issue, and unfortunately, the one I’ve made the least amount of progress on.

The 2nd Annual Great Computer Spring Clean-a-thon was a good start but what I really need is to make some MAJOR progress on my photo organization. I can’t be inspired by my photos if I don’t ever actually look at them in a creative and meaningful way.

Look for lots of action on this one in the next few months.

I WANT…to make time to scrap just for me.

In the last 3 months I did manage to make this happen. Once. For my 30 Days of Lists mini album.

But I know in order for this to happen more, I need to: a) commit to scrapbooking-only (non-designing/blogging) time and b) know what scrapbooking for me means, which again ties into the whole “what is meaningful to me” question from Want #1.

I WANT…to tell the stories that matter most to me.

See my answer for Want #1. Apparently it’s the answer of the day.

Well that’s my first quarter update on my 2012 scrapbooking resolutions. I wouldn’t say I’m off to a running start but I have started and that’s what matters.

I’d love to know – how are your 2012 scrapbooking goals and resolutions going? Made any good progress?

Can diabetes cause erectile dysfunction

2012 Scrapbooking Resolutions: Busy vs Meaningful & 5 Wants for the New Year

POSTED ON IN Goal Setting

Happy New Year everyone! After two solid weeks of rest and relaxation, I am finally back in Texas and ready to tackle the new year!

One of the great things about the past two weeks is all that downtime gave me a lot of time to think and reflect about the past year, my scrapbooking and where I want to go this next year.

2011 was a really interesting scrapbooking year around here. In addition to my regular scrapbooking and Creative Teams, I opened up NettioDesigns, celebrated my 5th Scrap-i-versary, guest taught over at Masterful Scrapbook Design and completed one of my favorite projects ever with my A Week In the Life photo book.

Nettio 2012layoutcollage

But what I realized in looking through my layouts from the past year is that while I like the individual layouts I created, I feel like there’s a disconnect between the stories I want to be telling and the stories I’m actually telling – gaps where meaningful stories are missing.

And if I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling this way for quite some time.

In a lot of ways it feels like I’ve been on scrapbooking and storytelling autopilot, not necessarily disliking what I’m doing but not feeling totally fulfilled either.

Busy vs Meaningful

Peppermint of One Little Bird had a great post on her blog about this topic earlier this week and there was definitely lots of nodding going on as I read it. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, I highly recommend you do.

One of the key things I took away from her post is that when it comes to scrapbooking, there’s a difference between being busy and being meaningful. And when we try to do too much, especially with labor intensive projects like P365 or Project Life, we often sacrifice the meaningful in exchange for the busy work.

This quote especially resonated with me:

The common thread with all three of the projects was that they kept me really busy – busy taking pictures, busy jotting down notes, busy buying supplies and organizing supplies. All of that busy work made me feel like I was documenting our lives. But they didn’t leave me feeling fulfilled. Instead I felt like I spent my time living up to arbitrary obligations that I’d set in my own head while ignoring what I truly love – which is sitting down at my computer and pouring my heart out onto a 3600 x 3600 px canvas in Photoshop. A photo from last week, a photo from last year, an experience from today or an emotion that happened to flutter through my heart.

Can we say lightbulb moment?

This feeling of scrapbooking and storytelling disconnect for me started in 2009 when I began my Deployment 365 photo-a-day project. At the time I chalked it up to Adam being deployed and life being in an odd state of flux that messed with my mojo.

Wk4 6 28 to 7 4

But looking back from the perspective of now, I’m realizing the other part of the story is I allowed the pressure of keeping up with that project (and others like it) distract me from telling deeper, more meaningful stories. I listened to the little voice reminding me that I was way behind, that I wasn’t keeping up and I neglected what made me fall in love with scrapbooking in the first place – amazing designs and awesome stories.

Don’t get me wrong, there were lots of things I loved about P365 and I have no intention of giving up projects all together. But I want to make sure in the future that any project I choose to take on, especially an ongoing time intensive one, is done out of a place of genuine LOVE and not only because it’s the it-trend of the moment.

And if I get part way into the process and realize I’m not feeling it anymore, I want to give myself permission to let it go. To call it done and move on. I don’t want my unfinished projects of the past to limit my creativity today.

There’s no room for scrapbooking guilt around here.

So with the start of the new year, I am ready to wipe the slate clean. To move on, let go of the guilt of old unfinished projects and get back to telling and creating the stories and pages I love.

My 5 Scrapbooking Wants for 2012

And to get things started, I decided to write a list of what I want to get out of my scrapbooking this next year. Since I’m still working on the Scrap-i-versary and Birthday Goals I set in 2011 these aren’t goals per se, but more like resolutions to keep in mind throughout 2012.

I WANT…to trade the busy in favor of the meaningful.

No more stressful guilt-inducing projects at the expense of meaningful pages. Unless I absolutely love the process (like my AWITL album), it’s not worth it.

I WANT…to push my creativity to the next level.

Challenge myself more. Expand my skills. Design pages that make me want to happy dance with creativity and excitement.

I WANT…to stop allowing disorganization to limit my creativity and storytelling.

My photos and supplies need to work for me. Reusing photos just to avoid hunting for new ones is craziness.

I WANT…to make time to scrap just for me.

Scrap for stories, not just to showcase product. And be ok with telling stories without product.

I WANT…to tell the stories that matter most to me.

More meaning, less routine.

Now It’s Your Turn

So there’s a little bit about my plans for the new year but I’m curious to know…

What’s one of your scrapbooking wants for this year?

I’d love to hear from you so let me know in the comments. 🙂

Fraudulent Drugs Are A Huge Global Problem