april goals

I'm the most type A ever when it comes to list making and goal setting. If I were asked my weakness if a job interview, I'd say it's that it's difficult for me to work without a plan; it's really hard for me to be productive if I don't have a set idea of what I want to tackle. I usually have several lists going at once: a to-do list for my day, a list of tasks to accomplish for the week, a set of goals for the term/season, and of course, "resolutions" for the year.

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Honestly, I obsess more over writing the lists than I do over  referencing or following them; I find that once I create a plan, that's enough for me to set it in my brain what I want to accomplish and then sort of will it into motion. 

Here are my goals for April:

• Complete half marathon. When I first started training for the Corvallis Half Marathon (on April 13th! agh), I wanted to PR. But then I actually got into training and remembered I hadn't run consistently for more than a year and had never run anywhere this hilly. Now, I just want to finish the race, and feel good about the run.
• Read 2 books. One of my 2014 resolutions was to read more and I've been doing pretty well at it; this month I hope to finish two books, maybe I Wrote This for You or The Magicians and I want to finish The Willpower Instinct.
• Try a new restaurant. We've lived in Corvallis for too long and eaten at mostly the same few places. There are some surprisingly good restaurants here, so I'm hoping to try somewhere new this month.

• Clean out my closet. Now that you know how anal I am, it shouldn't surprise you that I love me some spring cleaning. Especially after downgrading from a walk-in closet in my last apartment, I desperately need to purge clothes I don't need. I've been loving using Poshmark to sell my cast-offs.
• Start a project for my research statement. I start applying for faculty positions this fall (!!) which seems far away, but I need to start preparing a research statement, which is what I plan to do for research once I'm a professor. I want to start a project now that will relate to my research described in my statement, so I can easily segway from my current experience to a plan for the future.