With 2007 gone and 2008 already 1% complete I need to start thinking about what some of my goals are for the year. Last year I didn’t blog about any sort of yearly goals, but looking back at my posts from January 2007 makes me think about Michael Palermo’s recent post about his goal of total blogging for 2008 (and some tips for blogs he likes to read). He noted that he made 82 posts in 2007, and his goal for 2008 is to triple(ish) that to 240 posts. By my count I had 144 posts in 2007, or roughly 12 per month, which seems pretty good to me. I think a reasonable goal for me on that front would be to try and do one valuable post per weekday, which should be about 200 per year. So we’ll shoot for 200 posts in 2008 (only 199 after this one!) and in a year we’ll see how we did there.

The second goal will be the old standard (at least in the USA) goal of getting in shape and losing some weight. I think in 2007 I gained about 7 pounds, which is progress, but not in the direction I’m going for. So I think I’d like to really be about 10 pounds shy of where I was a year ago, so we’ll put that goal at -17 pounds.

Last summer I committed to writing a Silverlight 2.0 (then 1.1) book, and while that has been delayed somewhat due to the release schedule of the product, it’s definitely my goal that the book be completed this year. So we’ll make that goal #3.

In 2007, my two dogs (Jaegerin and Mojo) both passed away, within a few months of one another. They were both pretty old (13 and 12), but it’s been pretty lonely without dogs in the house. So, the next goal, which I expect to achieve fairly quickly, is to get a new puppy. We already are working toward this one, and I expect we’ll have a new puppy about this time next month. While that will be fun, I’m not looking forward to the high maintenance and messes that come with new puppies. But on the other hand, it will be nice to have a dog to clean up after our toddler after he’s dumped half his food on the floor at dinner time. Goal #4 – Get a Puppy.

We’ll make goal #5 be for me to achieve my next belt in karate. I haven’t been giving that area of my life much attention lately and so haven’t advanced in over a year (see also goal #2 – if I had been practicing more I wouldn’t have gained the weight). So my fifth goal will be to test for my next rank (and pass the test, of course) in 2008.

Those 5 are probably enough. Naturally I have other business-related goals but they’re more fit for a business plan than a personal blog, so I think we’ll leave it here. I’m already making progress (with this post) on the first goal, which is always a good way to go with task lists and goal lists (some books recommend, for instance, when making a TODO list, that the first item be “make a TODO list” so that when you’ve finished the list, you can immediately cross something off and get that bit of satisfaction to motivate you as you proceed down the list). So, one post done, only 199 to go!