Recently, I started listening to the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. On one of her episodes, she talked about a “24 for 24” list – 24 things she wanted to accomplish in 2024, big or small. I decided that instead of setting big goals for this year, I would do the “24 for 24” instead.
Since I am still recovering from the grief of the end of 2023, I kind of feel like this will be an easier way to get back into the groove of things. I look forward to reviewing it at the end of the year to see what I did or didn’t do and what I learned along the way.
My goal-setting has followed different paths over the years. In previous years, I did things such as the “one thing” or the “12-week year” or my 5F framework system. They are all great options, so I’m going to share all of them and then you can choose which one feels right for you for 2024 if you haven’t already planned your goals for the year.
The ONE Thing
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller is a great book. Overall, it encourages you to focus on one thing at a time, because a priority really is one thing. We’ve just made it multiple things in our culture. It’s very difficult for me to focus on one thing because I’ve always done multiple things. In college, I majored in History and Sociology at Columbia. I’ve always worked a side gig, even when I was in corporate America. So, for me when I do the “one thing”, I have one personal focus and one work focus. It’s a really good and helpful practice. I recommend reading that book and learning the principles in it.
The 12-week Year
Another thing that I’ve done is follow Brian Moran’s book The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months. The underlying premise of the 12-week year is Parkinson’s Law, which says that work expands to fill the time given to complete it, which is so true. I think back to when I was a college student. There were times when I had all semester to do a paper but I would wait a day or two before it was due before cramming to get it done. Okay, so maybe that’s just me. Anyway, when people have a whole year to accomplish something, often, it’s not thought about until the last few months of the year.
With the 12-week year, instead of one year, you have four 12-week periods, and on the 13th week, you rest and get ready for your next 12-week year. I love the concept of a mini-year because if you follow it, you can focus on four things within a given calendar year. You pick a focus, and then you decide on a few actions that will help move you toward that goal. And you keep score on whether or not you do the items on a weekly scorecard. Scoring your execution helps you to determine if it’s just a bad goal or if your execution is the problem. If you’re executing well, and you’re not getting closer to your goal, then you need to change either your action steps or the goal.
For many people, the issue is execution. I have definitely benefited from this system in the past. It can be used for both personal and work goals. I helped one of my friends who has a million-dollar+ company implement this system with her employees, and it was a noticeable positive change in their business. Clarity is key!
The 5F Framework
Lastly, I have my own system, which I call the 5F framework. I have done it and taught it to family and friends for many years. One of my friends felt a little betrayed that I didn’t use this framework this year because we always compare our 5Fs for the year. It’s okay though. I still came up with my 24 for 24 by thinking about the 5Fs. It’s a fun little way to think about goals. My husband and sons even humor me and do the 5F framework one with me.
So for the 5Fs, my big areas are faith, fitness, family, finances and fun. Those broad categories can be broken down more as needed. Everybody’s life is so different so you have to do what works for your life. (I currently have 12 smaller categories altogether.)
For me, faith includes my personal relationship with God, the people whom I mentor spiritually, the various ministries that I oversee with my husband at our church and my personal outreach.
Fitness is my overall health and appearance. I always think about the oxygen mask instructions that we get on airplanes. You have to put on your oxygen mask first before you can help anyone else.
Family includes my immediate family, my extended family, friends, and even the upkeep of my home – since that is our family’s hub.
Finances include my business and how I manage money overall. It also includes any type of financial education that helps me to be a better steward of the money that we do have.
Lastly, fun is where I make sure that I include things that make me happy. It can be learning something new, cultural activities, or anything enjoyable that I want to do. For instance, I’m a big afternoon tea fan and have been to many of the best tea places in New York. My cousin recently sent me a New York Times article about tea places. It’s not on my “24 for 24” list, but I still plan on visiting a few of the “new to-me” tea places in 2024.
“24 for 24”
This brings me to my “24 for 24” list. It’s pretty random. I’ll share some of them. One is to deep clean my home four or more times. I’m a neat person. I’m a minimalist and I can’t stand clutter and all of those things. I have to be deliberate about doing the deep cleaning though because I can’t see little things without my glasses. I just want to do top-to-bottom cleaning at least four times.
Family & Home
I want to do a couple of special getaways with my husband Reggie – one romantic one around Valentine’s Day and an educational marriage retreat.
Another thing on my list is to give my husband, Reggie, the 50th birthday celebration that he wants. The focus is on what he wants because everybody likes to celebrate differently. For his 40th birthday, I threw him a big birthday party with 40 of our closest friends. We rented out a place, and it was so much fun. He’s not at that same dancing, partying stage of life now, though so I’ll have to see what he wants. (I understand that because I ran away home to Virginia for my 50th birthday last year because I didn’t want a big party!)
I also want to get our family passports updated so that we can go to the Dominican Republic this summer. We wanted to go last summer but we decided to stay close to home because my late father-in-law’s health was starting to decline. That was the best decision, but we will hopefully enjoy the trip this year.
In the past, I’ve just hired someone to do the deep cleaning but post-COVID housecleaning prices have gone crazy here in New York City (in my opinion). I’d rather just clean myself and use that money to do something fun that I enjoy.
Another thing on my list is to have 12 or more special sisterhood girlfriend times with my friends. That’s important.
Fitness
A few of my list items involve making sure that I’m all caught up on all my medical visits. What prompted this is I went to the eye doctor at the end of last year. I realized I hadn’t been in seven years since my eyeglass prescription was still working fine. The doctor said something at my visit though that helped my perspective. She said, “The visits aren’t just about your prescription. It’s also to check the health of your eyes. You have insurance, so come!”
I thought to myself, “That’s so true. Making sure that my kids get all of their necessary visits happen. I have to remember that I need to take care of myself and make sure that I get all of my visits, too.”
I’ll admit that one of the reasons why I don’t go to various healthcare professionals is because I get annoyed. I’ll go to one visit, and then it ends up being five or six visits – although there are no major issues. Better safe than sorry though, so I plan on going to visit everyone that my ZocDoc account refers.
I also plan on exercising 24 minutes or more a day. Once I start moving, it usually ends up being around 50 minutes. Twenty-four minutes is the minimum just so that I can start.
Fun
Pickleball is something that I want to play at least four times this year. We played pickleball once last year when we went away for a family trip and it was so much fun. We loved it. I can see why it’s growing so quickly. For Christmas, a family member bought us a pickleball set so hopefully we’ll be able to find a nearby court and start playing when it gets warmer here in New York City.
Finances
Finances are something that I want to grow in wisdom in this year. To help, I want to settle on a financial advisor, accountant and lawyer. I think that by God’s grace, my husband and I have done a good job up to now with our finances. We have great credit and don’t have andy debt. We also have savings, college funds for the kids and the like.
Now that we’re in the second half of life we need an expert to help us with clear retirement plans, and investment guidance though. We also need to settle on our estate plans. Reggie’s dad was great about having everything set up and we want to do the same for our sons in case anything happens to us.
Reggie and I are going through the Made Whole: The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals workbook by Tiffany Aliche (also known as the Budgetnista(. We started the book at the beginning of the year and are up to Chapter 8. I highly recommend this book because it’s important to have an overall understanding of financial concepts – even if you are planning on hiring professionals to do the detailed work.
Work-wise I want to publish a book and I want to clean up this Mom in the City site completely. This is probably the last year and a half that I will have this particular site. Right now, the plan is to close the chapter on motherhood being my main focus once my youngest son graduates from high school next June.
I will probably go back to school for a graduate degree and start a new career. Well, that is the plan. It might be hard working for someone else after working for myself for almost two decades but that’s what I’m thinking. We’ll see what happens.
Those are some of the highlights of my “24 for 24” list. I took the 24 items on the list and plotted them out across the year. I know what I’m planning for the first 12 weeks because I still think of that type of framework. Several of the 24 items are calendar year-long goals though so they’ll carry over throughout the rest of the year.
Closing Thoughts
The “24 for 24” list was a fun, easy way for me to plan 2024. I’ll admit that I didn’t stop at 24 items though. What can I say? I’m one of those “my lists have lists” people! I did put the additional items (which include a few lofty goals) on a separate “Would Also Like To” page in my 2024 planner so that’s something.
I hope that reading the different ways that I plan and make goals helps you to come up with a process that works for you and your life.