Liz Cultivates | L.M. Fern

Time for an accountability post!

Each year, I do what a lot of people do: turn the calendar to January, make a bunch of lofty goals that are probably too difficult or complicated or that would take too much time, almost immediately abandon the list, and go about my year treading water between the burnout and the anxiety.

Well, I am going to at least make more of an effort this month. No promises for next!

A couple of weeks ago, I laid out a few goals that I wanted to accomplish for the rest of the month. I’m happy to say that I accomplished a few of them, but still need to double down on finishing The Way of Kings (it’s SO LONG). Here’s what I did and didn’t do in the last two weeks:

Social media and content generation

I worked on my content calendar and started several blog posts! You’ll see the fruits of all that work soon. I’ve been using Buffer for scheduling, and there is a phone app that makes it easy to just plan content when I have a free minute or when I’m playing phone games and know I could be doing something more productive.

For February, I am going to focus on video content, because I want to start doing more of that. I’m also going to put more effort into at least three Instagram posts per week and one blog post.

Reading and writing

As I mentioned, I have not finished The Way of Kings. I had forgotten how freakin’ long the book is, and making my goal “finish this book with two weeks left of the month” was not giving myself enough time. I used to blast through a book like this in a couple of days, but that was when I didn’t have responsibilities. So, my responsibilities and I will continue to work through the book and will report back when done! Hoping to finish it in February.

I did finish my chapter, which brings me to almost 135k words in my current WIP. I can almost taste the ending. We’re in the final stretch. The main character is finally going to come face-to-face with her brother, who she has been looking for the entire book, and we’re going to meet some more characters that may or may not be the BBEG. It’s very exciting (for me).

Home and garden

I did finally finish my October temperature square, and I’m about halfway through the November square as well. I will finish with all my squares in February, then maybe I’ll give myself a week or two to put them together. I truly cannot wait to share this thing with everyone. It’s going to be just . . . so big.

February will also be the time to get started with my planting schedule. I’ll probably start seeds at the end of the month, but before then, I’ll need to plan out where I want to put everything. I have two huge beds and one medium-sized plot now, and I want to try experimenting with fruit and herbs this year. I think I should have all the seeds I need – except for the fruit. So I need to look into that. Exciting!

February goals

So, to summarize, in February my plans are:

• Finish The Way of Kings
• Plan out the garden and do some research on fruit (trees, bushes, strawberries?)
• Finish the next chapter of the novel, and maybe more
• Finish the temperature blanket
• Come up with some ideas for video content

Join me on my journey, if you like!