Goals for 2008

Since Thanksgiving, I have been thinking a lot about my goals for 2008. Thanks to all the Ravelry groups I have joined, my goals now include knitting a pair of socks a month, knitting from my stash, and finishing or frogging all of my WIPs/UFOs. Those are all worthy goals, but I think I need a few more specifics about how to accomplish them.

One of the things that has occurred to me is that I don't have a problem finishing items when I have a deadline to work towards. My problem is finishing those items, especially bigger items, that don't come with a deadline attached. Most of those types of items are for me, although I do have some blankets started that I would like to donate to charity "some day" that have also been sitting around for a long while. So that is one problem I need to address.

I also feel like I didn't really stretch and learn many new techniques this past year. Making 100 items for charity was a fun challenge, but it took a lot of time, and I think I need to do things differently next year. It's time to make some garments and learn about the design elements involved in garment construction, for instance.

I am also struggling with the whole "3 WIPs at a time" thing. Even if I choose my 3 WIPs carefully, I still wander off to work on other projects from time to time. I'm trying to finish an afghan, but I need a small travel project to tote with me. Or the spirit just moves me to finish a scarf that isn't on my list of 3. So apparently I need a tad more flexibility in my projects than just 3 allows.

Then, yesterday, I had a brief conversation with one of my knitting buddies at work. She mentioned a couple of projects that just needed some finishing done on them, and we talked about how hard and boring that can be. She also mentioned a Yahoo group that is focused just on finishing projects. Apparently, they choose so many projects a month and the challenge is to finish them up.

So last night, all of these thoughts came together in my head, and I came up with a new plan of attack:

1. Start no more than 1 new project a month that doesn't have a deadline and make every effort to use stash yarns for these projects. I will also try to have some months when I don't start anything new, so that I come out ahead at the end of 2008. But if I don't allow myself to occasionally start something new, I will never stick to this plan.
2. Work on whatever projects I feel like throughout the month.
3. Pick one ongoing project a month to finish. I don't have to work on this project exclusively, but I do have to make a serious effort to finish whichever project I pick. No returning it to UFO status.

I'm hopeful that this will help me to clean out at least some of the old UFOs while leaving me free to work on socks, charity items and other new projects. If I stick to this, I anticipate that it will take time away from my charity projects, which is why I don't want to set a numerical goal next year. I just want to do what I can do, work through some of my stash, and enjoy myself.

Now we'll just have to see how successful I am at sticking to this plan!