Yearly Goals Assessment

It's always fun to see what's changed over the last year, especially when you write down what you'd like to do at the beginning like a lot of us bloggers do.  I'm not the biggest go-getter goal setter, but I'm interested to see how I did.

It's a goal post.  Ba-dum-pum.

2018 Goal #1 - Keep a steady blogging pace.  Well, I topped last year's number (146) with 160 this time out.  I was a blogging machine until a couple hitches in June and July, and would have made it pretty good if it weren't for a lull in mid-to-late November - the "dog days" of blogging.  I finished out strong and the first of the year makes it easy to finally get a backlog of posts ready to go.  Goal #1 - Accomplished.

2018 Goal #2 - Be more positive and creative in my posts.  I think I did OK on this one, but not great.  There weren't as many rants that I can recall, but I didn't come up with too many really original ideas either.  In tallying up my posts for 2018, the overwhelming majority were Loot/Trade posts (53) which is pretty much the point of a card blog - to show cards.  (And of course, there was no shortage of incoming cardboard around here!).
The next highest categories were experience posts (Things I did and How I Do Things) and commentary posts, including the OCD series.  These two almost overlap, but they comprised 38 posts all together.  Again, not too many negative essays, but more things like the renovations to my card room, product reviews, and how I make lists, arrange and decorate binders etc. 
The rest were game-in-real-life and Baseball History types of things, blogger participation (Bat Arounds and common topics among us), and posts that showed gorgeous women.  A couple goofy things sprinkled in here and there, and that was really it.  I only created one single custom except for the Leading Ladies.  Gotta ramp it up this year.    Goal #2 - Accomplished, though not spectacularly.

2018 Goal #3 - Clean Up and Put All The Stuff Away!  At the beginning of 2018, I had piles and piles of purchases, box breaks, and supplies all over the card room (and beyond).  I have since straightened it up - mostly because I added new furniture in April and basically had to evacuate the room.  So now it looks like this:

 

Early 2018 on the left, Dec 2018 on the right.

 

 

It's a whole different bunch of stuff on the sorting desk, but the volume is almost the same.  I had all my player collection cards that needed to be added to binders spread out on the whole desk, but had to pick them up.  In the meantime, I had to put more incoming set stuff on the cabinet.

So it's really just as congested as it was.  Just with different stuff.

 

The couch is a lot better.  Only a couple bobbleheads I got for Christmas on there.

The other catch is that most of what was on the desk in January was moved into the other room in a big foam tray/box.  And it's mostly still sitting there.

So Goal #3 - Deferred.

Goal #4 - Complete the 1960, 1970, and 1972 Topps sets.  This one was a win!  In July at the Chantilly show, I finally killed all three.  This allowed me to start on 1964 Topps in earnest and start on '68 and '57.  Goal #4 - Accomplished!

2018 Goal #5 - Ramp Up The Trades With My Original Group & Keep Up The Blogger Trading.  Got this one half right anyway.  I'm pretty sure I made more trades with fellow bloggers than I did with my Yahoo! group friends.  My most wanted list took multiple beatings from my kindred composers.  I did get in a few trades with the other guys, most of which I don't post on here.  This goal is still in progress.  Goal #5 - ½ Accomplished.

2018 Goal #6 - Knock Out A Lot Of Old Want Lists. I made a backup to my site pages and stored it on my work computer in January last year.  Looking now at my Baseball page side by side with the current version, there are a lot of sets that aren't there any more, but the majority of them were down to a few cards and were the ones I posted on my most wanted list.
That would be fine, but the catch is that I've added just as many new sets this year as I have taken off.  And most of the other listings haven't changed much.  Some that were Have lists are now Needs with names by the numbers, but the whole thing is basically the same length.
Goal #6 - Accomplished But Negated.

That should be plenty to think about this year.  I'm not sure at this point whether I'll make it to Cleveland for the National.  I liked it the first time a few years ago, and would love to meet a few of the other bloggers and traders I deal with.  I'm also on the verge of just stopping the collection of certain sports and narrowing my focus a bit.  (Mostly because my house won't hold it all for much longer.)  At least it seems like the dog doesn't like to chew cardboard....

I didn't end up going to the National in Cleveland, but I do plan on making Chicago again.  I've missed the last couple, so it will be good to hit one again.
As for restricting my collecting, that didn't happen either.  I finally added a couple hockey sets - both new and vintage, and a couple vintage on the football side too.  I alleviated the storage problem with the new shelves, which are about full already....

 

I just have to clean up a bit and there will still be room there.  And I do have room for bigger boxes again, so some consolidation is in order soon.  After my birthday in a week or so, things will settle down and I'll get into the cardboard swing again over in that room.  The dog didn't work out, so that isn't an issue.

2018 was a great year for collecting and blogging.  It was rather "meh.." for just about everything else.  My job is fine, and my friends are still around, but not much else went on, really.  Except for my Capitals winning the championship, the other sports (including fantasy) continually disappointed.  I've always been more of a fan of cards than the actual sports they portray, but this year made that rift a lot wider.

Looking forward to more activity in 2019 - the cardboard kind and otherwise....