Its SO GOOD to be back here with all of you! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday and has safe and fun plans for tonight! I plan on dancing out all the calories I ate over the past few weeks. You can dance off thousands of calories in one night right? Also! Little side story… I am really hoping Jared kisses me at midnight tonight. Why? Well, because it would be the VERY FIRST TIME in our 6 years together that he kisses me at midnight on NYE. Yeah. He has never kissed me on NYE. The first time we had only been together for about 10 days, and known each other for about 14, so I think he was nervous. And then it became a kind of joke between us and all of our friends. We will see if the joke ends tonight! He very well may never kiss me at midnight!
Since today is the last day of 2012 (!!!!) I thought it would be a good day to share how I did on my goals for the year. Here they are, as written on December 20, 2011, with my notes on how I did:
1. More Wedding Blog Features. I had the absolute privilege to be featured several times this year, and I want to keep adding to that list!
I think I did really well with this!! Unfortunately, it wasn’t consistent all year long, but the last 5 weddings of the year have all been published, or picked up to be, and 5 others from earlier in the year were published, or have been picked up to be published early next year. Score!
2. Equipment. Honestly, this is what I want to have all together: Mark ii (2?), 2 580 Speedlights, 100mm Macro 2.0, 1 Tripod, 2 Light Stands, 3-4 Radio Poppers, 70-200mm 2.0, 50mm 1.2, and a partridge in a pear tree.
This one I am counting as a success as well, even though I dont have everything listed. I have everything I NEED to shoot a wedding well. I got the Mark 2, the 2 Speed Lights, the Macro, the Tripod, 1 Light Stand, a Radio Popper system, and the 70-200mm.
3. Finish decorating/accessorizing office. I still need curtain panels, canvases on the walls, and some other things.
This one is a huge FAIL. I have made no additional progress on my office, or decorating it. All of our time and funds went into finishing the downstairs this year.
4. Implement New Client Welcome packages.
I dont know if I can count this a success because I JUST figured this out for 2013 brides, but at least I did figure it out! If youre one of my brides getting married in 2013, its coming to ya soon!! Get excited!
5. Order a few wedding sample albums. (3-4?)
Oops. Fail again. I havent ordered a single new sample album. I have however designed one, that I WILL order. I will!
6. Implement Off Camera Lighting at receptions.
This one is a huge success for me! OCL is very intimidating, and I am so glad that I have one year of shooting it under my belt. I hope I can continue improving it!
7. Keep updated accounting/start using ShootQ.
I tried ShootQ this year and it didnt jive with me at all. In fact, I really hated it. I was at a loss as what to do, because I really needed to figure out my book keeping. Thankfully Jared offered to try to do it for a while and see how it went. It has worked out so well having him take care of it each month. We are going to tag team a blog post soon about how he does it and how it goes with my workflow!
8. Update Workflow, and really stick to it.
Huge success! My workflow boards are amazing, and I am so thankful I have them for the coming years!
9. Read Fast Track Photographer. I have had this on a list to do for 2 years. Its time to get ‘er done.
Oh gosh, I have not read this. Gah!!! Fail.
10. Create a blogging calendar. Right now I blog week by week. I think having an entire month or two mapped out will really help with my workflow and create some more consistency.
I think I can consider this a success even though it wasn’t consistent. I learned this year that sometimes inspiration just hits me, and I am loaded up with a few blog ideas, and sometimes I need to pull one out of the archives because I am struggling with an idea. Now, when I create a calendar, I leave a a few days open and if I have an idea, I use it then. If I dont, I look back through my archived ideas and see if any fit well.
How did you do this year? Id love to hear!!
Two of my favorite shots from Anna!!
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YAY the pictures look so good on your fb page/blog!!!!! Congrats on a very successful year and on meeting so many of your goals:). You rock.
WAY TO GO, lauryn! you accomplished a lot! i did pretty well, but what i’ve realized about myself is that making monthly goals has been WAY more successful for me than year-long goals. so, i think i’m still going to write out what i want to have accomplished over the next year, but mainly will rely on the month-by-month to actually track progress and make it happen. definitely like your advice about leaving some blank days in the blogging calendar, though! since i JUST started using them, that’s helpful.
YAY for you!!! It sounds like you had a very successful year
Up to this point I’ve only had monthly goals, which work well during the year, but aren’t much help come December 31st!! You’ve officially inspired me to do yearly goals for 2013!
@Tori Ive actually never tried Monthly Goals, I wonder if I would like that…
@Amanda Go for it!!
Ive never tried Monthly…maybe I should!
And it looks like you succeeded in growing your hair long, too! Pretty pictures!
Good day! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are
you using for this website? I’m getting sick and tired of Wordpress because I’ve had issues with hackers and I’m looking at options for another platform. I would be awesome if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
@Angelia Awh, that stinks!! Unfortunately, I really love Wordpress! What kind of hacking is happening? Is it just a password issue? I hope you can get it resolved!! I do know that its NOT wordpress.com. I use wordpress.org which is self hosted through a different hosting site. Hope that helps!
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