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While doing some research for my last post about setting short term financial goals, I came across a few things that got me thinking about family goals more generally. These are goals specifically targeted to achieve your best life as a family as you build financial and time freedom.
What's In This Post
Best year ever, curation, and time
First, I took notice of a book/program for having your “best year ever.” For some reason this really made me stop and think. Wow, what would my best year ever look like? How would I reverse engineer building a year of awesome? Sounds like a logical stepping stone to living your best life, yes?
Second, I was reminded of Paula over at Afford Anything and her motto that we can afford anything, not everything. She discusses this further as curation. That we must curate everything in our lives, from stuff to how we spend our money… and the big one for me, how we spend our time.
And of course the concept of intentionally curating one’s time is hailed by my favorite time management guru, Laura Vanderkam’s writings as well. As Laura says, “Life is lived in hours.” And hours build to weeks, and months, and years. What will we look back on when reviewing our time lived?
Curating our most precious resource
So when I started reading about goal setting, it got me thinking yet again about our most precious resource. And that’s time.
Financial goals are straightforward to me- they usually involve math and are concrete. Or getting educated on a new money-related topic. Check, done.
But personal goals and family goals? Those can be a lot muddier. “I’ll get healthy this year” … umm, whoops, didn’t happen again.
But financial freedom has long been about achieving time freedom for me. And what is time freedom for? Answer: freedom to curate your family’s time.
There are great lists of examples of family goals out there (here, here, here). They include a mix of ideas, everything from building new daily habits and saving for a family vacation to decluttering and making a special day for each family member.
In reviewing such lists, I realized family goal setting must not be about adding on another to-do list (hello, isn’t that what setting family goals feels like at first glance??).
No one needs another list of stuff they’re failing to get done!
But think about this as carefully selecting and curating how your family spends time together.
It may mean identifying habits or activities that need to go. If visiting friends is an important goal, what is that time replacing? What needs to go? You can’t do everything.
Instead, use goals as a way of prioritizing what family time is most important. If everything is important, then nothing is.
Keep the final list short.
Family goals examples for inspiration
Examples of family goals are listed below to inspire your ideas. Develop your own final (short) list with a ruthless commitment to your own family priorities. Are you aiming to be a more happy family? A more fun family? A more healthy family? A more productive family? A more connected family? Let the greater purpose guide you to a short, selected list. Set aside anything else for potential future family goals to consider later.
Again, remember that if everything is important, then nothing is!
Some generic ideas to get you thinking…
Building regular practices and habits as a family
- Hug and say “I love you” when leaving home
- Worship weekly
- Pray daily
- Sit down to family meal daily
- Ditch devices certain times of day
- Take a family walk or other exercise practice
- Plan family game night each month
- Schedule a regular date night / babysitter night for parents and kids to refuel separately
Accomplishing work together
- Do household chores as a team
- Tackle a home project
- Volunteer together
- Maintain a garden
Learning or practicing something new together
- Cooking
- Canning
- Sewing
- Photography
- Musical instrument
- Foreign language
- Take a class together
Curating the stuff and documenting the memories of family life
- Schedule an annual family photo
- Help declutter rooms of your home together
- Scrapbook together
- Create photo or art wall
Connecting with others
- More extended family connecting
- More distant friends connecting
- Getting to know neighbors
- Helping neighbors and friends
- Better quality time with family friends and playmates
- Sending more cards and written correspondence
- Making better use of virtual gatherings
Plan special one time events
- Visit a new place
- Plan a special themed vacation
- Do up birthdays or certain holidays extra special
- Create a competition
- Help kids put on a play
- Host a family reunion
- Plot out a purposeful road trip
Create your own brainstorm together as a whole family, or combine separate lists from each of your family members depending on the age of your kids.
Then carefully select some high priority goals and develop them into very specific goals.
Break them down into individual milestones if relevant. The more specific you can be about who, what, where, when, and why… the more likely everyone will be on the same page for accomplishing said goal.
You may want to consider the S.M.A.R.T. approach and ensure your goal is Specific, Measurable (how will you determine if the outcome is completed or not?), Attainable, Realistic/Relevant to your family’s values, and Time limited (what’s the deadline?).
Example of a specific, short list of family goals
In my own review of these lists and thinking about a greater priority of connecting with family and friends, I came up with this short list. It’s a quick example of a few much more specific goals that would be plenty to make us feel like we made major progress towards being more connected with others.
- Create regular virtual connections with distant family & friends: for each family/group, devise the optimal platform, frequency, and activity. Schedule it.
- Send birthday cards as a family: create a family calendar of birthdays & kit of card making supplies for kids to craft the cards. We parents will organize when to make and send.
- Host a party: (when appropriate within pandemic life) schedule, plan, and host a simple party of local friends for no particular reason built for kids and adults.
Key Takeaways
Deciding how to spend your time and money should rest on thoughtful intention. Financial goals are critical for making progress towards financial freedom, and some may be more universal. However, specific family goals keep the way you spend your time and money targeted towards your top priorities and values as a family, which are very particular to you.
Ultimately, financial freedom buys you time freedom. Carefully selecting and curating how you will spend that time with a short list of high-priority, specific goals helps you intentionally build your best life.