September 22nd = Day 100: Decisions, decisions, decisions

I've had a busy day today and I am glad I have already laid down the ground rules for my own 100 day challenges, otherwise I might have been tempted to say, "I'll do all that tomorrow".

The trick with the 100 day challenge is to be found in both time and project management. The project is 100 days long and each day forms 1 part of that project. The question is how can I use each single day to reach my 100 day challenge?

Well, the first thing of course was to decide - what do I want to have achieved by the end of this challenge? I have 4 main challenges this time, they are:

1. Save some money
2. Lose some weight
3. Clean my house of clutter
4. Motivate you to achieve your goals

All of which are too broad and far too general to be considered a "goal"... so:

1. Money - I don't have a particular sum of money in mind because I find that too restricting. So my goal is to spend as little as possible during the next 100 days, and in doing so save money for the big purchases that always come at the end of the year - Christmas and my daughter's birthday which occurs on 12th night. The way I am "not spending" and therefore saving money is by restricting my purchases to those things I can buy in a supermarket. Sounds strange, but not when you consider that where I live you can't buy "everything" from a single store. For instance, clothes, books if you want something more than the odd bestseller or cookery book, and you can't buy alcohol in a supermarket in Perth. I was told that I was wrong, but when I explained that even if a liquor store was in the same building, if I had to pay twice for what I wanted - then it didn't count. The alcohol is not on the general supermarket shelves and you cannot pay for it at the same time as you buy the rest of your groceries which means I can't buy it. Similarly I can't buy take away lunches or coffee - certainly not where I shop on a regular basis.

2. Given the statement above, the weight loss should be quite easy. But lets break it down a little. I need to lose 10 kilos in weight. Which means that for each 10 day section of the program I need to have lost 1 kilo. Break that down again, I need to lose just 100g per day. How do I do that? By not indulging in the take away coffee or the glass of wine at the end of the day? That's one way of doing it, but how about doing a little more exercise? How about combining the two. So I need to find a way to lose 100g of weight per day and I need to find time to do some exercise - be that going to the gym, going for a walk or doing some form of incidental exercise. Which brings me to point #3

3. Clean my house of clutter. We all have clutter in our homes and lives. The trick I find is not to try and blitz the entire house in one day / week but to do something each day. I can find 10 minutes to clean out a drawer or a cupboard, but my schedule means that to clean the entire house in one go would never happen. As I also have 2 kids and 2 cats to contend with - cleaning my house is like painting the forth bridge anyway. But by systematically getting rid of the clutter that has accumulated throughout the house I can by the end of 100 days (I think) reach the end of the goal with a slightly less cluttered home. One of the ways I want to prove that I am doing what I am saying I am doing of course is to tell you what I have found to discard (dump or donate) then I will take and post a picture and write about it in the blog.

4. How can I motivate you to achieve your goals? Well the first way of course are the materials I will be providing you with. Add in the support of the Daily Dose of Motivational Medicine, the 10 100 day challenge emails to boost your daily activities and email support if you need it. Hopefully you will find it within you to achieve many of your goals over the next 100 days.

You will have gathered by now that the challenge is very personal.

Your task today is to make some decisions. What DO you want to achieve by December 31st 2010?