Examining 2016's goals and setting realistic goals for 2017

Yeah, I know, a year end/beginning goal post is kind of a cliche. I am still going to do it! I am, after all, only human.

Let's begin by looking at last year's goals. I wrote them up in my first post of 2016, which you can read by clicking here.

Now, let's see how I did:
#1 Finished January 2016
#2 Finished January 2016
#3 Finished November 2016, exceeded by a wide margin
#4 Finished March 27th, 2016. I ended up with 69 new Eltons during 2016!
#5 Maybe? I think I completed this on December 12th, but there is some question. I wrote up a post about it but it is still in the queue waiting to be posted.
#6 Failed miserably. I only added one in 2016, on January 11th, and that was it.
#7 Failed in February. I had it going OK, but in February I pulled a card out of my box that I was sure was new...but it wasn't. I messed up another time in February and decided to call it quits for the year. This is going to be my main goal in 2018 as I celebrate my 30th Anniversary in the hobby.
#8 Completed with an asterisk. I got all the real sets, but I did not get Eminence, which was a $6000 box and I'm not even totally convinced it should be counted as an NBA set, or multi-sport. I did complete the NASCAR portion in December, although both sports had more sets released that I have not hunted down yet.
#9 I never actually made the list but I know I did NOT complete this one. I know 1994-95 Stadium Club eluded me at least.
#10 As I suspected, I was not able to complete 2016's #10.

That was a heavy slate and I think I did OK...I completed the ones I knew I could complete, and I didn't complete the ones I guessed I couldn't. I split the ones I was unsure if I could complete. Weird to be that precise as I am usually the world's worst estimator.

For 2017, I've set some goals that are easier, and don't require buying anything (although I have no intention to stop that, I am slowing down a little)

My goals for 2017 all involve doing things with the cards I've already got- which should make it easier, in theory. I'm also only setting 6 with one held in reserve that I'm not quite ready to reveal yet.

#1: Break out the hockey, baseball and football on my website from it's current layout of one album per sport, to a full-on section with albums for each year so it matches my NBA and NASCAR listings. This can be done in a day but it's fairly low priority, I plan to knock it out in the day when I am recovering from the minor surgery I am putting off. (my first)

#2. Reach 250,000 points on the Trading Card Database. This will be a lot of work- each card I scan is 3 points. I start the year with 203,206 points. (Remember I hit 200,000 only on December 21st!). I have posted all the scans I've got ready to go so basically this just means scanning the cards I've got...which is pretty much what I spend most of my time doing anyway. Should be doable but not right away, it'll require effort.

#3. Work on my NASCAR scans. I've kind of been putting them off, but as 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of when I discovered the sport, I should work on them this year. I have to admit the NBA has overtaken NASCAR as my favorite sport- and it did over a year ago. I'm finally ready to admit it now. I still love the sport, don't get me wrong, but I will probably work on them a little bit every month and then get bored and go back to the NBA. 

#4. Finish typing up my Wantlist here on the blog! I created the page when I got my smart phone back in May, but I only got as far as typing up to and including 1994-95. I need to remove the cards I got in December and type the rest of the NBA, all of NASCAR and all of Non-Sports. It's easy, but it's time consuming, and not as much fun as scanning. However, considering we have no working car and very little money to throw around on the hobby, thanks to the medicine that keeps me alive, I think I only used it once in the several months I've had it up there in the top bars. 

#5. Get my collection totals charts up to date. I used to have these really well done, and it used to be one of my favorite charts for documenting my collection. Then, for some reason, I don't even remember when, I let it slip away. I have the information available in Excel but I want to get back to pen on paper. This was an unwritten goal for 2016 as well so I do have a bit of work ahead of me to make it right. I will also be creating a page for hockey, baseball and football when I do this. 

#6. This is the big one- it's one I've been wanting to do for a while and I'm finally going to do it. I'm going to create paper listings for my collection of cards that came with my NASCAR diecast collection, and integrate them into my collection stats. I've always kept them as a separate collection for some reason, just because that's the way I always did it. It's finally time to change that. This is the biggest one to me, and it's the one I'm going to work on first...possibly as soon as today, January 2nd. I have a tradition of doing a big card project at the start of the year and this year this is the big project. It will probably take me about 3 to 4 days if I work hard at it- of course it's not really work because it will be very enjoyable. At the conclusion of this project...I'll finally know exactly how many cards are in my collection. Something I've been wanting to know and have been talking about figuring out for about 4 years now...finally time to do it.

This is not a goal, but I also hope to hit 500 unique Elton Brand cards in 2017. I start the year with 487, so this should be doable, but I'm not going to go nuts trying- a subtheme to my goals is to not pick any which require spending money, and I also have had second thoughts about just going to COMC and buying the ones I need. I did that in 2016- which is how I got 69 new ones of him- but then I ended up pulling a couple of them from packs later which made them duplicates, removing the thrill of pulling them. I have to reconsider what I want to do about buying singles online. Currently I'm leaning towards just hunting cards from the sets I can't afford to buy boxes of, or missing cards from sets I DID buy boxes of and didn't get. In reality it's a moot point because of the money thing. Hopefully some of the cards I've sent to COMC- and I plan to send more this year- will sell so I can turn it into some new cards for my collection. My plan was to save up the money from sales for an Eminence card, but as soon as I got enough for some random card I liked, I bought it, and since I ask for nothing more than 75 cents it would take a while anyway, lol.