This weekend I sat down and did something I never do — I wrote out New Year’s Resolutions.<\/p>\n
I’ve never been the resolution-y type. I’d occasionally make a list, and it would be a vague list — write more, exercise more.<\/p>\n
This time, I sat down and asked myself, “What am I trying to accomplish? What do I want to do? What will make my life measurably better?”<\/p>\n
I came up with some ideas. I wrote them down. I came up with some more ideas. I wrote those down, too. I typed them up. I reordered them. I rewrote a few. Then I formatted the list for printing, picking some suitably appropriate fonts.<\/p>\n
Here’s the list:<\/p>\n
1. Write 1,000 words per day. Note: <\/b>Things that do not count: work writing, blog posts, forum posts, e-mails.
\n2. Make at least 3 blog posts per week. Note:<\/b> Link Round-Ups do not count, nor do Tweet compilations.
\n3. Leave the cubicle every day for lunch. Do not eat lunch at the desk. Do not work through lunch. Take a book to read. Write in a notebook.
\n4. Leave work at work. If deadlines are missed, deadlines are missed.
\n5. Eat breakfast daily.
\n6. Pack a lunch each workday.
\n7. Walk three days a week, no matter the weather, no matter the time, unless there is snow on the ground.
\n8. Set the alarm clock for 6 o'clock every morning. Saturday and Sunday are exceptions.
\n9. Make the bed every morning.
\n10. Shave thrice weekly.
\n11. Submit one job application or resume each week.
\n12. Develop a podcast to launch in the spring.
\n13. Code new front page for website by April.
\n14. Resume and complete The Misadventures Project<\/i>.
\n15. Work through the One Minute Gaelic<\/i> podcast, and continue with Teach Yourself Gaelic<\/i>.
\n16. Reread The Lord of the Rings<\/i> and the Lankhmar series, for possible blog series.
\n17. Listen to The Lost Lennon Tapes<\/i> episodes, also for possible blog series.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI’m going to print out three copies. One I will hang in the office at home. One I will hang in my kitchen. And one I will hang in my cubicle at work. The idea is that they’ll always be somewhere where I can see them, read them, think about them, and internalize them.<\/p>\n
Some of these may seem like lifehacks. I don’t eat breakfast every day. I don’t usually make my bed; as someone who lives alone, I don’t usually see the point. I don’t shave because I don’t deal with the public anymore; why be presentable? I want to implement and reinforce better behavior on my part.<\/p>\n
Toward the end, I name some specific things that I want to complete or embark upon. Some are projects that I began and then lost interest in. Some are things that I’ve wanted to do but have never started. I wrote them down to keep myself accountable.<\/p>\n
Yes, I really do want to learn Scots Gaelic. I got far enough into the One Minute Gaelic<\/i> podcast that I can understand a little of the Gaelic used in Starz’s Outlander<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow after work, I’ll stop at Target or Office Max and pick up a daily planner where I can track my progress on these. And, if more ideas occur to me as the year wears on, I can write them down.<\/p>\n
That’s the plan.<\/p>\n
If you have any questions on any of these, please ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This weekend I sat down and did something I never do — I wrote out New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve never been the resolution-y type. I’d occasionally make a list, and it would be a vague list — write more, exercise more. This time, I sat down and asked myself, “What am I trying to accomplish?Continue reading “The Plan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[71,4376,77,447,4375,29,46,4102],"class_list":["post-29831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-blogging","tag-gaelic","tag-john-lennon","tag-lankhmar","tag-new-years-resolutions","tag-sherlock-holmes","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}