Are you surprised? I do these every year. The short version is, I like to promise myself to do interesting things (or necessary things), and asking myself every year “what do I want to accomplish this year” is pretty much New Years Resolutions. Nothing lame like “I want to gain/lose weight”, but real stuff like “take cooking classes” or “write a book”.
And I like to talk about it because, let’s be honest, I’m a writer (blogger?) at heart, and I like drawing attention to myself.
2015 Retrospective
To be honest, 2015 was kind of an off-year for me. While the last 2 years had some pretty drastic changes, this year was just kinda meh.
My biggest achievement was Vika Yermolyeva covering my song. To be fair, it was part of her crowdfunding campaign for her album, and I paid a pretty good chunk of change, but I still think it worth it, just for the attention. And now I have subscribers expecting me to do things in 2016. And I have some ideas.
My biggest heartbreak was when Missy went missing. (Don’t worry, she came home.) I lost a friend over this. (It’s much more complicated than that, but that’s a story for another day.)
2015 Resolutions
And for the first time in I don’t remember, I failed my New Years Resolutions. And not only did I fail, I failed miserably. I bit off more than I could chew, and I didn’t motivate myself to succeed.
Resolution #1 – Give up addictive internet sites. Completely failed. Despite my best efforts, I can’t stay away from Reddit and TV Tropes. Honestly, I think this was a lost cause. Sometimes, I’ll be waiting on a build, and there’s not enough content outside of Reddit to keep me entertained. At least I managed to stop posting on comment threads or forums (other than Facebook or PPL). Result: FAILED
Resolution #2 – Read the news. Most days, I managed to squeeze in about 10 minutes reading the news. I started reading BBC, because I wanted an international perspective, without the American bias. I don’t know if BBC is unbiased (but then again, no one is really unbiased), but at least BBC has a British bias rather than the American bias I see every day. I later started reading Seattle Times, because I realized, I need both a global and a local perspective. But I was only able to read the news on most days. Some days, for one reason or another, I just didn’t read any news. Result: PARTIAL SUCCESS
Resolution #3 – Fewer diet “cheat days”. This one worked. The only unambiguous success. ‘Nuff said. Result: SUCCESS
Resolution #4 – Re-organize the house. Well, I replaced the refrigerator. (I hate my new refrigerator, but at least it’s objectively better than my old one. I think I can live with it.) I finally cleared out the counter space in the kitchen. But the rest? Didn’t do it. Not even 5 out of 6 like I promised. Result: FAILED
So 1.5 out of 4. Worst New Years Resolution ever. Let’s see if I can turn it around.
2016 Resolutions
Resolution #1 – Re-organize the house. I still want to do this, so let’s sub-divide this time, to make it more likely I actually complete them.
- 1a, clean my bedroom at least once every quarter – As the story goes, I clean every other room in the house frequently, since that’s what visitors see, but clutter keeps piling up in the master bedroom.
- 1b, make a process for filing mail – I have a bad habit of checking my mail adhoc, piling it on a table, and letting it accumulate. That’s bad. I need a process to take care of mail in a timely manner. It could be as simple as pick up mail on X day after work, sort it immediately, and either take care of everything immediately or make a plan to take care of it in the immediate future. The point is, I need to get in the habit of doing this regularly.
- 1c, organize my game collection and sell off what I don’t need by the end of April – This includes video games, board games, and card games.
- 1d, re-organize my kitchen by the end of August. – Some drawers are entirely empty, while other drawers, especially the later ones, are illogically arranged. I also should experiment with magnetic jars to store spices on my fridge door.
Last year’s resolutions also had something about an “art collection” and organizing my computer file. I figure these aren’t critical, and I should start small and build up. Hopefully this year, I’ll get the re-org I need.
Resolution #2 – Make progress on Everything I Know About Cookies. At the end of 2014, I made my first draft of my book Everything I Know About Cookies, and the draft was covered with blank spaces for experiments I needed to do. Then, I spent an entire year doing those cookie experiments, and I have ideas for experiments to last me a lifetime. At some point, I need to cut it off and say, here’s what’s in the book. So I’ve decided
- By the end of June, I need to finish all the experiments I want to do.
- By the end of November, I need to finalize the recipes I want in the book and finish principal photography.
- In December, I need start work on the final draft of the book, with a plan to finish by the end of the year, including how I’m gonna publish and distribute.
This will prolly be self-publishing and/or e-book. I’m thinking e-book will be free, and I’ll turn physical copies of the book into a new charity drive or something.
Resolution #3 – Diet, exercise, and sleep. I didn’t have these resolutions last year (other than the cheat meals one), but I adopted them because I realized tracking how many cheat meals I had, how often I went to the gym, and when I slept and woke up led to a better quality of life (some more directly than others). So I’m bringing them back. I’m not go over the nitty gritty of all the rules, since no one cares but me, but my goals are:
- Diet: No more than 10 cheat meals per month.
- Exercise: At least 10 exercise days per month (gym or fencing).
- Sleep: Go to bed by 2am on work nights and wake up by 9:30am on work days, slipping by no more than 6 hr (in minutes) per month.
Of course, when I’m on vacation, it doesn’t count, and I’ll pro-rate as needed.
So yeah. Here’s my 2016 resolutions. Here’s hoping 2016 will be a better year than 2015.