I’m a month and a half late, but better late than never, apparently.
2018 Retrospective
I used to be really good at resolutions. Then, I just kept doing more and more stuff, and now I’m out of time and brain space for doing stuff. This past year, I ended up prioritizing and cutting out some activities that weren’t holding up. I gave up X-Wing and Blood Bowl. Still running 2 DnD games (for at least 2 more years, I think), and still playing Magic. Finding time to squeeze in video games (and I started streaming on Twitch, but that’s mostly free with playing video games).
As it turns out, I’m still super busy with all my hobbies, but now I’m spending more time with the hobbies that matter to me.
2019 Resolutions
Resolution #1: Reading List – Read 4 books this year, one per quarter. (Excludes Snow Crash, which I was supposed to finish last year, but didn’t I plan to finish it this month.)
Resolution #2: Piano Videos – Post 2 new piano videos, one in the first half of the year, one in the second half of the year.
Resolution #3: Clean Weekly – Spend at least 25 minutes a week cleaning. This excludes things I need to do daily or weekly, like dishes, or cleaning the litter box, or sweeping. The idea is to develop a cleaning habit so I can get ahead and keep ahead of household cleaning chores.
I know negative goals are basically impossible to set. But I’m still going to set some, primarily as aspirational goals, even if it’s impossible to measure how successful I am at negative goals.
Negative Goal #1: No more posting on Reddit – Getting pulled into Reddit arguments is a huge time suck and brain suck. So with that in mind, I should stop posting on Reddit. I’ll make exceptions in the following cases (a) small communities (like r/mtgdredge or r/13thage) (b) shitposting (c) sharing something I created (d) asking a question that I need the answer to. This will be the toughest goal, but it’s something I should strive for.
Negative Goal #2: No eating after 11pm – My sleep schedule seems to correlate strongly with when I eat, so I should stop eating earlier. Also, not eating late at night is good for health reasons.
Negative Goal #3: No playing new games until I finish the old ones – I have a long backlog of games I need to finish, including but not limited to KotOR, The Witcher, Wasteland 2, Fallout 2, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. So instead of starting yet another game, I should finish one of the old ones. I’ll make exceptions for direct sequels and for The Outer Worlds. EDIT: And Carrion.
Welp, I think I can do it this year. Wish me luck!