New Years Resolutions

Hey look, I’m finally writing my New Years Resolutions blog post on time! Normally, I have a longer intro to my blog posts, so it looks good on the summary page, but not this time. Let’s get right into it!

I guess I should have written these back in December. Or at the very least in early January. But hey, it’s Lunar New Year today, so it counts. At least it’s still January. Last year, I wrote my resolutions in March. And the year before, I wrote them in August. Not only that, in the last 3 weeks, I’ve already gotten a head start on a number of my resolutions.

I’d say 2023 is off to a good start.

I’m 3 months late. Better than last year, not as good as I want to be. Have I always been this busy? Gym Tuesday, FF14 Raid Night Tuesday and Wednesday, Fencing Thursday, 3 out of 4 Saturdays are running 2 of my D&D campaigns, every other Sunday is playing in another D&D campaign. I used to play M:TG, but not anymore. And I still need to find time to cook foods, play the piano, and read books. Oh and I want to hang out with my friends every now and then.

Was I always this busy? Or am I just aware of being busy now that I’m using a planner to keep track of my time.

In any case, late last December, I bit off more than I can chew and my time management spiralled out of control, but now I’m taking it back. I figure now’s a good time to think back on what I accomplished last year and what I want to accomplish this year.

So 2020 was a bust, as was most of 2021.

I lost a lot of productivity, both at work and at home, both in my obligations and in my hobbies. At first I thought it was because I was running 2 Dungeons & Dragons games, but that quickly turned into 1 D&D, and I think I spent like a couple hours a week prepping for that D&D game and that was it. Then, I thought it was because I was playing a lot of Final Fantasy 14, but outside of Raid Nights, I actually don’t play that much FF14 anymore.

Then I realized the truth. Without hard schedule points, I was getting stuck in a loop of endless procrastination.

I still write an introductory sentence for my New Years post even though the introductory sentence is arguably unnecessary.

I’m a month and a half late, but better late than never, apparently.

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Every year, I do a retrospective of the outgoing year and go over my resolutions for the upcoming year. More after the cut.

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2016 Retrospective

They say 2016 was a bad year. And in terms of politics and celebrities, it was.

But for me personally, 2016 was a good year. There was a Vegas trip, an amazing California road trip, and a whirlwind 2-week romance with a Canadian girl. I’ll be looking back fondly on it as we send off 2016 tonight.

More after the cut.

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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.

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This will be my 5th year doing these. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I like New Years Resolutions. Mostly because I don’t cheese out and say things like “I resolve to go to the gym more”. Rather, the approach I take is “here’s what I hope to accomplish this year”, and set out to accomplish them. And let’s be real here, by the time I actually post my New Years Resolutions, I will have already been thinking about them for a few months.

For a historical perspective, check out last year’s resolutions (with links to my old resolutions on Facebook).

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