Showing posts with label New Year's Resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year's Resolutions. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The 2012 Project: New Years Resolutions (or: You've Gotta Make Clutter to Eliminate Clutter)

Two bookshelves, or " one more thing that needs organizing"
New Year's Resolutions. The umpteenth post you've seen on them in the last two weeks. I humbly beg your indulgence on what is to follow...

Every year I start right out of the gate ready to change. The plan is to improve every part of my life I have an issue with, turning it into some idealized, imaginary version. You can guess how well that works. Much like me, I'm sure you generally forget you resolved to attempt any changes by, oh, January 15th? (At least, I think that's the day all the new members stop going to the gym...)

This year, however, I'm going about it in a slightly different way. It's a quest that's as much about self-improvement as it is being responsible about completing the tasks I set out to do. I'm calling it "The 2012 Project," and I'm really the big project.

I used to make a big, long list of things I aspired to do in the new year. It was "clean the office, clean the basement, paint the basement, clean the medicine cabinet, reorganize the blah-blah-blah," all without rhyme or reason... and that doesn't work. I wind up overwhelmed by this laundry-list of minutia that doesn't really take into account how work gets done. If I wasn't doing it in December, why did I think I would do it in January?

So this year I'm going to share some of this with you, so we use the power of public scorn... I mean, "accountability," if I get off track. Yes, I bet a lot of people do do this, and no, I don't know how many of them succeed, but let's give it a spin.

First, instead of just a big list that you can't crack because it has no real organization, the hierarchy is in place with three umbrella ideas:
  • Business
  • Organize
  • Health
These then each drill down into some smaller goals. "Business" covers a few biggies, though, as far as "smaller goals" go: full-time work, ramping up my freelancing, and working on my writing.

Simple projects around the house and bettering my head fall under "Organize." This is everything from working on the office and filing to getting back into the habit of reading. It's a pleasure I cherish, and I've somehow lost the thread when it comes to doing it. Books are a pleasure, not just a stack of clutter in need of sorting.

(Embarrassing details about my life and home... after the break!)