I rarely make New Year's resolutions. At the same time, I've noticed that I rarely accomplish as much as I'd like to in a year. Does this imply a correlation? Perhaps.

One of the reasons that I've avoided formal resolutions to date is because I don't know what the Universe will offer me over the course of the coming year. Another is because my own dreams and goals seem to be constantly shifting.

But.

I don't like feeling like I'm squandering so much energy. I have difficulty focusing on specific tasks and goals through completion, and hours and days drift past me until I look back and think, what the hell happened? I have an amazing opportunity to work part-time and spend time with my child and husband and still have time left over to pursue my own dreams -- time that other people would kill for -- and I'm not doing squat with it. I'm wasting it.

Potential. Hah. Potential is just stuff you're not doing.

So if I don't know what opportunities will present themselves and I don't know what I will want, how do I plan concrete, measurable goals?

Improve the process. Do what I need to do so that, when opportunities do present themselves, I am able to pursue them as fully as possible.

There are two primary areas I've noticed I need to work on: Health (physical, emotional, and spiritual) and Focus.

On the Health side, I've been making progress this past year. I'm much cleaner about what I eat, I take daily supplements, and I started exercising and meditating in the morning (but got out of the habit and am working on picking it up again).

What I have not been doing is getting enough restorative sleep. I get distracted, I lose track of time, I feel like I haven't accomplished enough during the day so I try to make up for it late at night, despite the fact that as I grow more weary, it takes me longer and longer to do anything. And, for some reason I don't understand, it's hard for me to let go of the day, to simply allow myself to deliberately settle down to sleep. Far too often, I will read until my eyes can not follow the words anymore, then fumble the light off to drift into comforting fog.

There's that word again: drift. It accurately conveys my feeling that I am evading responsibility for my choices. It becomes a cycle: being insufficiently rested makes it more difficult for me to make positive choices, maybe I'll eat a processed carb, life becomes a bit fuzzier and distant, and, next thing I know, it's the end of the day and I haven't done anything.

And then there's Focus, which is half dependent on Health (cf. above re: "fuzzier and distant") and half about discipline. For the record, I distinguish between discipline and will power: I associate Will Power with fighting yourself, whereas Discipline is more about breaking inertia and developing new patterns.

I want to be able to focus on what I am doing, right now, this moment, with utmost clarity, whether it is entering raw data into my system for work, doing dishes, or being with my family.

So how does this break down into resolutions which are simple enough to achieve, foundational enough to have a significant impact, and concrete enough to measure?

1. Develop a morning routine which involves exercise, meditation, and day preparation. Do NOT turn on the computer until I'm ready for work.



2. Develop a weekly routine such that regular tasks have assigned places. Too much of my time and energy is spent wondering what needs to get done; I intend to plan more so that wondering and figuring out is replaced by simply doing.



3. Schedule specific social/play time. I have this awful habit of having Facebook or LiveJournal running in the background while I'm working from home such that, after I do a small section of work, I'll flip the window to see if anything new is going on, which completely wrecks my momentum. This will stop.



4. Develop an evening routine which includes deliberate steps to release the day and prepare for the next. Lights out no later than 11:30pm. (I'd actually like to strive for 10:30pm, but I'm trying to be realistic. I'll revise the goal once it's become a habit.)

And that's actually about it for now. I've been using Joe's Goals to track my progress on various things over the past year; I don't know that I'm quite ready to publicly post results on a regular basis in my blog yet. Also, this is as good a time as any to thank Larry for introducing me to The Fly Lady many years ago, especially for the philosophy of incremental change and the power of regular routines.

Here's to 2009. May I look back upon it with fondness and satisfaction at progress made.