New Year’s Resolutions

Although I haven’t been able to keep my New Year’s Resolutions for three straight years, that doesn’t mean you should ignore this post. It just means that I’m more motivated than ever to get it right this time around. Whatever your New Year’s Resolution is, consider doing the following:

1. First, unsubscribe to as many email promotions and newsletters. Do you really care that Borders has a 20% off in-store coupon when you can get a better deal buying the book online anyway? And why do retailers have to send this junk every week or every month? Intrusive emails can be a real distraction so unsubscribing to these can save you a lot of time in the long run. If you don’t mind receiving these types of emails, at the very least you’ll want to turn off email notifiers.

2. Sign up for RSS feeds (instead of receiving email promotions) for deals and news instead. I personally like Google Reader because it allows me to data mine for trends and it’s easy to use. Reading RSS feeds can be quite addictive, so schedule to view RSS feeds once or twice a day at most. In my system, I’ll spend half an hour each morning reading articles, and after work, I’ll spend 15 minutes or so looking for new deals.

3. Spend an hour at regular intervals (weekly and/or monthly) to review your New Year’s Resolution progress. Focus on getting the top priority items done. Don’t sweat the details. Make adjustments where it makes sense to.

4. Keep things simple. Declutter your calendar and inbox. Most of us tend to get lazy and we’ll use everything as an excuse for not getting things done. When things are disorganized, it’s a bad sign. Only track the most important items and try to check emails only a few times a day (borrowed from David Allen’s Getting Things Done). I would recommend using a task management tool too.

So what is my New Year’s Resolution? Not very original, but exercising 4-5 times a week (3x per week if i’m really busy), and eating healthier (smaller portions and reducing sweets).