Embrace the Difficult

Though late, my resolution this year is to embrace the difficult.

My daughter, Katy, is an exceptional piano player.  She enjoys it and it comes easily to her.  She loves music and after bugging me for months, I rewarded her for doing well at her piano recital by signing her up for violin lessons.  Little did she know what she was getting herself into.

The violin is a harder instrument to make sound nice than the piano.  On the piano, you can have bad form and still hit the note well enough that it sounds fine.  That is not the case with the violin.  While her instructor keeps telling her that she has talent and the potential to be exceptional at it, she shies away from practicing because of the difficulty.  I have been encouraging her the best I can, emphasizing that what is truly impressive is not doing something that is easy or effortless, but what is hard or takes effort.

After repeating this to her enough, it occurred to me that she was not the only one avoiding hard things.  I see a lot of myself in my daughter; many things come easily to me, but it has made the cases when they do not come easily much tougher to overcome.  So, to be a good example, and to also make the most of my abilities, I decided that I need to embrace difficult things as well.

So, I wrote down all the things that I've been avoiding or not doing.  Little things, big things, life changing things.  After I had a list of these goals, I began right then trying to address them.  What I learned is that many of them are not difficult, only that I tend to be too lazy or have preconceived fears or notions about them.

For example, there were a number of people that I had been meaning to get in contact with, as well as finally ordering some new things for my computer, and taking my car to get the oil changed and tires rotated.  I would get to all of these eventually, but I tried to make a habit out of looking for the quick things that could be done that I was avoiding.  In some cases, I "multi-tasked:" while waiting for someone to give me a ride to lunch while waiting for my tires to be rotated, I called and made an appointment to give blood to the Red Cross, something I had been putting off for too long.  While getting my oil changed, I bought a larger bike for my daughter and did some quick grocery shopping.

Actively looking to do these things has already been making life better.  Finally taking care of "todos" that have been sitting around for too long is very rewarding and makes me hungry for addressing more.  The real payback is going to come from some of the larger goals that I have that I am now actively working to make happen.  Look for an update on my developer blog soon to read about my journey into Android development.

Normal Looking Nails

As I described previously, I had been in the habit of biting my nails and have been having success at preventing any further biting. While I will still occasionally absentmindedly put my finger in or near my mouth. I am conscious of it, however, and if I notice I am repeatedly doing it, I will find a squishy-ball or something else I can hold or do with my hands.

I have actually been successful enough at this that I have had to trim my nails. At least, I felt like I needed to trim them: after years of biting nails too short, it is hard to tell what is the right length; it also feels weird when areas that are used to being exposed to air are suddenly covered.

If anyone else if having a hard time with this, the steps I found that made the biggest difference follow:

1. Actively pursue not biting your nails. In the past, whenever I had thought about biting my nails, I always hoped that I could stop. This time, however, I actively kept it in my mind and really analyzed when and why I was doing it.
2. Keep your hands busy. For me, I was often biting my nails when I had nothing for my hands to do. By finding a squishy-ball to play with, or just something to actively think about keeping in both hands, was often enough to make it to inconvenient or noticeable to myself when I would come close to biting again.
   
3. Moisturize cuticles and nails frequently. As a guy, I frequently ignore all of that moisturizing stuff. Unless my hands are really cracked and suffering, I am unlikely to use hand cream. However, many times I found that a reason I was picking or biting at my nails and cuticles was not because I was nervous or bored, but because the skin was dry and was being irritated. Coating the entire nail area helped correct dry skin and made it less likely for me to chew on myself.
4. Maintain nails. While looking for something to do with my hands, I would occasionally grab my swiss army knife and use the filing appendage to clean and shape the nails. This helped additionally because without the rough edges or dirty nails, there was no legitimate reason to bite at them.
5. Don't do it by yourself. When I decided to stop biting my nails, I knew an easy way to do it was with accountability. So, I posted here about it, but I also told all my friends that they should tell me to stop biting my nails if they saw me doing it. Since I didn't want to have them constantly annoying me, I had additional incentive to catch and prevent the behavior myself.

It is hard to say if I am completely successful and done with the process of breaking this bad habit. While I am doing well right now, what is to say that when I am truly tested I won't resort to gnawing at my fingertips? I guess continued, careful monitoring will be the only way to tell. Once I have fully grown my cuticles again, I will consider it a success.

Bad Habits Die Hard

Several weeks ago, I decided that enough was enough: it was time to stop biting and picking my fingernails. I knew it was unlikely that I'd be able to do it cold turkey, so I did a bit of research online to see what others were saying about stopping the bad fingernail biting habit.

Most of what I found seemed to suggest putting foul tasting stuff on the fingernails, but I didn't want to have awful tasting food. The one really good tip, however, was to put moisturizer on the areas around the nails. Since that was the area that I bit the most frequently, it helps not having dry, itchy, pick-able skin.

The other thing I am trying, which I didn't really see suggested anywhere, is to find something else to do with your hands. When I find that I am putting my fingers near my mouth, I grab a squishy-ball and play with that absentmindedly instead of absentmindedly biting at my fingernails.

Also, being aware of when I am most likely to bite at my nails helped me devise good strategies to prevent it. For me, TV/movie watching tends to be a key time, so I try to keep things in my hands instead. Also, when I am nervous or thoughtful about something. Just being aware of it helps as well. Since I already carry a Swiss Army USB drive (with a file, scissors and knife included), I let my hands play with cleaning and filing the nails.

As I mentioned, it has been several weeks since I've started and I am doing very well. Now, my nails might be getting long enough to actually warrant trimming. At the very least, they are long enough to tap annoyingly on my desk. However, now that they are this long, resisting the temptation to put them in my mouth has become much harder. My fingertips feel a little funny and I definitely notice the nails. So, instead of biting them, I am keeping them busy typing this.

Seems like the urge has passed, so mission accomplished.

Morning: My Enemy, My Friend

A number of my resolutions for this year are going well, and some others are suffering a bit: While I now seem to be reading all the time, I have loss some of my interest in maintaining my exercise routine. The cooking plan needs to be revisited, and since we've returned from our ski trip, I'm much less likely to clean dishes in the sink, for whatever reason. I'm pretty aggressive making phone calls, but there is still a backlog of items I need to call someone about. My writing is clearly not meeting the frequency of thrice a week, but I am more likely to engage in parties/events that I would not normally be excited about.

Some of the problem, I think, has to do with the time of day at which I am trying to tackle these activities. Since I work during the day, and have tended to not be an early riser, the obvious time to tackle these activities is the evening. However, by the end of the day, after a full day of work, I am no longer interested in pursuing my goals; I just want to take a break. When I do convince myself to work on getting things done, it is rarely enjoyable and feels like I am stealing from my relaxation time.

Now, obviously, some things still need to happen in the evening, but I should be able to leverage my mornings better than I have been. My normal routine has been to set the alarm for whenever, hit snooze a million times and get up in a rush. Most of the time, Kendra has, thankfully, already gotten Katy ready and dressed and she is eating breakfast. So, the first step was to condition myself to pay attention to my alarm and stop going back to sleep instead of getting up.

What inspired my adventures into early morning rising started here at a great website I found through Google Reader called LifeHacker. Reading through the suggestions, the most prevalent idea seemed to be setting multiple alarms, with at least one placed across the room. The idea being that once you are up to turn off the alarm, you might as well stay up since there is no point of getting back into bed. However, I have tried this and it requires too much reasoning for my early-morning, befuddled mind to comprehend and I would arise from the bed, zombie-march to the alarm, disable it and then return to bed as if nothing had happened.

Something I have had success with in the past has been psyching myself up for getting up at a particular time the next day: expressing the urgency of getting up as soon as the alarm goes off, else I will miss the important event that was scheduled for early morning the next day. If I do this immediately prior to going to sleep, I have never had trouble getting up at the desired time, as long as there really was an urgent event occurring. Trying to psych myself to get up early for something like exercise has always been met with laughable results.

However, mulling over these two ideas helped me think of a new plan: I set my bedside alarm to 7am. I also set another alarm, the one on my wristwatch, to 7:11am and leave that in the master bathroom. After I set the alarms, and am getting into bed, I remind myself that when the bedside alarm goes off, I should turn it off, not press snooze, since a snooze would bring me to 7:09am and then I'd have only two minutes before the other alarm. Additionally, I tell myself that, while I don't necessarily need to get up right when the alarm goes off, I shouldn't go back to sleep so I can get up before the other alarm, the wristwatch, goes off. Thus, I have the multiple alarms, with one out of reach of the bed, combined with a generated sense of urgency: not wanting the other alarm to go off.

While it doesn't seem like much, the previously stated befuddled nature of my mind in the morning accepts the explanations instead of trying to delve into the complexity of the situation without coffee. Starting last week Monday, I have been up by 7:11am at the latest, with needing to rely on the watch alarm to re-wake me only once. So far this week, my body is already conditioned so that I am waking up a few minutes before my alarm and am up and out of bed as soon as it goes off.

As a further precaution, I have added a third alarm, my cellphone, set to 7:30am and left on the counter in the kitchen, downstairs from my bedroom; this third alarm has, thus far, only been used to note the time and mark the beginning of our exit from home in the morning, but it could serve as an emergency "last call" wake up, if need be.

Now, instead of being the last one up, it is a tossup between Katy and me as to who will be the first out of bed. Katy had gotten used to climbing into Mom and Dad's bed in the morning and watching cartoons, but now she is often getting into bed after I am already dressed. I miss the snuggling a bit, but we have a more relaxed, pleasant, wakeful morning together this way.

With this added time, I am now always the first downstairs and can prepare her lunch before she gets dressed. She gets to school on time to eat breakfast with her friends and I get to work earlier and get more accomplished during the day: the early hours always seem the most productive to me.

A couple of days ago, I read another item through Google Reader that was about early morning exercises. The suggestion was that you could be more awake with a little exercise in the morning; specifically, it suggested three sets of as many push ups as you can do. If that gets you going, you can do some scissor kicks for a quick core workout. Starting little, I did the push ups this morning and still got to work earlier than I had these past two weeks. While it isn't a ton of exercise, I should be able to incorporate this into my morning routine and workout five times a week instead of my goal of just two.

Now that I am conditioned to wake up early, my family is also getting accustomed to it. My plan is to get the whole family awake and ready to go early enough so that I can bike to work twice a week, on Thursdays and Fridays, and let Kendra take Katy to school. Kendra normally does things outside of the house on Thursdays and Fridays and it would even give her a head start on them. In addition to the extra exercise I'll get from the bike ride, I'll also be using 2/5ths less gas per week than I normally would have, thus saving money as well.

I don't count the time in the morning before work as anything other than "getting ready for work" time, so incorporating other activities is a easy thing to do that I will not psychologically be opposed to. Next week, the twice weekly bike riding to work is planned to start. After that, I may consider trying to get up a half hour earlier to get some of the things done that I really don't want to spend time on in the evening.

The Raw Shark Texts Review

Some of the members at one of the websites I frequent, the gaming community EvilAvatar.com, have started a book club at goodreads.com. Having the books selected by a group who has similar interests makes the selection process easier. Additionally, I have already read two books that I would not normally have even known about and am reading a third. The first was the Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, which was a book that I would never have picked up on my own, just due to the feminine nature of the cover, but was pleased with the story. I started reading another that was suggested but wasn't a book chosen to be the book for the month, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which is, again, a very good read. However, the book for the month was selected and I decided to interrupt my previous choice to join in on the reading of the Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, and I was not disappointed.

Like the Time Traveler's Wife, I was able to get through this book quickly, in only one evening of reading. The story is about a man who doesn't remember anything: where he is, how he got there, what his name is, his past, his friends -- all this information is missing. He soon discovers that he has a disorder known as a "dissociative condition". It is an interesting mystery where the hero, Eric, tries to figure out what has happened to him.

It seems like there are several ways to look at this book. The first is the logical, what-could-happen-in-the-real-world possibility. From this point of view, it is clear that he has a severe disorder that eventually leads to his demise. The other way to look at this is the anything-is-possible, we-can't-assume-a-logical-world-in-books view. In this case, we can assume that everything that Eric reports is actual fact: the problems he describes are real and to blame for his memory loss. Or, there is the take a bit of both approach, where his memory loss comes from his suspected source, but some parts of his journey/disorder are not what they seem to be to Eric.

Without revealing spoilers, it is difficult to talk about this book. It is thought provoking and interesting enough where I would consider going back and reading through it again before returning it to the library to analyze it further. Some of the elements of the book are overlooked, intentionally or otherwise, and that can be a little frustrating, but that it keeps me thinking about it, and enjoying my thoughts, is enough to overlook any frustrations. I give it a four out of five stars.

Temporal Book of the Month for March

I started and stopped reading a couple of books in March, mostly because I really wasn't interested in my choices and also that I wanted to spend all that time playing Team Fortress 2 instead of reading. So, March passed and no book was read, seemingly meaning that I am not accomplishing my book-per-month reading resolution. Since I was in April and needed to read a book for March still, what better choice than "the Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger.

The characters and story are interesting and it was quick to read: I finished the five-hundred some pages over the course of two evenings. The way the story is told is in what could be considered mini-stories, jumping across time, though in most cases, the stories occur linearly. The concept was interesting and the storytelling was well done. The sometimes complicated subject of time travel was addressed simply and handled easily. That said, there were a couple of things that bugged me about the book.

One of my gripes with the book is that some events seem extraneous and unnecessary to the story, either detracting from the plot or introducing elements that the reader expects to be more relevant but are never developed. Another issue I have is that the characters are too accepting of their inability to alter things; with a little thought, there are routes that could be explored that never are addressed.

Additionally, several paradoxes throughout the novel indicate that there must be ways to alter the time line. An example of this includes certain facts that are passed from the future to the past and back again without there ever being an origination. This is glossed over for simplicity's sake, but it implies that the information came from somewhere originally and was then the origination point became unnecessary and never occurred.

The ending was unsatisfying. Without revealing spoilers, it seems that the ending resolves nothing, leaving some plot points introduced but never explored.

Regardless of the flaws, it was still an enjoyable, page-turner of a book. While it is, at best, lite sci-fi and outside of what I would normally consider for reading, I would still recommend it. I give it 3 or 5 stars.

A Tale of Success and of Not So Much Success

Yesterday, I finished reading the book "Endymion" by Dan Simmons and figured this would be a good time to discuss the progress I've been making on my resolutions.

Obviously, the "read a book a month" is coming along nicely, as I've finished ten days before the end of the month and have already started reading the sequel, "the Rise of Enydmion" by Dan Simmons. It seems likely that, if I continue to put at least a moderate amount of effort into making the time for it, I should be able to read about one and a third to one and a half books a month.

The "do the dishes like someone suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder" is also coming along magnificently well. Without conscious thought, I've expanded the dishes to include making sure that there is always coffee ready or ready to be made. Additionally, though to a lesser extent, I try to keep the counters in the kitchen clean. I think I will have to analyze this further and see if there are other, obvious areas I could expand into.

With regard to the "make a meal per week" goal, I've been doing well enough. The first week I made the vegetarian chili and last week I made taco chicken, both in the slow cooker. This week, we might not have much opportunity to eat much of the food, so I am purposely holding off. I might start trying to plan on immediately freezing some portion of the meal so that during weeks like this, I can still eat a healthier meal.

Something that hasn't been going well at all is the "make the phone calls" resolution. While I have made a number of them, such as to the cable company, there are a good portion of them that I know would be time consuming and finding time during the day is not a non-trivial task. Mostly, I will try to use time during lunch for these calls, since I often go home for lunch and can have all the information I need handy. This doesn't work well for the calls that I know will take too long to do during lunch. I think I need to start planning on making a marginal number of these calls during breaks at work, otherwise I don't see how I will ever make them at all.

"Exercise once a week" is, technically, a success. However, I often so dread expending the effort that the workout is a bare minimum. The problem, again, seems to be with scheduling and when it is being scheduled. Typically, after I put Katy to bed, I'll go into the basement and run on the treadmill for a bit, and / or use the weights. I think that I really just don't like working out that late, but see no hope for correcting it; the concept of getting up early to workout is unfathomable to me. I might just need to try to adjust my motivations.

"Write more" is ho-hum. I am easily writing at a more regular interval than I have if compared to years passed. However, I am also clearly not posting at the goal number of three times per week. This comes down to wanting every post to be of great substance and hesitating if I don't have a truly worthwhile subject. I also pause knowing that it will often take a lot of time to write that meaningful post. I think the easiest solution is to come up with a plan for what type of stuff I will post about at different times during the week.

The "Better Attitude" is a hard one to judge. I have been more open to visiting others and going to parties, but I am not aggressive about pursuing additional opportunities. This resolution might just be a feel-good wish. I either need to more clearly define what I want to accomplish, or abandon the resolution. I'll consider what I really meant this for this resolution and will decide what should be done about it.

Thus, there are several clear winners, some clear losers and a number of in-betweens. Although, the effort of tracking and making strides toward these improvements, especially continually coming back to them and re-evaluating them provides at least some positive effect: persistence.

Resolution Report

The first week of the new year is now complete and it is time to do a brief evaluation of how the resolutions are going. As long as I keep them in the front of my mind, I think I should be able to keep on course to complete them all successfully. As I suspected, some of these are easier to do than others. And, after only one week, it is hard to tell how well some of the longer termed goals are going.

One of the easier resolutions to evaluate is the first one, Procrastinate less: Do the dishes promptly. This one is actually one that I started doing as soon as I thought of it near the beginning of December. Surprisingly, this one has turned out to be fairly easy and more rewarding than I would think it would be. I clean my dishes as soon as I finish with them and I find myself aggressively monitoring the sink for the dishes of others.

An interesting side effect is that I seem to pay more attention to other things that I notice need to be done on a regular basis. For instance, when I see a basket full of laundry (that Kendra was kind enough to do for me) I would previously leave it endlessly, to the point where I would dig around in the several baskets that would collect when I would need clean clothes. Now, it is easier to notice that there are clean clothes to be put away, and I will do it right then instead of waiting till later.

Some things, however, are still purposefully left until later. They tend to be the things that I really, for whatever reason, just don't want to do, now or ever. At the time I am delaying, it isn't as obvious as when there are dishes to be done, but I am starting to notice more. Avoiding things I don't want to do leads into the next topic nicely.

Take responsibility for my life: make any and all phone calls is something that is hard to judge so early in the year. Only recently, near the end of this last week, did it become something for which I actually have a task. Making the phone calls, specifically in a short time frame, is something that will also help develop my anti-procrastinating skills, as well as helping with discipline: specifically, dealing with the phone calls that I really don't want to have to make will help with the discipline to do things anyway, without regard for my personal desires. I have two phone calls that I need to make right now, but it really isn't viable to do during the weekend, so it will have to be done either today or Tuesday and I'll be able to more accurately judge after that. Although, I did take care of a letter that needed to be written; while this isn't technically a phone call, I did take the initiative to write it because of this resolution.

Reading more is pretty easy: I've been trying to make time after I get into bed to read for about an hour before going to sleep. Although, it has required a change, in that I now have to go to bed earlier than I would like. Another easier one is the working out once a week: I really didn't want to do it, but I was able to make myself run on the treadmill once last week. Both of these also help with discipline.

A slightly harder one is Eat Better: making a healthy meal once per week. I really don't have many ingredients, or know many recipes. However, Sunday I helped make some vegetarian chili with Kendra and I am going to count that. My short term plan is to make it weekly myself until I determine other recipes we can make. There is a taco chicken recipe that we also like that I will probably throw in there as well. The ideal would be to introduce some of the elements in the chili to Katy separately to determine if there are any allergies that we don't know about.

Write More: post thrice weekly is also a more complicated process, since it is easy to run out of topics and there is always the temptation to put it off until later. Something that helps is to start the topics as soon as I think of them and just save whatever I have until when I was planning on posting. Also, saving lists of things that I'd like to post about helps me remember for later. I only got the two posts in last week, but think I'll be more successful this one.

Better Attitude: Seeking out activities is a tricky one to judge. I've been agreeable to going to parties and outings with whomever and cheerily greeted and looked forward to having Kendra's mom visit for Christmas. I think I am doing OK, but will need to put effort into planning some of these outings/visits. Maybe I will see about setting up a visit to Mike's as he suggested in the comments.

To summarize, after the first week, I think I am still on track with all of my resolutions and hopefully will be able to expand them as I planned.

Multi-Step Solutions to New Year's Resolutions

Every year, I like to put the effort into self-improvement via the tradition of New Year's resolutions. Of all the things I've blogged, my yearly resolutions is easily the most consistent topic. The one post I really think is worthwhile is the one from three years ago that describes how to create an effective resolution; I've re-read it before I started writing this post and my old words have helped me re-think and re-form some of my goals that were a bit off-target.

That said, I am modifying my strategy a little this year. Instead of a focus on a few, more lofty goals, I've decided to be less choosy and select a larger number of resolutions; however, I made a trade-off to keep things balanced: I've reduced the quantitative expectations, with the inclusion of incremental goals that can be accomplished in each category.

What I've considered first this year are the elements that I'm interested in improving. I want to procrastinate less, take on more responsibility for my life, read more, eat better, exercise more, write more and have a better attitude. Each of these qualitative desires I matched with a basic improvement that is not lofty and should hopefully be easily accomplished. They are as follows:

1. Procrastinate less - This is something I consider to be a matter of training. If I can train myself to be aggressive about not leaving things till later for one particular task, it should be an easier transition to recognizing tasks that don't get better when left for later. My training task is to do the dishes: I will never be done with a meal until all the dishes are out of the sink and in the dishwasher. If the dishwasher is full, I will put soap in and run it. When the dishwasher is clean, I will empty it. If there are things left to dry that are no longer wet, I will put them away. This isn't anything complicated, but it should be an easy way to train myself to not leave things till later. At this moment, upon establishing that routine, I will focus on never putting somewhere "just temporarily" or at least having a plan for when it will be put away. The formation of this secondary goal will be left until the success of the first. Success will be determined by the length of time dishes remain out of place: if dishes are put away routinely for three months, without being left out for longer than necessary.
2. More Responsibility for My Life - Before I was married, I was responsible for all aspects of my life, including health care and bill paying. If I payed a bill late, or didn't bother taking the time to choose the most effective health plan provided by work, it only affected me. Once married, my wife had a higher standard and more demands regarding both these, as well as other, areas of responsibility. Her solution, which I did not object to, was to take full responsibility for nearly every aspect of the home. From finances to cleaning, she took responsibility. She has done an awesome job, but it hardly seems fair that she should bare the burden of the entirety of our life together, as well as our child. Deciding how to make an effective difference in helping with this burden can be tricky, since there can be a steep learning curve in some areas of household management. However, there is a series of tasks that I know I can do that will help ease the burden, and I know Kendra will offer no resistance to this specific help. Since I know that this is her least favorite part of dealing with stuff, I intend to make any and all phone calls necessary for arranging things, fixing things, or even just making simple queries. Kendra hates having to talk to these people and, while I don't enjoy it either, it seems like something I can do without as much dread. To succeed at this task, I will need to make any requested phone call within 48 hours, and do so for three months without lapse. The next task in this series will need to be determined; once I prove my effectiveness at this, I am certain I can persuade Kendra to help me expand my responsibilities.
3. Read More - Reading is a pastime that I've always enjoyed, starting in my youth. As many people find, once you are out of school and have a full time job, reading for enjoyment is something that oftentimes goes by the wayside. While my goal from two years ago to read a book every two weeks is extreme for someone who barely reads, to read one book a month should be a much more achievable goal. The success requirement for this task is simple: once twelve books are read in 2008, I have succeeded. The next increment will depend on how long it takes to succeed. Ideally, I'd like to try to double it, shooting for two shy of my original reading goal.
4. Eat Better - When I was originally losing weight, I knew that the changes I would need to make would be significant. Thus, to try to keep it as simplistic as possible, I put no limit on what I would eat, only caring about the number of calories consumed in a day. Doing so, I was able to lose 50 pounds eating carefully measured portions of hamburgers with fries , hot dogs and pizza. Now that I have established a calorie counting routine, it is time to look at the types of food I am eating and to improve upon it. Currently, Kendra and I scrounge for ourselves and eat a lot of instant meals (frozen meals, chips with cheese, burritos, hot dogs). My goal to eat better will be that I will plan and prepare a healthy meal once per week. To do this will require so forethought to pick a recipe and ensure the ingredients are available for the chosen day. As this is another reoccurring task, the success of it will be measured across a three month period. Once a meal being prepared weekly is established, the next level will be twice a week.
   
5. Exercise More - Part of being healthy includes eating better, but regular exercise is also a necessity. Currently, I have no established exercise plan: I had tried to exercise thrice weekly for awhile, but it was more than I could keep up with and haven't done so for several months now. An easy starting place will be to exercise once per week, including both strength and cardiovascular routines. Again, this will be measured across three months. The next level will be twice weekly, either splitting and intensifying the two types of routines across two days, or doing both routines twice weekly.
   
6. Write More - Every year, the lure of NaNoWriMo attracts me back to my desire to become an author. And, every year I barely make a dent in the novel I attempt to write. Part of this, I think, comes from my lack of practice with creative writing. While I am already trying to do this, I am oficially declaring my goal of posting to this blog thrice weekly as a resolution for next year. If, over the course of three months I determine I am successful, I will declare specific days that will have posts, and maybe add an additional fourth post.
7. Better Attitude - I tend to already have a pretty good outlook on a lot of things in life. However, I still fall into unnecessary negativity at times. My way to improve this is going to actively seek out involvement with others (parties, visits and the like) regardless of whether I instinctively am attracted to such engagement. Additionally, I will go with a positive outlook and look forward to it. This is a trickier resolution to judge, so I will put a minimum requirement of one such engagement per month. I will also have to evaluate my success on a case by case basis. This isn't so much a pass/fail as a how good can I do resolution.

That should do it for 2008's resolutions. While there are a much larger number than I have previously suggested, the difficulty level is realistic and promising. We'll see how it goes. I encourage anyone who does happen to read my blog to use the comments to discuss and share their possible resolutions.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This year, I once again attempted NaNoWriMo with the hope of completing a novel during the month of November. This year, like all previous, I did not even come close. Previously, I had a hope of finishing: this year, I did not. Forgetting about NaNoWriMo until the day it begins, not having an idea for a story, and not spending any time thinking or working on it make for an effective way of not completing it. Really, I treated like a poor resolution: wishful thinking without any plan as to how to make it happen.

On a seemingly unrelated note, replacing the toilet paper is something that everyone has done at some point or another. For a long time, when I needed to replace the paper, I would simply grab a roll and haphazardly replace it whichever way it happened to be aligned. Somewhere along the road of life, it was pointed out to me that there was a "correct" orientation for the roll, with the end hanging from the front instead of behind, the idea being that it is easier to find the end when you can see it. The two methods seem similar to resolution efforts, with the haphazard being the wishful, whatever-comes-to-mind manner of thinking them up when compared to the directed, planned, carefully evaluated method.

The toilet paper analogy can even be taken a step further. Not only is there a correct way to orient the rolls, but it is critical to never overlook the quantity available on hand. Purposely thinking about and ensuring that there are always two extra rolls in addition to the one in the dispenser is like the planning: making sure your environment is aligned with your goals. Running out without a backup is like the random method of not really setting yourself up for success.

Now, it isn't a dichotomy: there are a number of partial successes and a degree of doing some things right while overlooking others. That can be a trouble with analogies; in making things simpler to explain, there comes the temptation to assume the analogized subject is also simple. Making sure you have toilet paper on hand and that it is easy to access from the dispenser is a really easy task when a little thought is put into it. Making sure a resolution, or goal, actually is setup to succeed is, often times, less concrete.

Back to the opening topic of NaNoWriMo, if I had taken the month of October to come up with a good concept, create an outline, think through the characters' personalties and motivations, and decided what times of day I would write and what areas of the novel I would write first, I would have had a much better chance of success. It is definitely something I will keep in mind for next year.

Resolutions and Such

Looking back at last year's resolutions, I realize that they were a bit too ambitious and I didn't even follow my own resolution rules. At any rate, let's revisit my previous resolutions and evaluate them, shall we?

1. Read 26 books this year - While I did read more this year than previously, including several good novels such as Greg Bear's Moving Mars and Asimov's Foundation trilogy, the expectation that I would be able to go from nearly zero to a book every two weeks was, perhaps, unrealistic. Although, I did accomplish my resolution from two years ago.
2. Maintain and follow an elaborate To Do list - This wasn't very quantitative. I used a To Do list and a day planner for a good part of the year; did I succeed then?
3. Fiscal Responsibility -Not very specific or quantitative. In fact, it was so open-ended that I barely did anything with this.
   
4. Donate blood as often as possible to the Red Cross -Come on! What part of "specific" and "quantitative" don't you get, Andy? I didn't give blood at all last year, but it could still be considered "as often as possible," couldn't it?
5. Attitude adjustment -Not quantitative, specific or definitive. More like a half-thought out wish.

So, it is clear that the problem wasn't with my execution, but instead with the actual resolutions themselves. I'll try again this year and will update in a future post.

Old Year / New Year

The New Year's Eve plans seem like they will be just me and K hanging out at home, watching the South Park countdown to the New Year. And, the New Year will start off in an interesting way; we will be driving to Sterling Heights on the first to visit my family and to attend the funeral of my great uncle Louie on Tuesday. He was 89 so it wasn't a big surprise, but funerals really are never much fun. :( On a positive note, there are several family members who have never met Katy so it should be fun. And, I have never seen my cousin's baby, so I look forward to that, too.

Hmmm... it doesn't look like I'll get around to my resolution from this year. Honestly, it was poorly thought out and I didn't have much interest, or at least enough interest to bother with it. This year, some resolutions come to mind that are, perhaps, a bit more intersting to me. Some are more clearly thought out, while others are currently just vague thoughts to be developed later. So, without further ado, here is...

Andy's Resolutions for 2006

1. Read 26 books this year - I've always enjoyed reading. As a youngster, I would frequently read in bed before going to sleep. But, in recent years, I've found that I have spent less and less time reading as a leisure activity (which is, apparently, not uncommon for adults to experience once they leave school.) So, my thought is that I would like to read one book every two weeks. But, I realized that there may be times when I am reading a longer book or I have less time and cannot finish in two weeks. There will likely also be books that are shorter, or I have more time and will take less than a week. So, a book every two weeks translates to 26 books in a year and will likely be an easier resolution to keep.
   
2. Maintain and follow an elaborate To Do list - There are a number of little mini resolutions I wanted to include, but, after thinking about how I would accomplish these resolutions, it became clear that they would be redundant if I included the To Do list. At any rate, this past year I have already experimented with developing a spreadsheet to be used for To Do items. The hard part will be to maintain it and act on the items contained within. However, this resolution is the one that holds the most interest for me, so I suspect it will be my focus.
   
3. Fiscal Responsibility - Our financial situation changed once we had Katy and I really haven't been as big a part in processing the finances as I feel I need to be. The first part of this resolution will involve creating a budget in Quicken and making sure that Quicken is kept up to date. Additionally, I'll probably sell the Lexus and buy a more responsible vehicle. These two items are significant enough that it is difficult to currently evaluate what further actions will be taken upon their completion. So, I will leave it at that.
   
4. Donate blood as often as possible to the Red Cross - While we currently are in a situation where it is not a wise idea to part willy-nilly with funds, I would still like to be able to donate to charity. Thus, since I can generate blood for free, I might as well donate.
   
5. Attitude adjustment - I think that I've fallen into a kind of grumpy state. In the past, I used to be a very mellow, easy going guy. I am going to try to be that guy again. I'm going to aggressively pursue tasks that others request of me and consider it an honor to be asked instead of upset that I am stuck doing it. I am going to look for ways to do things to help others and do them. I am going to stop procrastinating and try to do things right away. This is, by far, the most vague, least defined, and least likely resolution to be completed, but I feel it needs to be included, at least as a reminder to me.
   

Well, there is less than an hour remaining before the New Year. I am going to get back to watching the South Park mini-marathon. Happy New Year, everyone. :)

It is Decided

Finally, I have come to a conclusion regarding what my resolutions should be this year. I was interested in several aspects of my life, but the ones that stood out were work and my organizational habits (or lack thereof.) Thus, it occurred to me that it might be possible to combine these two areas into one resolution.

My resolution for this year is:

Read SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE : Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey and put the lessons into practice.

Gee, that took a while to come up with. The reviews at Amazon indicate that this book is great, so hopefully it will be worth my while. :)

Still Deciding...

I'm still in the process of trying to determine what my New Year's resolutions should be. Last year, the decision was pretty easy; I was overweight and it was my number one priority. This year, however, I have a multitude of things that I could address, yet none jump out like last year. A comparision that I like is the priority ratings I have at work for issues. A "1" is a catastrophic, drop-what-you're-doing, the-customer-might-die-from-using-our-product type of issue. While, a "5" is more along the lines of the color-is-wrong-on-a-screen-that-nobody-goes-to type of issue. Last year, I would say that "Being Overweight" was about a "2". This year, all of my "issues" rate either "3" or "4"s, and there are a lot of them.

So, I didn't forget about posting; I've just been spending a lot of time considering what I should do. I think I have it narrowed down to about four and am working on the phrasing and details. I should be done in a day or two.

Be it Resolved...

Ah... December, the time of year when a young man's thoughts turn to... resolutions? Yup, it is getting to be that time of year again, the time to take an introspective look to determine where there is room for improvement and which changes are going to be made. While self-improvement is never a bad idea, the New Year tends to be a very tempting, and convenient, time for many people to make a bunch of unrealistic goals. Many tend to make more of a wish list than a list of achievable resolutions.

As someone who has made resolutions on a fairly regular, yearly basis, I have figured out some important techniques for goal making by comparing my successes with my failures. Since my goal for this year, "Lose weight with Hacker's Diet", was a definitive success, I am feeling pretty confident about next year. At any rate, here are:

Andy's Tips for Making and Achieving your New Year's Resolutions

• Be Choosey
• Be Specific
• Be Quantitative
• Be Definitive
• Be Persistent
  

Be Choosey

Ready to make a change for the better? Well, if one change is good, thirty changes is better! The reality is, if you had a hard time keeping even one of your resolutions from last year, you are likely not able to focus your attention on multiple goals right now. My suggestion is, pick one thing you want to change and really focus on it. Once you succeed, then it may be time to consider multiple goals.

Be Specific

"I'm gonna be a better person" may be a noble goal, but is effectively meaningless. Typically, you just need to put a little more thought into the goal, answering the question "how?". In this instance, in what way do you intend to be a better person? Donate more to charities? Spend more time at the soup kitchen? Or, do you just mean that you are going to stop eating babies?

Be Quantitative

...not qualitative. "I'm going to lose weight" should include at least the general amount you are planning on losing. In my case, though I had not stated it, I estimated about 50 pounds, with the understanding that I would have to re-evaluate when I was near my goal. You need to be able to tell when you have succeeded at your resolution.

Be Definitive

In other words, have a plan. Saying you are going to do something without having any idea how you intend to accomplish it is, at best, self deceiving. For my goal last year, my plan was to read about and follow the Hacker's Diet. Simply setting the goal of losing weight wasn't enough, as it left too much for me to figure out on the way.

Be Persistent

If your resolution is to quit smoking and you slip up, try again! A big reason that resolutions fail is that they are abandoned. The old, "Oops! I 'broke' my resolution, maybe next year!" is a sure-fire way to never succeed at accomplishing your goal.

I hope that helps. I know that taking the time to analyze the resolution process definitely helped me. Stay tuned for my resolutions. :)