I know that New Year resolutions aren’t for everyone but personally I love counting milestones and reflecting what I can improve for the next year. Particularly, I have been reading about manifesting. This idea assumes that publicising goals will create accountability. Another productivity trick is to break large, abstract and unorganised motivations into smaller, concise targets. I will state the abstract goal in the hedding and then bullet points way to pursue said goal.
Spend more time with my family, especially my little sister
- rotate my weekly phone calls between my aunt, younger sister and grandma.
- invite my younger sister to stay with my in London but only when I have planned activities
- visit my hometown regularly and make time for my friends that are not living in London
- ask my younger sister specific, non-judgemental questions like “what is it that you like about x subject”
- respond to family related quandaries with non judgement
- sync up visits with my other family
Read more books
- research the book before so that it will become easier to read and appreciate the techniques the author uses
- always carry a book around and take advantage of any commutes
- try out audiobooks
- block out time in the morning and before bed to reading in solitude (at least 45 minutes a day)
- use holidays as a way to read more
- take notes on sticky notes to put onto the page
- try to read 40 books in 2020
- look up stuff that I’m not familiar with and then use documentaries or wikipedia pages to supplement the book
- mark passages and write down feelings
- apply and use any quotes that have moved me
Improve my language learning
- finish Korean 3 in Pimsleur
- finish Chinese level 5 in Pimsleur
- finish Chinese Assmil
- dissect a french audio 2x a week
- memorise one child’s tale in french per week
- target one French grammar per month and practise using it
- practise with glossika twice a week
- try out a language exchange
- do one terrifying language related goal per month
- review words on anki or lingq
- start reading in Urdu
- Learn the sanskrit writing system
- try out a new recipe in a different language every month
Improve skills
- continue to update this journal
- plan and edit my posts before uploading them
- review my words on anki every week
- learn photoshop, adobe lightroom, Indesign, how to draft monthly campaigns
- learn colour, typography and layout
- learn how to work a dslr
- carry my film camera around with my everywhere and stock on film
- track my finances and budget accordingly
- block out time which is separate from reading, socialising and language learning for learning new skills such as photoshop
- start building a good portfolio
- learn how to write an opinion – Why was a book written? What does it mean? Do I agree with it?
- learn my 1-15 times table
- start learning piano and learn how to play Nina Simone & Barbara
- look into dual n back games
Practise Self-love
- reduce phone usage to two hours per day (currently I stand at three hours)
- cry whenever I feel like crying rather than keeping it inside
- express real, vulnerable emotion with my closest friends and family
- practise meditating/being mindful
- build the gym into my routine or at least ensure that I have walked 10,000 steps
- every morning I should ask what I want to work on today or “what would my future self want me to work on today”, that could be for a) satisfaction b) joy c) urgency
- ensure I drink 8 glasses of water and sleep 8-9 hours a day
- keep a work-to-life balance and ensure that they are completely separated
- use my morning time wisely as I am the most productive in the earlier hours
- schedule in time and be realistic in what I can accomplish
- check in with my friends regularly – have an assigned slot every week and tell them/write it down why I am grateful to have them in my life
I now need to sit down on the 31st of December, make a schedule and enscribe it into my weekly diary. Devising a system will help me to stay on track with these ambitious goals. most importantly, I will review my progress in mid-june and see if I can make any further changes to my plan and see if aforementioned plan is working or I need to be more realistic.
As of course:
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern… There’s no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
Annie Dillard
