That’s right, 2019, I’m calling you out. This year. THIS. YEAR. I’m going to beat you into submission, Mr. Stomach. You are going down!
Aw yeah.
I guess this means I’ve called out my first resolution, so I should just start the list.
- Lose weight, get in shape. I’m going to exercise every damn day in 2019. Even if it just means rolling out of bed and doing ten push-ups. Every. Damn. Day. If I get to the end of a day and I’m about to hit the sack and I haven’t exercised, my ass is going to do some before I let myself go to sleep. Also, I’m going to try to do the better eating thing. The primary goal will be “less”. When I go out to eat, I’m going to try to put half my food in a doggie bag for another meal. Restaurants just put too much food on the plate. And when I eat fast food, even though I will have to fight myself constantly, I will get the small fries and small soda (or just get water), and maybe even a smaller sandwich. Maybe eat off the kid menu. I also want to see about cooking some more veggies at home, maybe even do some vegetarian/vegan meals. I don’t think I’m ready to give up meat entirely, but I certainly don’t need it every meal.
- Read more. This one is also back again. I’m going to start the year reading books for my career. Some management stuff. Some design patterns stuff. In part this is because having worked in the same place for a decade I’ve fallen behind on the language and when I do interviews I come off sounding like a buffoon because I have no idea what people are asking. But also, read more fiction as well.
- Write more. Also back again. And this time, I mean it. I’m going to try to post more on my blog, and I’m going to also do more writing for myself (you know, “finish my novel”).
- Game more. Keeping the repeat train alive… but specifically I want to play more variety of games. I love Overwatch, but maybe sometimes I should play other things. And I want to attend more game nights with friends. They were fun when I did them this year. Also, I might try to attend a board game convention or two.
I’ll actually keep that “write more” resolution by trying to write more posts about each resolution as I tackle it.
Also, last year I used an Ink and Volt planner to help me out, which it did, but it was a lot more involved than I wanted it to be. The planner became a chore, and it’s setup tended to make me feel like it was more a weekly thing than a daily thing – which is odd, because I called it a chore but then complain it should have felt more “daily”. I wanted to have something more directed, more daily, and also “light”. So, what I am doing this year is I made a template for my reMarkable (since I just learned how to make custom templates for it) and do that. I may also keep a separate “weekly outlook”, but I haven’t decided yet. Mostly, I need to form better habits and something I feel more compelled to check in on daily would be better at engendering that.
Anyway, here is the template I came up with:
The goal here is to be both planner and log. Each night I will set up the Planned events for the next day. This could be appointments or just tasks. There are only 10 slots because I don’t want to overplan a day – that just leads to things not getting done. Then, on the day, I’ll mark off the Planned things I complete, and I’ve got an Unplanned section for things that come up and get finished. Like, maybe I wasn’t planning on getting the oil changed in my car, but the light came on and I had time so I just dropped by a place and got it done.
I’ve got a section to track exercise.
I’ve got specific habit checkboxes for things I want to do better at. Brush and Floss – I do tend to brush my teeth every day, but I need to floss more. Shower doesn’t literally mean “shower”. It’s shorthand for taking care of my skin, be it shower, just washing my face, lotions and whatnot. Normally I shave once or twice a week, but I want to try my hand at shaving more often, even daily, because some people have told me that will actually help some of the skin issues I have. And meditate because I need to achieve some inner goddamn peace, mother fucker.
The water checkboxes are because I really do need to drink more water. One, because I find myself to be dry in the throat too often. Two, because I passed a stone a while back and I’ve been told a way to help avoid that is to basically keep flushing your system with water.
There is a food log, which is where I will track what I eat, so that I can see what I’m eating and be more conscious of it.
And lastly (though by page orientation I should have addressed this before the food log) is a Notes field, which is basically for my general feelings on how the day went or ideas that popped up for something I need to put on tomorrow’s plan.
I’m tempted to put together a Week plan page, so that I can orient some longer term plans, but I’m still playing with the idea. I can always do it later. That’s the best part about this journal: it isn’t fixed. Every page can have a new template applied to it.
Okay then. That’s my plan for 2019. Well, that and continued resistance against the current administration, smashing the patriarchy, and all the other things I have to do to maintain my sanity. Which leads me to my last resolution, which should also help with the getting in shape thing:
- Whenever I read too much political news that upsets me, I will put on music and dance wildly until either I feel better or I am exhausted. I’m probably going to do a lot of dancing.
Welcome, 2019. Come in and stay a while.