Well, February wasn't all that successful. I found it's really hard to keep adding more and more tasks/resolutions to my life next to everything else that is going on...or even to keep up the old resolutions.
I guess for March, I'll have to scale down my ambition, if I want to avoid the feeling of failure. Resolutions are just as good as their compatibility with your lifestyle, personality and self-discipline...
So - (almost) no new resolutions for March, just continuing the February ones.
Ramp up on learning Hindi
Continue from January:
- finish digitalizing my Hindi notes, load into Quizlet
- reserve at least 10 minutes/day for revising vocab and past lesssons (e.g. before sleeping)
- at least 1 short conversation in Hindi with Varun/day
- actively study and memorize the Hindi "Word of the Day" every day
- other measures (e.g. listening to podcast; downloading and using app; watching movies etc.), as time allows
Diet and better eating
Continue from February
- 1 week/month, live on fruits, veggies, soups and cereals only for at least 2 weeks
Exercise
Continue from February
- do serious exercise every other day except when travelling (running, yoga, swimming, hiking or bike tour)
- situps/pushups every day
Photography
- join at least 1 meeting of the Basel photography group, if timings allow
- put my digital photo collection in order and transfer to new external harddrive
Inspiration
- finish reading Naomi Klein "This changes everything" latest by the end of the month
Getting organized
- make doctor's appointments for checkups that I have procrastinated for years
New in March:
- sort out rent payments
Social
- deliberately schedule a couple Skype calls with far-away and long-lost friends
Sonntag, 13. März 2016
Freitag, 5. Februar 2016
February
One month into the project - a quick assessment:
In the beginning, I was enthusiastic about all the fresh, new changes to make things better. After some time (10-15 days), I started wondering about the balance between self-imposed additional stress in having to meet yet more deadlines and goals vs. the actual benefit of these goals. They did stress me a bit at times. So I tried to be a bit leneant with myself - taking the goals as guidelines to be followed whenever possible and rewarding; but to be interpreted flexibly when it just didn't fit (like when I was travelling to Gland for 2 days in a row, and just felt more for having a beer after work with colleagues, instead of going running to maintain my exercise rhythm).
And it does feel mostly good to exercise some self-discipline.
At the end of January, the enthusiasm had faded a bit, but almost all of the resolutions have proven helpful in advancing me on the respective topics (e.g. in getting more organized about work note taking), even though I didn't achieve all of them. I plan to maintain all the new "daily" tasks.
Ramp up on learning Hindi
Continue from January:
- digitalize my Hindi notes - finish, and import all notes into Quizlet not done
- reserve at least 10 minutes/day for revising vocab and past lesssons (e.g. before sleeping) done
- at least 1 short conversation in Hindi with Varun/day done
- actively study and memorize the Hindi "Word of the Day" every day done
- other measures (e.g. listening to podcast; downloading and using app; watching movies etc.), as time allows - if at all possible, try to do a bit more of not really scaled up
Diet and better eating
Continue from January:
- live on fruits, veggies, soups and cereals only for at least 2 weeks (starting 1st January) - maintain this diet for 1 week/month (2nd week of the month), starting in February to trial and see if it works well - if so, continue in following months done 2nd week of February
Exercise
Continue from January:
- do serious exercise every other day (running, yoga, swimming, hiking or bike tour) (with the relativization that this can be handled flexibly in exceptional cases such as travel) done
- situps every day (as many as I can handle) (with the adaptation to alternate situps/pushups every day - better for the muscles) done
New in February:
- decide on whether or not to pursue a "big sport project" this year, e.g. climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or running a half-marathon haven't faced this yet
Photography
Continue from January:
- join at least 1 meeting of the Basel photography group, if timings allow -this month for real done, joined a meeting on city night photography
New in February:
- put my digital photo collection in order and transfer to new external harddrive not done
Inspiration
- finish reading Naomi Klein "This changes everything" latest by the end of the month - this month for real, but if not possible, then latest in March advanced a bit, but not finished
Getting organized
New in February:
- make doctor's appointments for checkups that I have procrastinated for years not done
Social
New in February:
- deliberately schedule a couple Skype calls with far-away and long-lost friends talked to Charlotte and Kadda, wrote a couple others, but no success
In the beginning, I was enthusiastic about all the fresh, new changes to make things better. After some time (10-15 days), I started wondering about the balance between self-imposed additional stress in having to meet yet more deadlines and goals vs. the actual benefit of these goals. They did stress me a bit at times. So I tried to be a bit leneant with myself - taking the goals as guidelines to be followed whenever possible and rewarding; but to be interpreted flexibly when it just didn't fit (like when I was travelling to Gland for 2 days in a row, and just felt more for having a beer after work with colleagues, instead of going running to maintain my exercise rhythm).
And it does feel mostly good to exercise some self-discipline.
At the end of January, the enthusiasm had faded a bit, but almost all of the resolutions have proven helpful in advancing me on the respective topics (e.g. in getting more organized about work note taking), even though I didn't achieve all of them. I plan to maintain all the new "daily" tasks.
Ramp up on learning Hindi
Continue from January:
- digitalize my Hindi notes - finish, and import all notes into Quizlet not done
- reserve at least 10 minutes/day for revising vocab and past lesssons (e.g. before sleeping) done
- at least 1 short conversation in Hindi with Varun/day done
- actively study and memorize the Hindi "Word of the Day" every day done
- other measures (e.g. listening to podcast; downloading and using app; watching movies etc.), as time allows - if at all possible, try to do a bit more of not really scaled up
Diet and better eating
Continue from January:
- live on fruits, veggies, soups and cereals only for at least 2 weeks (starting 1st January) - maintain this diet for 1 week/month (2nd week of the month), starting in February to trial and see if it works well - if so, continue in following months done 2nd week of February
Exercise
Continue from January:
- do serious exercise every other day (running, yoga, swimming, hiking or bike tour) (with the relativization that this can be handled flexibly in exceptional cases such as travel) done
- situps every day (as many as I can handle) (with the adaptation to alternate situps/pushups every day - better for the muscles) done
New in February:
- decide on whether or not to pursue a "big sport project" this year, e.g. climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or running a half-marathon haven't faced this yet
Photography
Continue from January:
- join at least 1 meeting of the Basel photography group, if timings allow -this month for real done, joined a meeting on city night photography
New in February:
- put my digital photo collection in order and transfer to new external harddrive not done
Inspiration
- finish reading Naomi Klein "This changes everything" latest by the end of the month - this month for real, but if not possible, then latest in March advanced a bit, but not finished
Getting organized
New in February:
- make doctor's appointments for checkups that I have procrastinated for years not done
Social
New in February:
- deliberately schedule a couple Skype calls with far-away and long-lost friends talked to Charlotte and Kadda, wrote a couple others, but no success
Freitag, 1. Januar 2016
January
Ramp up on learning Hindi
- digitalize my Hindi notes - half-done; continue in February
- reserve at least 10 minutes/day for revising vocab and past lesssons (e.g. before sleeping) - done almost every day, but sometimes less than 10 minutes, if it was really late already
- at least 1 short conversation in Hindi with Varun/day - done almost every day
- actively study and memorize the Hindi "Word of the Day" every day - done every day
- other measures (e.g. listening to podcast; downloading and using app; watching movies etc.), as time allows - listened to podcast once; tried to speak a bit of Hindi on the phone with Varun's family; other than that, not much done in addition
Diet and better eating
- live on fruits, veggies, soups and cereals only for at least 2 weeks (starting 1st January) - done, with the exception of 1 evening when we had guests and I cooked
Exercise
- do serious exercise every other day (running, yoga, swimming, hiking or bike tour) - maintained until the last week of the month, when the rythm broke a bit due to travel
- situps every day (as many as I can handle) - done consistently, but altered it to do situps and pushups in alternation
Work
- get organized about note taking and documentation of calls and meetings (finding and implementing a way to keep a notebook that allows me to quickly find stuff again later) - bought a new notebook which allows to have sections for different topics and move pages between sections; having the impression that this helps in finding notes more quickly
Photography
- finish wedding photo album by the end of the month latest - done by 19th Jan!
- join at least 1 meeting of the Basel photography group, if timings allow - didn't, but not my fault: They had only 1 meeting in January, which had filled up very quickly, and also the topic was not of much interest to me.
Instead, I participated in a nature photography contest.
Inspiration
- finish reading Naomi Klein "This changes everything" latest by the end of the month - didnt; after the end of the holidays, I hardly found time to continue reading. Got through about 1/3 of the book. Will seee if I can finish in Feb, latest in March.
In addition, I subscribed to the e-news feature "Fünf vor 8" of DIE ZEIT and read it daily - this could fall under "inspiration"
- digitalize my Hindi notes - half-done; continue in February
- reserve at least 10 minutes/day for revising vocab and past lesssons (e.g. before sleeping) - done almost every day, but sometimes less than 10 minutes, if it was really late already
- at least 1 short conversation in Hindi with Varun/day - done almost every day
- actively study and memorize the Hindi "Word of the Day" every day - done every day
- other measures (e.g. listening to podcast; downloading and using app; watching movies etc.), as time allows - listened to podcast once; tried to speak a bit of Hindi on the phone with Varun's family; other than that, not much done in addition
Diet and better eating
- live on fruits, veggies, soups and cereals only for at least 2 weeks (starting 1st January) - done, with the exception of 1 evening when we had guests and I cooked
Exercise
- do serious exercise every other day (running, yoga, swimming, hiking or bike tour) - maintained until the last week of the month, when the rythm broke a bit due to travel
- situps every day (as many as I can handle) - done consistently, but altered it to do situps and pushups in alternation
Work
- get organized about note taking and documentation of calls and meetings (finding and implementing a way to keep a notebook that allows me to quickly find stuff again later) - bought a new notebook which allows to have sections for different topics and move pages between sections; having the impression that this helps in finding notes more quickly
Photography
- finish wedding photo album by the end of the month latest - done by 19th Jan!
- join at least 1 meeting of the Basel photography group, if timings allow - didn't, but not my fault: They had only 1 meeting in January, which had filled up very quickly, and also the topic was not of much interest to me.
Instead, I participated in a nature photography contest.
Inspiration
- finish reading Naomi Klein "This changes everything" latest by the end of the month - didnt; after the end of the holidays, I hardly found time to continue reading. Got through about 1/3 of the book. Will seee if I can finish in Feb, latest in March.
In addition, I subscribed to the e-news feature "Fünf vor 8" of DIE ZEIT and read it daily - this could fall under "inspiration"
What is this about?
New year, new year's resolutions - both go together, whether you're a friend of resolutions, or firmly deny their usefulness.
This is my attempt to lay out a few things I would like to do (differently) in 2016. It's not about a radical change, re-invention or ruthless self-optimization. Rather, it is about getting a bit more organized ("being organized" being one of the things I often struggle with) about a few things I consider important.
And we all know that the main issue with new year's resolutions is the fact that we harldly ever achieve them, which in turn leaves us frustrated and feeling inadequate (or, in the better case, we just laugh about the resolution and ironically state that we were never that serious about it anyway).
So I want to make my resolutions achievable by
- breaking them down into very specific actions
- and tackling a few of them each month, rather than everything at once and without a real time frame
I have no idea whether this will work, or it will just stress me, through self-imposed restrictions and deadlines that come on top the manyfold demands and stressors life already has in place. I also might give this up, lose motivation, forget about it, ...a few weeks into the experiment. But it's worth a try, I thought.
And this blog is much less for everyone else, than it is just for me, to keep track of this "project" (or whatever to call it) and "get organized" (see above!) about it.
This is my attempt to lay out a few things I would like to do (differently) in 2016. It's not about a radical change, re-invention or ruthless self-optimization. Rather, it is about getting a bit more organized ("being organized" being one of the things I often struggle with) about a few things I consider important.
And we all know that the main issue with new year's resolutions is the fact that we harldly ever achieve them, which in turn leaves us frustrated and feeling inadequate (or, in the better case, we just laugh about the resolution and ironically state that we were never that serious about it anyway).
So I want to make my resolutions achievable by
- breaking them down into very specific actions
- and tackling a few of them each month, rather than everything at once and without a real time frame
I have no idea whether this will work, or it will just stress me, through self-imposed restrictions and deadlines that come on top the manyfold demands and stressors life already has in place. I also might give this up, lose motivation, forget about it, ...a few weeks into the experiment. But it's worth a try, I thought.
And this blog is much less for everyone else, than it is just for me, to keep track of this "project" (or whatever to call it) and "get organized" (see above!) about it.
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