Top New Years Resolutions

I have compiled the unofficial list of the Top New Year's Resolutions. Most of them can be aided or accomplished by being organized and applying productivity techniques. Pick the ONE you'd like to target for the next 30 days. Then, read on for ideas on using organizing & productivity skills to start achieving it.

1. Lose weight
2. Eat better
3. Exercise
4. Get out of debt (or manage my money better)
5. Have more quality time with friends & family
6. Get organized (time management and de-clutter)
7. Learn something new
8. Stop smoking
9. Stop drinking
10. Save more money
11. Find a better job or earn more money
12. Help others
13. Plan a good vacation & take it

1. Lose weight - time management technique suggests you schedule your exercise time for 1 weekend day and 2 weekdays. Exercise early in the morning even if it required you to get early.
2. Eat better - write a list of 3 favorite healthier meals. Make a list of the ingredients for each recipe. Schedule those three meals each week or over two weeks. Shop for those ingredients and have them on hand. Sit down with others to enjoy the meals.
3. Exercise - all research points to the time management technique of 'schedule it' as the #1 way to integrate exercise into your life. Those who exercise in the morning before distractions and excused can crop up are even more likely to stick with exercising. Put 3 days & times per week on your calendar to exercise. If something comes up simply say, "I have something on my schedule at that time already. What's an alternative time?"
4. Get out of debt (or manage my money better) - http://www.productivitycafe.com/2006/06/financial_freed.html
5. Have more quality time with friends & family. By organizing your schedule you can have more time for anyone. For example, put a standing breakfast outing with your kids on the calendar for the first Saturday of every month for the whole year. Commit to working around that high-priority time and enjoy the conversation with your progeny!
6. Get organized (time management and de-clutter) - sign up to receive posts from the Productivity Cafe and commit to implementing one new idea per day, if small, and per month if multi-step projects.
7. Learn something new - creating a routine around this learning is an organized and usually successful way of learning something new. The routine of attending a class every week is an example of programming your time to be able to learn something new. You can also schedule time with a teacher or to read about that something new. Put it on your calendar as a recurring schedule and use the time reserved for learning.
8. Stop smoking - using a structure of substitute activities can help smokers stop. Write a list of times you typically smoke. Write another of activities that could distract you during that usual smoke time. For example, consider a walk around the block to replace stepping outside the building for ciggy. Consciously engage in the substitute activity when you typically smoke.
9. Stop drinking - see stop smoking above. You might also insert time to attend AA meetings on your calendar. Populate your calendar with meeting times and guard against intrusions on that time.
10. Save more money - direct deposit into saving / investment accounts has proven to be the easiest way of saving. The convenience is that someone else does the paperwork and moves the money every two weeks or payday. The impact is that you never see the money and don't feel like you're giving something up. You aim to live on the money you bring home and later notice that your savings have grown while you're attending to life.
11. Find a better job or earn more money. An organized approach to finding a better job and earning more money manifests itself in creating a game-plan for either outcome. You might need to create a list of your accomplishments to take to your annual review to justify a pay raise. You might buy a book on changing jobs and devote a set amount of time each day to executing the steps in the process of job change.
12. Help others by writing a plan for yourself. Do you want to commit time to a cause? Do you want to raise money for an organization that helps others? Could you take an officer role in a community or philanthropic organization? How about taking a trip to volunteer in the inner city of the USA, or the poverty stricken areas of your country or somewhere in the world? Whatever your method of helping write a plan that starts with the ultimate goal. Write the steps that would help achieve that goal. Assign a sequence to those steps. Start taking them. [Sounds a lot like a business plan, doesn't it? It's absolutely a success plan!]
13. Plan a good vacation & take it. Start with a trip to the library or bookstore and a travel agent. Collect information on places you might like to visit. Explore the possibilities (include internet searches, of course) and talk to people to find those who have ventured to the top choices. Now decided to book the trip yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If you never seem to get all the details lined up and attended, let someone else do that step. You might have a travel agent do the booking. You might join a tour group. You might go to an all-inclusive destination.