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.

Want some fresh ideas for handling your email? You might be off work between Christmas and New Year yet you’re peaking in to read some guides on getting control of the largest looming clutter spot – your email inbox. The Productivity Cafe offers you email ideas throughout the year – so click on the sidebar category titled ‘email’ for your first stop for ideas. Second, read what Merlin Mann writes at his blog called 43 Folders. He has a collection of articles on getting your emailbox to zero, too. The collection is indexed at: Inbox To Zero Series.

Merlin’s idea will at least feed you things to consider. At best you might have a feast of new ideas. Know that he is a MAC dude, comes with a very technical background, and talks really really fast (in case you get to one of his podcasts). Merlin is a GTD Getting Things Done ‘ophile and gets the idea for inbox to zero from David Allen, the author, and that is a good thing.

Can you get yours to zero? 

Food for thought ~

It isn’t so much how busy you are but why you are busy.

The bee is praised.

The mosquito is swatted.

Wishing you and yours joyous Christmas celebrations and a transition into the New Year that is hope and success filled!

Is it the final hours until you exchange gifts? Are you feeling overwhelmed and stressed because you are still trying to buy something for someone who has everything? Do you dislike this part of the holiday celebration?

Some Christmas gift ideas that will extend the good feelings of the season are below. A second good feature of these gift ideas is that they don’t require you to go shopping today, the busiest shopping day of the year (busier than Black Friday even!). A third benefit of these gifts is that they don’t clutter someone’s home. A final good aspect of these gifts is that they are personal.

• A gift certificate that you print up on your computer that entitles the bearer to a brunch or dinner at a favorite restaurant with you in January when the winter quiet after the flurry of December events fizzles.
• A promise for a winter picnic. Put a note inviting the recipient to a picnic with you in something that you already own such as a thermos that will hold the hot chocolate, a picnic basket that represents the setting, or pin a note on a checkered napkin. Be sure to put a

Do we Live to Work or Work to Live? That is the question posed by Joe Robinson @ Worktolive.com. This book is a hard-hitting look at the overworked status of most Americans with solutions for those where life = work. I found the first 100 pages difficult to read as Joe details how bad Americans have it. On those pages we hear about the 4-6 weeks of vacation Europeans take every year compared to our 1, 2 or 3 (that many take with a heap of guilt). We hear overworked defined vividly and it is not a pretty picture. Ruined relationships are a casualty of overworked Americans. I felt burned out just viewing page after page of the bad news.

Next, however, Joe offers a Rx for remedying our grave situation. He offers mindset and methods to establish clear boundaries between work and personal time.

How much vacation time do you have left for 2006? It’s late in the year – are you going to use all your vacation up before 2007? Buck Rodgers, who ran IBM’s Marketing in the 1980s, said in his book The IBM Way that he didn’t want anyone working for him who couldn’t manage their time and responsibilities well enough to take vacation. If this rings true for you, consider taking many days off before the end of the year. And, get your vacation request in for 2007 on January 1. Even if you don’t know where you’ll go for your vacation, put it on the calendar and work to make it happen!

This is the concept of work to live vs live to work. At the Cafe we aim to enrich your life. . . and a vacation will do the same!

Do you have a to-do folder? If not, today’s the day for you to create one because you never know when you can take advantage of it. Two stories highlight the benefits of having a todo folder. One begins with Darren, a math teacher, and the other with John, an accountant.

Darren fell mountain biking a couple weeks ago. He bruised his quad and clunked his head. He’s okay. But, during the week after the fall the pain in his leg kept getting worse. Finally, after a night of severe pain and little sleep he decided to get it looked at. So, he goes to the emergency room. Being a teacher, he always has papers to grade and lesson plans to write. On his way to the hospital he grabs his backpack of work todo and has 2+ hours going through the hospital procedures that aren’t too bad because he’s busy and distracted. Meanwhile he looks around the waiting room to see lots of people twiddling their thumbs. They look anxious and bored. If only they had something of interest to do and occupy their mind during the interminable

How does your list of things you’re enjoying because of your paycheck look? [for new readers, this is follow-up to the November 15 post: Priorities Part 1]

Do you have a few great things on it?

Now is the time for you to grade yourself on your proximity to achieving those goals. This step helps us to start moving toward goals or to recognize that we’re there – the manifestation of our own success! Simply give yourself a 5 (of 5) if you’ve achieved a goal and a lower number down to zero the farther you are from that goal.

Here are two of my goals: have a low-maintenance road bike and a mountain bike so I can ride with my bike pals. And, a closely related one: be in good enough shape to ride comfortably with my bike buddies.

As the holidays race toward us we want to get greeting cards in the mail – but in the Email may be a efficient alternative!  Here’s your source for The Classiest Cards on the Web by Jacquie Lawson. I received one of her cards in the email today and was swept into the wonderful mood of the season. Jacquie & her team use technology and robust artistic abilities to make these breathtaking ecards. Since they use the power of the computer the recipients of the cards will know you cared to send (as the saying goes) the very best.

On the practical side you can select the cards from the comfort of your keyboard and mouse – at home. Additionally, you can send as many cards as frequently as you like for a $8 per year fee. Doing the math shows that this is a remarkable deal compared to the ‘big name’ card companies. Finally, the cards can arrive on time without you having to worry about buying the cards, finding the addresses, having stamps, addressing the envelopes, and getting the cards to the post office in the next week.

Sounds like an efficient proposition to me.

Looks like a treat for your friends, family, & associates too!

Click on the image below to see the card in action!