Friday, January 8, 2010

New Year’s Resolutions

I was not going to write New Year’s resolutions this year as I am in a process of re-thinking my life priorities and deciding what I want to do with my life in the future. Also, in the past few years I was not very successful in keeping my resolutions (E.g. Every year I promise myself to work on my Spanish. It seems like a reasonable thing to do as I plan to travel for 6 months in South America at some point in my life. Still, so far I did not manage to get around to it.)

Regardless, I do think it is worthwhile to make resolutions as they help you realize what is important to you and motivate you to at least try to make some changes in your life.

My resolutions for this year are:
  1. I am going to put priority on work. My goal is to send out a paper for the review by the end of the year. I am planning to be done with my postdoc by the end of July 2011. (Honestly, that sounds a bit scary and completely unrealistic, but I will give it a try anyway.)
  2. I am going to travel less. I am not planning to go for any longer holidays this year. I will only go for several “extended weekend” trips. That will give me more time to work.
  3. I am going to go out less. Both to save time and money.
  4. I plan to save as much money as possible this year, so lets not go out to fancy restaurants, please :) (It makes sense to have some savings if one is thinking about restructuring their life and potentially changing career, right?)
  5. I am going to diversify my sports routine. I am thinking about going to the body pump class only twice a week, but adding at least one class of body step and one class of athletic conditioning. Of course I am still planning on playing squash. In May I am going to take private swimming classes (I can swim, but my technique is pretty poor.) I am also thinking about getting personal trainer around September to learn how to efficiently exercise on my own, in case in future I would not have access to such great gym as I have right now.
  6. By the end of the year I will have a first draft of the book ready.
  7. I am going to fast on each first Monday of the month.
  8. Every other month I will have a game or movie night at my place. I am going to put it in my calendar, so that I do not forget about it as time passes by.