The dreaded list

Lists of new year’s resolutions are the devil.  The act of writing them down practically dooms the endeavor to failure.  Keep it vague, and it’s just magical thinking, an amorphous wish to wake up with a new personality.  Get too specific, and it becomes the incredibly detailed list of things you won’t do.  At least that’s been my experience.  (For some reason, resolving to be a better person in the fall rather than in January seems to work better for me.  I have a strange association of school supplies with self-improvement.  That’s kind of sad, but there it is.)

Nevertheless here are a few habits I hope to develop and ways I hope to improve in 2012.  Some of these are things that I’ve had on my “list” for most of my adult life, so it’s kind of comical to include them.  But here’s to magical thinking:

1. Meditate.  Try five minutes a day, as early in the day as possible.  It’s California woo-woo and all, but there have been enough scientific findings to support it that I’m willing to do it if there’s any chance it could lower stress and make me more productive.

2. Add strength training and stretching, at least a couple times a week.  My cardio regimen is going well, since a few years ago I realized that a hard run, bike ride/spin class, or other similar workout is the best thing I can do to improve my mood and help my pants fit.

3. Organize.  De-clutter my office and the kitchen counter (where all mail and kids’ homework/school documents get dumped each day) once a week.  Clean out my email inbox once a week.  This is counter to everything in my deep packrat roots, but it must be done; and even though it can feel like a waste of time, clean surfaces are beautiful to behold.  Have a garage sale in the spring.  Everything ends up being a dollar, so it’s like paying people to take away the stuff I shouldn’t have bought anyway.

4. Dick around less.  Spend less time on social media.  Get sucked into fewer conversations with lonely strangers or worse yet, people trying to get me to volunteer for stuff.  (aka, Have boundaries.  Develop a spine.)

5. Find simpler solutions to healthy eating.  Much as I love Eating Well magazine, the big green Gourmet cookbook, and all things foodie, cooking like a snobby, OCD epidemiologist is not compatible with raising young children and writing, unless you have a lot more “help” than I do.

6. Be present with my family and loved ones.  Put the smart phone and laptop away and pay attention.

7. Plant roses and those camellias that smell like roses.  It’ll look better along the front of the house than those awful little inedible berries and the thing that looks and smells like a pot plant and refuses to die.

8. Read regularly and keep notes on good books and articles.  Don’t feel like I have to finish a book I don’t enjoy, unless it’s for work.

9. Revamp my computer filing system and become generally more computer literate.  This might require professional help, or at least some of those free Apple classes.  I switched from PC to Mac several years ago, never really learned how to use the new computer, and now feel illiterate in two languages.

10. Write daily, as if it’s my job.  Because it is.