Here we are, almost a month into the new year, and it seems as good a time as any to make some resolutions. Truth be told, I’m always keeping lists (current tool, rememberthemilk.com, is highly recommended for organization of all things). However, as silly as traditions can be, there is something very satisfying about setting somewhat lofty but realistic and tangible life improvement goals at the beginning of the year so that I can look back at them at the pre-ordained time next year and feel good about achieving them.
- Inbox 0. Nothing causes me more anxiety or cramps my productivity like the weight of the collection of old emails I keep in my inbox. Seriously, looking at all these dangling conversations makes me feel like a bad person. We don’t have time to respond to all the emails that might merit a response, and that’s just the way it is, so I choose efficiency. About halfway through last year, I declared email bankruptcy on most of the old items in my inbox except those that truly required responses, learned how to write quick if imperfect responses, and started immediately archiving new emails I received with reckless abandon, recognizing that letting them sit in my inbox was not tantamount to ever getting around to composing a response. I responded to many of the remaining old items and came very close to victory at one point with a mere 11 emails in my inbox. This number somewhat counter-intuitively exploded over the various holidays, however, so even with my best efforts I continue to hover around 30 emails. This must change. I will conquer. The beauty is that once I have achieved this seemingly impossible feat, maintaining it will be so much easier. I have achieved mastery over my Google Reader feeds which gives me confidence that this, too, is possible.
- Maintain cooking momentum. No, really. Starting right around October of 2008, I realized that some things in my life were going to have to change in light of the new economy. Using mint.com, one of the first most obvious ways to cut spending and stock pile my savings was to learn how to acquire nutrition from sources other than restaurants. Either that or I could eat only cheap restaurant food which, if rarely tempered with a delicious feast, would pretty much take the fun out eating out anyway. (To be fair, cooking for one can be pretty inefficient and/or boring in order to consume fresh ingredients in the large quantities they are sold, so there’s a reason why cooking was suddenly more accessible.) The milestone event was when our traditional urban family Christmas dinner was moved to my apartment for cost savings (normally we spent around $70 each for steak, wine, dessert, etc.). Dan and I prepared Emeril’s creole chicken marsala with sweet potatoes and some other sides that are escaping memory, and you know what–it turned out fantastic and we had a very memorable night! This discovery you can cook food competitive with moderately priced restaurants if you can read was empowering. We’ve been pretty obsessed with cooking ever since. For example, we make such a mean burger at this point that I rarely even want to eat one at a restaurant except maybe The Counter in Palo Alto. We have a few other go-to recipes, but I’d like to try enough new recipes this year that I have ten new meals that I can cook which are truly delicious. We’re off to a good start with the pizza crisper and ebelskiver pan I gifted to Dan for Christmas.
- Channel my inner biker. I’m cheating because I already accomplished this one! I had not touched my bike since leaving Stanford except to move it around in storage. Even worse, when Anjali (our roommate) moved in about six months ago, I temporarily put my bike out on the back patio and kind of forgot to move it back inside. I think I left it out because I had this idea that I would pump its tires and give it a spin so soon it didn’t matter. Well, it did, because when in early January I decided that bicycle might be the most efficient way to get from point A (home) to a particular point B, not only were the tires in terrible shape (the seat had already been weather damaged from being outside at Stanford), but one of the brakes had rusted into the open position. This was the all important right hand brake, much needed to liberate the left hand for giving turn signals. Not entirely defeated I purchased a helmet a few days later because I already knew I needed one, and with my bike in such condition I really needed one. I continued to add air to the tires until they finally decided they were full (I think the tube had gotten all twisted from deflation) and ultimately forced the right hand brake into submission. Now, lo and behold, I am a San Francisco biker. It’s terrifying (where are the bike lanes!?!) but very useful for transportation to busy but relatively nearby areas opening up new parts of the city on a more regular basis. Meanwhile, I’m starting a one woman protest on the bike lane situation by riding on the sidewalk where it is unsafe to ride in the street.
- Read like an intellectual and clear out unfinished inventory of books. I ramped up my reading significantly last year, but not nearly enough. When I happen to be reading something good, much of my time gets devoted to it, but then several weeks easily fly by without reading a single page (other than on the computer). Recently Goodreads.com has helped me track my reading in a way that is both realistic (so I don’t give myself the false impression that I’ve been reading plenty when I haven’t) and motivating. In the course of reading about happiness last year (Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, for example), I determined that one of the things I value most in life is knowledge. Reading and continuing to learn aggressively is one of the things I miss about school. I don’t like to set oppressive goals, so I will continue to track my reading not with the goal of reading 24, 36, or 52 books specifically but just to read as much as I find pleasant and goodreads.com will show me where that takes me. I do have a more concrete second goal, however. I listed the number of unread and partially read books in my collection which amounted to about 65. I am trying to be more discerning going forward by only buying new books as I am able to read them and I acknowledge that I probably don’t really want to read all 65 of these books on my shelves. I would, however, like to work on 15 of them this year, either finishing them or giving them consideration but determining that they are not worth completion.
- Graduate education. I have many ideas about what I might want to do in terms of graduate school, but I plan on spending the next year honing them into a plan of what I’d really like to do. There are many potential outcomes which would probably be fulfilling, but it seems worth my time to clearly determine my priorities.
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