1. It's the time of year for reflecting, and I can't help but think that 2010 was a productive year. I finished the PhD, decluttered my house, got all my pictures into albums (through July) got into shape (sort of. I am pretty slugly at the moment), and finished the novels of Dickens. Wheeee! It makes me say, What next?? I didn't hit my New Year's resolutions from last year, but I was aiming pretty high. Each one, it turns out, bore its own fruit, and so I'm enthusiastic about aiming high again.
2. I read a couple of really helpful books this year about discipline, change, and time use: Switch and 168 Hours. I was kind of lukewarm about 168 Hours at first, but I have continued to think about it. Laura Vanderkam is exactly right: you live your life one hour at a time, and it's easy to let the hours slip away. I was dithering about how much to tell you about Switch, and my dithering paid off -- take a look at this thorough post over at Bearing. I found it useful to think in terms of the Rider/Elephant/Path framework. Erin will tell you all about it, but it boils down to the reality that willpower is finite and you can't just will your way through change.
3. One example of how this worked for me recently is the laundry situation. I have been writing online about my laundry backlog for as long as I have been writing online, which is kind of sad, but this summer it dawned on me that I needed to get my Elephant on the team. Instead of taking baskets of clean laundry up to the guest room, where they would mysteriously not fold themselves yet again, I started leaving them in the living room. I can deal with one basket of laundry in the living room, or perhaps two if I am unusually busy, but more than that makes me intolerably twitchy -- twitchy enough that I fold it, as a matter of fact. Huzzah! (I am sure there are many of you who would frown on having a basket of unfolded laundry in the living room, but I have to tell you it beats the heck out of the Laundry Andes that used to bury the guest bed.)
So. The actual resolutions--
4. Body. First on the list is sugar, again, though I continue to struggle with how emphatically to eschew sugar in a culture that celebrates everything with sugar. I think I'll try giving up all solitary, non-celebratory sugar. I'll have a slice of my kids' birthday cakes, but I won't keep eating cake alone after they go to bed. (This might be delusional, given my history. We shall see.) I'm also planning to run 500 miles this year, or do an equivalent amount of other exercise if my aged joints give me trouble.
5. Soul. This year I am aiming to get to Mass a hundred times, although it is a little weird to count one's Mass attendance. I am also planning to talk regularly to my spiritual director about my internet usage, which continues to be a problem for me. Those Sunday Night Strategizing posts have been a fantastic self-discipline tool for me, so I'll keep them up. (I also feel a little weird about posting them here, because I think they are simultaneously boring and very personal. I'm going to scoot them over to their own blog, one I've had set up for a while, and see how that works. I'll link to them for those of you who've found them helpful, but you won't have to read them if you're tired of my to-do lists. Although-- anyone tired of my to-do lists probably stopped reading this post a couple of paragraphs ago.)
6. Mind. Remember my frustrating Shakespeare project? I am seizing the bull by the horns, resolving to finish the works of Shakespeare this year. This is ambitious, because I have 16 (or 17? must go and count when I finish this post) plays plus most of the poetry to read, but I'm going to give it a shot.
7. Family. Here my plan is to stay off the internet between the end of school and the end of dinner clean-up, and after 10:30. I also want to pray more explicitly for my kids, instead of just vaguely lifting them up.
More quick takes here.
Happy New Year! May I offer a suggestion on sugar? IN addition to all the super healthy eating you already do, which ought to reduce your cravings (I was amazed by this side effect of Nourishing Traditions style eating), have you considered regular fasting? I know that the RCC has it's own recommendations regarding fasting, but in the Orthodox Church we fast from meat, fish, dairy, olive oil, and wine every Wednesday and Friday (usually there is an exception made for wine and olive oil during the week, but Clean Monday and Good Friday would be strict fasting days sans both for example).
Anyway, I find this routine of fasting to be really spiritually stimulating and somewhat easier to follow than giving up an arbitrary item like sugar or tv, but also it makes Feasting pretty great and guilt free as well. Feasts sort of lose their punch in a culture on a fulltime feasting schedule.
You might liken it to periodic marital abstinence, in that it strengthens the marriage and creates a deeper bond of respect between husband and wife because it so clearly recalls Ephesians 5:25 to us as married people on a regular basis (at least it does me).
Anyway, it's just a thought. You can look here:http://www.oca.org/qa.asp?id=93&sid=3
Posted by: Svetlana | January 02, 2011 at 07:21 AM
I didn't make any resolutions last year, because I couldn't narrow down my list of things I felt I needed to do. =/
Love the idea of deciding to read the complete works of somebody or other, though. It's up my academic alley, and doesn't necessarily come with the baggage of things like "lose 15 pounds."
After peeking at your link to last year's resolutions, I wonder if I might ask a couple of questions:
What do you do when you get off FlyLady's schedule? She has great ideas, but she DOES tell me an awful lot of stuff, and I don't need to feel more overwhelmed by a tool that's supposed to make me feel less overwhelmed. ;-)
I've been feeling a pull toward the Rosary for the last couple of years, and have gone about it in my usual way -- some research reading, some fits and starts...with more stalls than starts. It's not unlike my FlyLady issue: if I can't finish, I think I must hate/dread to start. But I read more and more about people doing their Rosaries in parts -- getting to other decades later, or doing certain decades on certain days. You mentioned the finishing/non finishing issue...may I ask how you balance that one?
Thank you. =)
Posted by: Kristin | January 02, 2011 at 01:05 PM
I'm pretty sure I got the idea to read _168 Hours_ from you. Thanks for inspiring such a useful exercise!
I'm trying a similar experiment this week on my kids to find out how much screen time they are having. We think we want to take steps to reduce it, but first we have to measure it. I have a clipboard all ready with a paper spreadsheet marked out in 15-minute increments and one column for each child....
Good luck getting your strategerizing goals done this week :-) and I am one who enjoys reading them here and probably won't click over to the other place unless you put up a post linking to them every sunday.
Posted by: bearing | January 03, 2011 at 07:58 AM
I'm thinking of a Mass count goal and a rosary goal as well. I really love the rosary, but usually only do a decade here or there in the car using a rosary ring I keep on the dash. That actually works out well, but I want to do more. I have no idea what to use as a Mass count, but 52 would be more than last year! I'm a slacker.
Rebecca
Posted by: Rebecca | January 03, 2011 at 12:57 PM