I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, and I don’t believe in them. Not because they don’t make sense. They might. But because I don’t think that tying goals to a date is the best way to go about plans. However, the holidays are a good time to set some goals and make some plans, so here they are, some things I’m planning to do in 2012.
Channel The Sterling
Ever since I head Bruce Sterling’s Reboot talk a few years back, I’ve been trying to rid my life of stuff I don’t need, and instead upgrade the things I actually use. What Sterling talked about there is obvious in hindsight, but at the time, and by the way he went through his ideas, it was a real eye opener for me. I’ll keep doing that. Wherever I can, I’ll channel The Sterling.
More blogging
After a bit of a lull (or a series of lulls, really) I’ve been rediscovering the joy of blogging. Partly that’s because now that I have one “professional” blog over at Third Wave and this personal blog here, I feel I can use this one even more freely than before. And partly it’s due to a small change in my blogging environment. Ever since I’ve started writing my blogposts in Markdown inside iA Writer before dumping it into WordPress (where a Markdown plugin parses my draft into HTML), I’ve been writing more, and more easily. It’s a great, simple, powerful setup, and it has completely changed the way and speed I write. Also, I joined Iron Blogger Berlin, a fun group effort to either write regularly or – in case I fail – have drinks with friends. Either way, it’s a WIN.
Travel lighter
For years I’ve been very lucky and got to travel a lot. I love the chance to explore new places and find my way around, to poke into backyards and cafés and castles and whatnot. More recently, more and more of my trips have been work-related, which changes the way you travel quite a bit. For example, you need to schlepp things you wouldn’t necessarily take on a personal trip, like laptop, a plethora of cables and chargers, and decent shoes. In other words, you need to schlepp more.
It doesn’t have to be that way. I want to get better at taking less stuff on trips, particularly on business trips, and I want to make better choices about what I’m bringing. Over this last year I’ve been improving quite a bit already, and I’m going to continue that way. Shoes that work for both private and business context are a simple way of cutting down a bit. Running shoes that are more easily compressed are another – Nike Free Run have been working well for me. A Kindle replaces one or two books at the least, which is easily a pound or two spared. Let’s see what else I can find. Time to dig through Technomads once more.
Also, last year was so busy I traveled a lot less for personal reasons. I’ll try and see if I can up that a little bit this year – maybe by more short trips, maybe one longer one, maybe by just tacking on a day or two on business trips. It’s a good and healthy thing to do, and I find there’s not many things that increase quality of life as much as traveling. It’s the best way to keep your mind fresh and full of ideas.
Friends, Family & Work
Then there’s a whole chunk of partly vaguely defined goals that I’ll be putting some conscious effort into. Some are work-related, and this isn’t the place to discuss them. Let’s just say I have a few ideas that Igor, Johannes and I will try to put to life. Others are more social in nature. Concretely, over the last year when I was working heads-down most of the time, I didn’t spend nearly enough time with friends and family – while at the same time, I received tons of support. We all know crunch time, and what it can do to us, and it’s that kind of support that lets us get through intense times. Thanks, all of you, I really appreciate it. And I’ll do my best to make up for it this year.
Have a great 2012, everybody. Forget your New Year’s resolutions, and rather make some good plans for the year.
