Goal setting for 2019

I wanted to talk about setting New Years resolutions and goals in general. I’ve had a realization in the past few years of setting goals and acting on them. Goals that have measurable metrics like weight lost in pounds or number of books read are easy to track but pretty linear. By that I mean, they’re not goals that will require reconfiguring mid year or rethinking about what the ultimate goal is with numbered resolutions. By the end of the year, I forget what the original reason was for the goal and treat it like a timed chore until the winter holidays.

For 2019, I want to set the simplest of resolutions. To be organized and simplify things around me. And as vague as that sounds, I want to explain it in this post.

First, 2018 has been a messy and confusing year for me. From traveling, learning, and working, things had been filled to the brim with unexpected and exceptional things. I didn’t feel as satisfied with some of the trips I took because I felt stressed due to a something happening back home or at work (luckily no major crises). For learning, I kept trying new things without going deep into anything. The good part of that has been that I got to try a lot of new things but I didn’t feel like I mastered anything.

Second, simplifying has always made me feel like I have a better sense of what I want to do and why I am doing it. An example of this is actually this blog. Instead of relying on a convoluted updates process and hard to write posts in Ghost or on my own blog, I decided to use the industry-leading WordPress to blog. This led to less time spent maintaining or updating my blog’s settings and configurations of any kind. It’s almost no effort now because it’s easy to post and fortunately nothing breaks very often.

At work, a recent change I made is to switch from two monitors to one monitor. This is new so I can’t say with a certainty if it’s working out but I’ll post any updates if anything significant is noticed. It’s definitely to simplify but also to be more effective at the current task instead of just being “busy” without being productive.

So just like the above two examples, I want to find more opportunities to simplify in 2019. I believe finding the why is always important as it makes the goal more valuable in terms of what difference it makes in my life.

Cutting down on various interests that only become interests due to short term liking or hype will, hopefully, give me more awareness of what’s around me that I actually care about. Going deep into a hobby, project at work, or just learning something with a better understanding is my ultimate goal for 2019.

Wish me luck.