The first 10 days of 2010

While mulling about at work today, I've been constantly thinking about how the first several days of the year have gone.  Just over a week ago, I committed myself to one overarching goal for the year: To be more determined.  That is not terribly specific, but I broke it down into a few sub-categories: To be more productive and more efficient.  Both of these things take determination to get past my previous lazy state.

For a long, long time, I never really cared about what I did with my life.  I went with the motions, yet had some nice ambitions.  Well I don't want my dreams to remain dreams.  Somewhere along the line, I figured out that if I wanted to do something, I had to work a lot harder for it than I had thought.  It's the kind of spark that most successful people have, but it can take time to acquire it.  I don't want to say that I've acquired that spark, but I know that some day it will come, and I want to be fully prepared for it.

To be more productive

Being more productive to me is just like it sounds: to get a lot of things done, especially in the creative field.  Last year I managed to make a game (technically anyway, I didn't invent the game, and it only took 10 hours to code), and almost finish two novels.  But it's more than just creating.  I fully intend to do that too, hopefully make an original game and have a publishable version of at least one of my novels, plus write another one during NaNoWriMo this year.  But this also includes consuming as much media as I can.  My backlog of games, shows, and movies, is horrendous, and I'm hoping that this year I will end with less than when I started.

To be more efficient

This is really the sticking point for me.  I can be productive when I want to, but what I really have trouble with is wasting time.  I tend to spend a lot of time doing useless things.  Surfing the Internet, checking sites I've already visited a dozen times that day, that is one of the big ones.  Also those times where I just sit and think about what I should be doing without actually doing anything.  Those need to cease.  I also have a big problem with doing things promptly, taking care of them before they become a problem.  These mostly involve various chores, like doing the dishes or cleaning the apartment.  So no more procrastinating over stupid things either.  That's what I mean by efficiency, no idle time and get things done when they need to be done.

The first 10 days

So in regards to the first 10 days of the year, I obviously haven't completely changed myself, but the results so far have me very pleased.  Here's a small breakdown of the things I've been doing lately.

• Getting up early - Back when I first started working, I did a pretty good job of getting up at 6am everyday in order to get to work early so that I could also leave early.  Somewhere along the line I lost that ability and kept getting up later and later.  Eventually it got to anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour later than I wanted to get up.  So far this year, been getting up on time and actually not feeling terrible when I do.
• Working out - During the last third of 2008, I was on an intense workout regimen that succeeded in all areas I wanted it to.  I lost a good 20 lbs of fat and added on a lot of muscle.  But then near the end of the regimen I messed up my elbow pretty badly.  Because of that, I couldn't do most of the tricep exercises any longer on that arm.  I stopped doing the regimen, and haven't really gotten back into working out since.  So far this year, I have worked out everyday that I intended to, and love the feeling I get from doing it.  Elbow is still messed up so I can't be too intense, but hopefully that will also get resolved this year.
• Wardrobe makeover - One of my goals this year was to rework my wardrobe, since my clothing has tended to be pretty bad.  Not that I dress like a slob or anything, it's just that I'm still dressing the way I did in high school with some additions.  Heck, half of my clothing was from that period of my life.  This had to change, especially with so much of it falling apart on me.  So far this year, I have replaced my whole under garment collection, gotten rid of all my torn clothing, gotten two new pairs of shoes (which I love), a new coat (which I love), two jackets (which I love), a new belt (which I don't love, but it looks nicer than the old dangly one), new pants (need time to adjust), and other minor things.  All in all, I've probably spent more money on clothes this year so far than I have the rest of my life combined.  How's that for change?
• Add variety to my eating - This is something I've been working on for a while, but now it's going to be even more important since I've decided to commit to the Paleolithic diet, for a few months at least.  The only thing I really added to my eating last year was wine, which I've come to find is pretty nice at times.  Now for the rest of it, I need to stop eating like a college student, which is to say, having the same things over and over again.  So far this year, I have completely switched up my breakfasts, my morning snacks, my dinners, and my late night snacks (if necessary).  Lunch and afternoon snacks are going to be largely the same since they were already just salads and fruit.  I have more cooking equipment now, so I'm excited to see what kinds of things I'll be able to do in the future.

Those are all the major things.  My only real goal with these is to keep them going long enough to the point where they become habit.  I admit that with my schedule the way it is, taking time out of my evenings to work out and do chores, it doesn't leave me with a lot of time to do things that I want to do.  Well, so be it.  As time goes on, I've come to realize more and more that most of the things that I have done to kill time do not benefit me in any way.  If it turns out that I spend so much time doing necessary things that I don't have time to watch something before bed, oh well, there's always tomorrow.

After this gets posted, I'm also going to make a separate page that contains my whole list of goals for the year.  This way I can remind myself what I want to do, as well as give updates on what I have done.