2018 Resolutions

I know I am a bit late to the party but I did want to document my goals for the year on my blog, as one does. I like to think that I am late to writing this post because I am fast at work on some of these resolutions, which is partially true.

This is my first year really blogging, and my first time making resolutions. I typically find them icky, but the year marker is a nice way to reflect on things and make a line in the sand. Because of my overall opinion that resolutions should be made at the time of conception rather than according to a calendar, some of these are already underway. Some aren’t.

1. Stick to a budget. I’ve had a crude budgeting strategy in the past and it was ineffective. The great insight I had was game planning a full year of spending and sticking to the macro plan since month to month can have variability. So far so good. I made this budget in December and have been following it well so far. If you want to use the same spreadsheet as me, check out One Big Happy on Youtube. I found them through a collaboration they did with The Financial Diet.

2. Cook more. This will help with two other goals, spending less and losing weight. When I cook, I tend to be pretty healthy. When I go out, not so much. I realized I wasn’t necessarily cooking less than before, but now that I am the main chef for Rachel and I, I need to increase my amount of cooking. I love to cook, and I have plenty of cooking gadgets, and love a wide variety of food so it shouldn’t be too hard. To quantify this goal I want to eat out 2 times a week or less, unless celebrating a special occasion. Full disclosure, a golden weekend for Rachel is basically a special occasion as is if we are able to get her friends all together at the same time. My definition is loose but I think as long as I am cooking more during the week and packing lunches, this goal will be marked as complete.

3. Weight loss. I lost a lot of weight in 2015, and I’ve slowly gained some, but far from all of it back. 2017 wasn’t a productive year from a weight loss prospective. I lost about 10-15 pounds as part of a work competition but gradually gained it back over the course of the second half of the year. I’m back where I started in early 2017. My goal is to get under 210. I’m at 234 as of early last week. Conveniently that is 2 lbs a month, which is very doable so long as I keep it a focus.

4. Ship an iOS app. I have two ideas, each with their own pros and cons of development. Both would stretch my abilities as a developer since I don’t have much web experience and I think both would need some sort of web backend. Finding the time to develop with grad school and work is tricky, but I need to challenge myself to get there.

That’s it. Believe me, I’d love to play bass more. I haven’t touched it for more than a couple minutes in the past few months and I’ve barely played since the band simmered out in mid 2016. I’m not very good and I have struggled to create much new music so its a cyclical problem. I play more when I’m inspired, I’m inspired more when I play (particularly with others).

I am going to focus on the above four and if I can pull them all off that would be an amazing year. If I overload myself with all the things I’d like to do, I would probably fail to do most of them. It’s a big year ahead. Time to get started.