I'll be the first to admit, I'm not too fond of the concept of New Year's Resolutions. I think it's because it's become a cliche--people throw out resolutions without ever putting in the effort to turn them into achievable goals--but that doesn't mean setting expectations, goals, and plans for the new year is a bad thing. Far from it! Every morning is a new beginning with God, so there's no reason we shouldn't take a new calendar year as an opportunity to refocus, evaluate our lives and dreams, and start turning some of those dreams into reality.

So what are your goals for 2016? A good goal (that is, one you have a chance of completing ) should have concrete details and a realistic timetable. But before you can make a plan, you have to have a spark--an idea, a dream, an inspiration. You have to know what you want, at least vaguely, before you can start planning to achieve it.

So that's what I did. I made a list of "New Year's Resolutions"--random goals and projects for the new year. Some are more specific ("Take Level 1 Hebrew") and some are more general ("Buy more natural health and beauty products and less chemicals"). Some were about my lifestyle, some were about money, and some were about projects or education I wanted to complete. It's a jumbled list of random dreams and desires.

But it really helped me because it helped me quantify what I actually wanted. There's so much I've been working on and want to work on in my life, and so many projects clamoring for attention. But by writing a list, even a disorganized one, I got it all out on paper and was able to pinpoint what was really important to me. I discovered that my two main areas of focus for this year were to make our household more natural for better health, and to work on my personal study and education. I also wanted to better myself in how I dress, care for myself, etc. All of my smaller items stemmed from those big dreams.

What are your goals?

Here's my full list of goals, as of today.

I agree! I don't like New Year's Resolutions either. So I made goals instead.

Those are some great goals!

Here are my goals:

I've made lists of goals for myself for each of my two "magna opera" and "for everything else" for each of the past few years now. They'd probably help more if I included classwork and the like in them, and if I got them onto paper or at least one of my whiteboards so I kept them in front of me through the year, but I've had some success. I posted about the writing-related goals in the "writing goals" thread, and I suspect those related to my strategy game are less interesting to readers here and will so omit them, but here are my "miscellaneous" goals:

• In the process of reading and triage of (deciding whether to keep) issues from my stack of magazines and journal issues, make a decision about every issue through at least the end of 2013. (Stretch goal: through at least July 2015.)
• Move my personal Gentoo software "overlay" from BitBucket to GitHub
• Finish reconsidering and tagging links from my old flat file of bookmarks that I’m currently working through.
• In listening to recorded sermons that I download and store each week, catch up to at least February 2016. (Stretch goal: Get totally caught up.)
• (Stretch goal.) Ensure that every file “under my control” (thus excluding non-configuration application and OS files) is either under version control of some sort (to protect against silent corruption, among other reasons) or deliberately not under version control. And as part of that, carefully reconsider all of my files' organization.
• Ensure that I have no software installed on any of my computers anymore “just because it looked interesting” that I haven’t actually tried out.
• In my "paper-clearing" process, which I've made into something that I can track my progress on by dividing papers into numbered packets, consider and deal with all through packet #25. (Stretch goal: through packet #35, the packet most recently grouped and given a number.) (Stretch goal: Divide all miscellaneous papers, that I haven’t deliberately decided to keep in this pass, into numbered packets for consideration.)
• Read all books I have been given for Christmas or my birthday in the last few years, that I haven’t already.
• Develop a specific plan for dealing with stacks of books (i.e. a specific order to read them, or enough of them to decide about them, in).
• Develop a specific plan for dealing with “stacks” of electronic books.
• Create project plans for, or decide to give up on forever, at least four of the software ideas that I’ve had in my files for years.
• Finish my critique pass through Peter’s Angel.
• Be prompt in keeping up with correspondence. (My delay in even posting to this thread does not inspire confidence on this one.)
• Read the Bible in its entirety at least once.
• Stretch goal: Get at least a quarter of the way through the first volume of The Institutes of the Christian Religion.
• Stretch goal: Find paying and meaningful employment.

Well, I know I can keep you accountable at least with these two.

God willing, may it be so ...