New Week's Resolution - Week 22 (Mar 24 - Mar 30)

nossmf
nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member
in Challenges

Welcome to the first week of the rest of your life! Now seems like a perfect time to select a New Week's Resolution.

What is a New Week's Resolution? It's exactly the same as a New Year's Resolution, with two important distinctions: it only lasts for one week, and you can start one any time you want, rather than just once per year.

So what's wrong with New Year's Resolutions? According to some quick Google research, just one thing: they DON'T WORK!

  • 23% of people quit within the first week
  • 43% quit by the end of January
  • 80% quit by mid-February
  • 92% fail to make it a full year

Why such high rates of failure? Probably because most resolutions fail to follow these simple steps from the SMART method:

  • Specific - "exercise more" is vague; "hit the gym twice this week" is specific
  • Measurable - did I go twice? Yes or no?
  • Achievable - "drink a gallon of water per day" may not be realistic; drink 8oz is
  • Relevant - if it doesn't matter to YOU, why bother?
  • Time-bound - keep your goal for this week something quick you can reach THIS week

With these thoughts in mind, what is ONE thing you want to do this week? Some examples may include:

  • Hit the gym two times this week
  • Cook a meal from scratch three times this week
  • Go to bed no later than 10pm every night
  • Limit myself to one alcoholic beverage this week
  • Finish two pages of my family photo album

...and so on. While this is very similar in nature to the famous "Just Give Me 10 Days" series, that challenge focuses primarily on weight loss and diet control, whereas this challenge is of a broader nature, including interpersonal relationships, home improvements, health and fitness and more. Just pick something specific you wish to focus upon, set a number goal you can reach (or not), and make status updates to document your progress. This will be a judgment-free zone: if you do not reach your goal, take the time to figure out why not (too big a goal, life happened, etc), and forgive yourself, because you can always try again next week.

Replies

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Getting setup for this week a day late, sorry about that. My plan is to continue what I started in previous weeks, and add one more focus item every week as I go. Eventually older items will drop off the list, not because I no longer want to do them, but because they will have become so ingrained a part of my daily routine that I no longer need to record them to make sure they get done.

    (Note: My apologies to the other adherents of this challenge from prior weeks for missing last week. While I was on vacation my car broke down, took a week to repair, and my internet access was limited. But I'm back home now, so life can return to normal.)

    Past focus items successfully transitioned to un-monitored habit:

    Floss every night before bed
    Clean litter box every night before bed
    Kiss wife within one (1) minute of arriving home from work, gym, store, church, etc
    Wearing my glasses every day, all day
    Park in furthest spot available
    Read 10 minutes daily
    Wash dinner dishes the same night they're used
    Get at least six hours of sleep every night
    Check parakeet water daily

    Tasks completed thanks to this weekly challenge:

    Complete digital cookbook
    Clean outdoor grill

    Ongoing focus items:

    Shave daily (3/7)
    Record receipts same day spent (5/6)
    Wash hands before preparing ALL meals. (6/7)
    Spray down counter/oven after every meal. (7/7)
    Fold laundry same day it gets washed (2/2)

    New focus item:

    Rather than adding a new item whether I've mastered existing items or not, I'm going to start tracking ongoing focus items, and only once they prove over a two-week span that they are becoming automatic (at least 80% of the time) will they be replaced with a new item. So this week will be spent repeating the same focus items. (I already can tell the shaving will be a problem, need to figure something out there.)

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Monday

    Shave…check!
    Receipts…nope
    Hands…check!
    Counter…check!
    Laundry…n/a

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Tuesday

    Shave…nope
    Receipts…check!
    Hands…check!
    Counter…check!
    Laundry…n/a

  • AdahPotatah2024
    AdahPotatah2024 Posts: 3,363 Member

    Thanks!:D

    Ongoing focus items:
    -Waste less than an hour on the youtube/internet on workdays (so I have time for my hobbies)
    -Post one item per wk in my Etsy shop
    -30 minutes learning ASL every weekday
    -Get back to my regular sleep patterns! -awake by 5:30AM
    -Try to drive as minimal as possible. Plan errands more efficiently!
    - attempt at using all the groceries I have w/ zero waste...
    - Cook only 3 good meals this week with enough leftovers for other 2 days (Restaurant on Thursday/pizza Sunday)
    - organizing books, clothes, and papers and donations after decluttering ..

    -training for new pt job this week, which is more review since I worked there 10 years ago

    This week I'm doing an exercise from a book Simplify Your Time by M.Ramsland which is to log how I spend all my time for the week on a 168 hour chart, and then next week look at time wasters and "reassign those hours to activities that add balance to my life."

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Wednesday

    Shave…check!
    Receipts…check!
    Hands…nope
    Counter…nope
    Laundry…n/a

    On a whim, I threw my electric razor into my gym bag last night, and it worked: at night before bed I already have packed too many items into my pre-bed routine, easy for something to get missed; but in the morning, not only is my schedule less cluttered but my brain is working better and remembers things easier. This could be the simple solution to moving this item to the "un-monitored habit" category.

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    @AdahPotatah2024 let me know how that time-chart exercise works out for ya, sounds interesting.

  • AdahPotatah2024
    AdahPotatah2024 Posts: 3,363 Member

    It is sort of eye-opening! I'll let you know next week!:)

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Thursday

    Shave…check!
    Receipts…check!
    Hands…nope
    Counter…nope
    Laundry…n/a

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Friday

    Shave…check!
    Receipts…check!
    Hands…n/a
    Counter…nope
    Laundry…n/a

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Saturday

    Shave…check!
    Receipts…check!
    Hands…check!
    Counter…nope
    Laundry…n/a

  • AdahPotatah2024
    AdahPotatah2024 Posts: 3,363 Member

    Success logging 168 hours for the most part.. Realizing I have way too many hobbies! 😬

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Sunday

    Shave…check!
    Receipts…check!
    Hands…check!
    Counter…check!
    Laundry…check!

  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 14,325 Member

    Shave…6/7, 9/14
    Receipts…6/7, 11/13…85% success rate!
    Hands…4/6, 10/13
    Counter…3/7, 10/14
    Laundry…1/1, 3/3

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