✦Seasonal · 14 recordsNew Year resolutions

Resolutions fail in the second week of January, when the enthusiasm goes and nothing has been built yet. This asks for three rather than ten, turns each into a routine rather than an intention, and puts the first review at six weeks — past the point where most of them quietly stop.

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Goal

Still doing all three in March Month 3

Three, not ten. Judged in March rather than in the first fortnight.

Choose three Day 10

The number is the decision. Ten is a list of none.

  • Write everything I want to change, then keep threeDo firstDay 3
  • Turn each one into something I do, not something I wantDo firstDay 7
  • Decide what I will do on a week I miss all threeDay 9

Keep them going Month 3

Past the second week of January, where these die.

  • Six-week review: which one is not happening?Do firstWeek 6
  • Drop or shrink whichever one is not happeningWeek 6
  • Three-month reviewMonth 3

Routines

  • The first resolutiondaily
  • The second resolutionweekly
  • Note how the three wentweekly
✦ It puts something in the calendar

Dates you will not have to remember

New Year's Day

1 January09:00
✦ It comes with a note

Three, and a review at six weeks

Resolutions fail in the second week of January, when the enthusiasm goes and nothing has been built yet. A resolution that is not a routine is only an intention with a date on it.\n\nThe six-week review is the part that matters. Dropping one deliberately is a much better outcome than three that all quietly stopped.

✦ Questions

New Year resolutions, answered.

Three at most. The number is a claim about what you will actually change, and a list of ten is a list of none — it survives contact with an ordinary week only by being quietly abandoned in order.
Because the enthusiasm arrives before the structure does. By the second week the novelty has gone and nothing has been built to carry it, which is why each one here becomes a routine with a time attached rather than an intention.
Not really, and that is worth knowing. A fresh start is genuinely useful for beginning something, but nothing about the date makes the habit stick — the review at six weeks does more work than the first of the month ever did.
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