New Year's Resolutions

Every year around this time I get the itch to shave my head. It's a weird sort of physical manifestation of a clean start. I think I'll try to hold off this year, even though my hair always feels uncontrollable no matter what it's doing. It's been a few years since I've made any New Year's Resolutions, mainly because I think they're pretty stupid, but who cares right? Any opportunity to improve yourself seems like a good thing. So, here are my New Year's Resolutions:

- 500 words a day. At least. I don't write nearly as much as I should. I've tried putting time stamps on tasks like this before (30 minutes of writing every day!) and it always fails. 500 words seems less intimidating than 30 minutes, probably because I know what 500 words looks like.

- Be more disciplined. That's pretty broad and vague, and that's the way I like it. It's meant to encompass a lot of things. Don't eat that extra cookie. Procrastinate less. Focus on getting shit done. Be cleaner. Organized. The lack of specificity, I think, will help me stay conscious of it 24/7.

- More creative outlets. I haven't painted in a few years, even though I love the feeling it gives me. I've always felt that I wasn't that talented or creative, which made me stop in the first place. But now I feel like, who cares? Just do it, right. Especially now that Rachel and I have this pretty awesome apartment set up. That creates the opportunity for creative outlets to be put to practical (and not-so practical use). Also, do more photography. I bought that fancy schmancy camera because I wanted a fancy camera to play with. I made a poster for our bedroom, which has been framed and has yet to be hanged. More of that stuff!

- Hang that poster.

- Read more. Sure, I probably read a lot, but never enough. I can think of many hours that could have been spent reading instead of watching TV or sleeping or something. This probably falls into that discipline thing, but my bookshelf tells me to focus specifically on that. To start off, I bought the lotsa books for my novel class and also spent the $50 Powells giftcard on some books that have been sitting on my wishlist far too long.

- Say "Why not?" more often. I'm pretty damned good at finding reasons to not do something. That's something I'd like to change for sure. Instead, I'd like to be able to just jump into action, whatever it is. That sounds pretty awesome to me.

So, we'll see where I am a year from now.