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In April of last year, I made a belated entry into Dave Seah‘s Ground Hog Day Resolutions movement. Along with Dave and some of his disciples, I decided to do something similar again in 2008, but with some twists of my own.

Last month I resolved to start each week with a timetable of how I planned to spend time for the coming week.

How’d it go?

Right after I wrote up the resolution, I got caught up in trying to get ahead of myself with paid work so that I could comfortably take a week off to move house again. That was two weeks of pure work, eat & sleep with just enough time in between to take a shower. The next week went into packing up all my worldly possessions in Manila, traveling across the international date line via Guam and Hawaii back into Florida. It would have been nice to take a day or two to recover from the 14 hour time difference, and unpack into a new apartment, but first of all we had a 5 day bike ride through 4 states… more about that in another post.

Result: FAIL

What went wrong?

In short, I didn’t even plan a timetable, let alone try to stick to one. Bah.

What to do about it?

Next week — when things are settling down again, and I’ve actually got some kind of chance of setting up a routine at the beginning of the week that I’ll be able follow for a week or two — I’ll actually write up a timetable.

So, next month, I’ll have something a bit more interesting to report…

Related Articles

1. Ground Hog Resolution Review Day
2. GHD Resolution Review Day 2
3. GHD Resolution Review Day 3
4. GHD Resolution Review Day 4
5. GHD Resolution Review Day 5
6. GHD Resolution Review Day 6
7. GHD Resolution Review Day 7
8. Ground Hog Day Resolutions Redux

More years ago than I can recall, I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions because they always turned out to be empty promises to myself, and it was more honest to simply not make a resolution in the first place than maintain some kind of false pretense that I would keep to my resolutions for more than a month or two.

What went before?

I began following David Seah’s blog early last year, and in April found his genius Ground Hog Day Resolutions post. Dave argues that New Year’s Resolutions are generally made in the haze of too much food and drink from the celebrations throughout the previous week, while we’re still busy trying to tie up the loose ends of the previous year. Before long those resolutions fade into distant memory, and it is all too easy for us to quietly let them slide. By contrast, Ground Hog Day Resolutions are made on the 2/2, with a clear head a month and a day into the new year, when any hangovers (alcohol or productivity wise!) from last year have been taken care of. The resolutions are then revisited every month and a day after (on 3/3, 4/4 etc) to keep them fresh in mind, and to maintain our focus.

As an added incentive to work at our Groundhog Day Resolutions throughout the year, Dave and some of his disciples (myself included) are making ourselves publicly accountable by reporting on our progress on each review day.

What needs fixing?

Despite the fact that we all made good progress with our resolutions last year, it wasn’t plain sailing by any means. We were each struck by a malaise in the Autumn, and found it especially difficult to stay on the wagon. Additionally, we all felt the need to modify our resolutions as the year rolled past, and even to drop a few resolutions that seemed less relevant several months down the line.

1. The first problem is that having several resolutions is completely overwhelming at the start of the year, and maintaining all of them consistently throughout the year is nigh impossible. This meant that as I worked hard at something that was bad in the previous month, it took enough of my attention away from the other resolutions that something(s) else would bomb this month.
2. The Autumn blues was, I think, caused by having stared at the same several resolutions all year and become a little tired of failing here and there the entire time.
3. Finally, it would be nice to have some means to rotate new resolutions in if they became more relevant than what we picked several months ago.

Why Redux?

By revisiting Dave’s concept of Groundhog Day Resolutions after (almost) a year of practice and putting my own little twist on things, I want to try to address (my perceptions of) the shortcomings in the original system, and hope to have an even more productive 2008!

1. On Groundhog Day itself, and each following review day, I’ll make one resolution, and incorporate it into my daily routine for the whole of that month.
2. If the previous month went well, I’ll brag about it in the review post here at Azazil.net, and add an entirely new resolution to work on for the following month.
3. If things didn’t work out so good, then I’ll try to figure out why, and keep working at the same resolution for another month with some fresh insight.
4. On the other hand, I might decide after a month of daily work at a particular resolution that I was misguided in wanting to keep it in the first place. I’ll have learned something valuable about myself, and can stop working on that to move on to something new in that light.
5. I also might change the rules a little as the GR3Ds (Groundhog Resolution Redux Review Days) go by, to keep things interesting both for myself and for you, dear reader :-)

Viva la Resolution!

Last year I lived on the road for 3 months, and then cranked up almost 50,000 air-miles moving between 5 separate addresses in 4 countries on 3 continents, all the while trying to remain productive and stay healthy without my schedule going to hell in a hand-basket.

As an antidote to the stress I gave myself holding all that together last year, February’s GR2 (Groundhog Resolution Redux) will be to start each week with a timetable of where I’ll be putting my time for the week ahead, and to examine it every day to make sure I know how I’ll be spending the day. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to reuse a given timetable for several weeks before my circumstances change enough (moving house again?) to warrant planning a whole new one.

In a month-and-a-day, I will indeed be living on another continent, and will report back on the results and decide upon my March GR2.

Related Articles

1. Groundhog Resolution Review Day
2. GHD Resolution Review Day 2
3. GHD Resolution Review Day 3
4. GHD Resolution Review Day 4
5. GHD Resolution Review Day 5
6. GHD Resolution Review Day 6
7. GHD Resolution Review Day 7
8. Groundhog Resolution Redux Review Day 1

Six months and six days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. For new readers, Dave’s brilliant idea is to not try and make resolutions on New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas & New Year’s eves, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2. And then, every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. to review progress and ensure the resolutions aren’t forgotten.

Hard to believe that another month and a day has passed already since last time, so here we are on 10/10 and I’m due to bare my soul again with respect to how I’m progressing with the resolutions I made back in April.

How’d it go?

Curiously, after moving back to Blighty on the 6th of last month, there’s been a reversal of fortune with my performance for most of the 5 resolutions I made. I’m not yet sure whether that’s down to cultural differences due to where we’re living or simply because I concentrated so hard on the resolutions I neglected last month that the others suffered…

1. Keep a regular morning routine

I started this review period fighting from the steely clutches of jet lag, and soon fell into my lazy old routine of dragging my sorry butt out of bed around 9am, and jumping right into work at my laptop with breakfast still in hand. Despite reminding myself of the advantages of a bright early start last week, and this impending review, too many late nights and late starts have broken my almost-habit of maintaining some semblance of a morning routine.

No excuses….

Result: Non-starter.

2. Read a book every week

By contrast, I’ve had my head stuck in a couple of riveting books this month, and my night-time routine has been pretty much rock solid, taking a cup of tea and a book to bed almost every night. I made a good start to Castaneda’s fourth book Tales of Power, but became distracted by Paul Davies’ awesome About Time which I’ve been caught up in so much over the last week that I didn’t get back to the Castaneda again. Much as I love Hellboy, I refuse to pay almost double for them in England £9.99 from Amazon.co.uk vs $12.21 from Amazon.com so I haven’t had the luxury of a graphic novel this month. Instead, I’ve listened to the entirety of Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics, and the refreshingly different This is Your Brain on Music plus the first half of the weighty Death by Black Hole. By my count, a respectable 3 half books and 2 complete books.

I’ve reviewed everything I’ve read in my Now Reading Library as usual.

Result: 3 and half books without resorting to a graphic novel.

3. Set aside time for martial arts

As predicted, no sooner had we settled in to our lovely autumn cottage that Octavia and I immediately started training at Andre Martin’s recently reopened Coventry Multi-Cultural Martial Arts Academy every Monday night. There’s also the promise of more classes in related styles on Thursdays and Sundays, which will hopefully begin before we leave England again next month.

Result: Couldn’t be happier to be back to training.

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

Including this one, I count 19 posts since the last review. A couple of weeks ago, I joined John Chow‘s blog post every day challenge, which started strong but faded out after 10 days when I stopped myself from posting just for the sake of it. It would be nice to post more often, but not at the expense of quality. I’m more than happy to maintain my 2 posts every 3 days average.

Result: No problem, pity about the failed daily post challenge.

5. Weekly Reviews

Now that I have a new super-streamlined analogue system, the review process is light weight enough that I’m avoiding the psychological barrier of a formal weekly review altogether. Instead, I’m performing ad-hoc reviews every day or three, which seems to be working better for me.

Result: Solid progress.

What went wrong?

Not too much. I’m delighted with how well I’ve stayed on top of things overall. I continue to be guilty of overcommitting myself, and then struggle to find the extra time to meet the additional commitments: of which the daily post challenge is a prime example. I also managed to address most of my action points from last month, with the exception of setting up some future posts for azazil to even out my irregular posting schedule.

What to do about it?

I think my lesson to take away from this month’s review is that my schedule is already full to bursting, and that a polite ‘No!’ will earn me more respect than a ‘Yes!’ I can’t follow through on. A few action points to address before the next review:

1. Figure out a regular posting schedule that I can actually keep up with, and stick to it.
2. Take a good look at my GTD system, and make sure it is really addressing all my needs. If it is, then scrub the Weekly Review resolution in favour of a Keep the Trusted System Upto Date resolution.
3. Think of a way to reward myself for a morning routine success, to help reform the habit.

Related Articles

1. Groundhog Resolution Review Day
2. GHD Resolution Review Day 2
3. GHD Resolution Review Day 3
4. GHD Resolution Review Day 4
5. GHD Resolution Review Day 5
6. GHD Resolution Review Day 6

Edit: I have 4 finished posts that I couldn’t post last week due to lack of connectivity while relocating from Orlando, FL to Dodford, UK. I don’t want to drop them all at once, so I’ll post an extra overdue article every day until I catch back up with myself again…

Five months and five days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. Dave’s brilliant idea is to not try and make resolutions on New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas & New Year’s eves, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2. And then, every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. to review progress and ensure the resolutions aren’t forgotten.

So, on 9/9 I was due to reveal my progress with my resolutions since last time, but with no net access between 9/7 and 9/10, I was enjoying my time away from the computer a little too much and forgot to write it up on schedule. Apologies for that, and apologies in advance that while I’m at my folks’ house in Devon this week, the net connection is flaky to say the least: This week’s remaining posts might turn up a week later than the dates they carry if staying connected makes uploading the articles as painful as this…

How’d it go?

I should confess that I wasn’t expecting too much this month as I wound down my activities in Florida and prepared for moving back to England for a few months. First mistake? Low expectations are all too easy to live up to. Taking things one resolution at a time…

1. Keep a regular morning routine

What with taking a 5 day road-trip around Florida during a 10 day visit from Octavia’s cousin Megan, and afore-mentioned relocation to the other side of the planet with attendant lack of jet lag avoidance I really didn’t have very much of any kind of routine during the last two weeks.

Until things went south, however, I was doing pretty good… so, discounting the last 2 weeks…

Result: Survived extenuating circumstances by a hair.

2. Read a book every week

With only two weeks of unmolested time in this period, I’m reducing my requirements to just 2 books. Ain’t it great to make up the rules as I go along? ;-)

Even so, I didn’t really make the grade, finishing Journey to Ixtlan and reading the entirety of Hellboy: The Right Hand of Doom, that makes one and a half books for the reduced period. Reviews in my Now Reading Library as usual.

Result: Bzzzt. Not even if I cheat with the book count.

3. Set aside time for martial arts

As predicted last month, and continuing this month’s theme of sucking at keeping my resolutions, I didn’t make any time for martial arts again. Worse, I was so consumed with fitting as many paid hours around the organisational hell breaking loose in the latter half of the month that I didn’t even get any gym time while Tave was in the pool almost every day :-(

On a (thankfully!) much brighter note, I spoke with my favourite sifu, Andre Martin of the recently reopened Coventry Multi-Cultural Martial Arts Academy, where I’m really looking forward to training again real soon now. I was careful to choose accommodation that is close enough to Worcester and Kidderminster that I’ll easily be able to socialise with my friends, but also as close to Coventry as I can manage to make the round trip much less daunting than the 100 mile marathons I used to do. :-D

Result: Looking forward to finally nailing this resolution.

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

Including this one, I count 18 posts since the last review. Posting frequency was a little patchy with back dated posts (written while offline) arriving after a silent week. Even so, that’s still approaching an average of a 2 posts every 3 days, another improvement on last month.

Result: A breeze!

5. Weekly Reviews

You’ll recall that my system was in disarray last time, and indeed I’m still surviving by jotting To Do items onto an index card clipped to the front of my Moleskine. Having said that, I seem to be surviving surprisingly well, which has given me an excuse to keep on running with things as they are. Of course, with no trusted system to review, I haven’t been able to do a weekly review.

Result: Total Bummer.

What went wrong?

I spent the last 2 weeks of the review period swanning around the Florida coast and generally enjoying myself rather than maintaining any kind of routine to fit my resolutions around. On reflection, this is a very healthy thing to do every now and again, and where most people take a week or two a year out of their normal routines by going to a new country for a holiday, the best I can do is to take a media fast and leave my computer behind for a few days every now and again. Regardless, I could still have made a better job of planning around rather than just dropping everything on the spur of the moment.

It looks like a bad month from a resolution point of view, where actually I’m making some good inroads in spite of myself: my morning routine is a habit by now, and it feels weirder when I don’t follow it; I’m fitting close to a book a week into my reading schedule when I stay focussed on it; despite being lazy with exercise last month, I have my martial arts training planned out for the earliest opportunity; and I’m sailing past my original resolution of 2 blog posts per week with ease these days. The one bug bear continues to be the weekly review resolution, which is currently spoiled by not having an up to date GTD system to review.

What to do about it?

More of the same on all counts, but there’s no reason to rest on my laurels.

1. After a day or two to settle in to our new address, I should chase Andre for training times at MCMAA.
2. I need to renew my efforts to smooth out my posting patchiness by keeping a couple of future posted articles queued in case I’m offline unexpectedly again.
3. Now that I’m back up to date with my accounts, I really do need to reestablish a trusted system for my To Do items.

Related Articles

1. Groundhog Resolution Review Day
2. GHD Resolution Review Day 2
3. GHD Resolution Review Day 3
4. GHD Resolution Review Day 4
5. GHD Resolution Review Day 5

In addition to the Inventor and lil’ ol’ me, I found a couple of other people around the intertubes who are blogging about their Groundhog Day Resolutions:

• Corrie Haffly
• y0mbo at uhri.com

I thought there would be more than just the 4 of us :-( Is anyone else doing this (even if you’re not blogging about it)?