A reset, and a dry-run of the all-new weekly Workbook.

So it’s a new year with a new mission, which is naturally an extension of the previous year’s mission, only Fitter. Happier. More productive. Comfortable. Not drinking too much. Regular exercise at the gym three days a week. Wait, what? Yeah, I’m not so sure about that last part. But you get the general idea (and this quote if you’re a fan of Radiohead).

Productivity wise, 2016 was certainly better than 2015, but 2017 absolutely has to be ten times more productive or I may just throw in the towel, at least until both of the younger kids are out of the house (not that their presence and need for attention is my singular excuse, mind you). I’m going to hold myself even more accountable, even publicly here on a weekly basis with an all-new Weekly Workbook.

There’s another major step I’m taking and I started it just last night . . .

No More Squirrels

One of my major distracting, time-sucking vices is social media, particularly Facebook. I removed the Facebook app from my phone last night about an hour prior to midnight. I’d been planning this for a while and the New Year seemed the perfect time to make the clean break. I will still check in twice a day from my PC as I have a couple of groups that I admin and I want to clear away the piled up notifications. But the main point is with it off my phone I won’t have easy access to it nor be tempted to grab my phone every five minutes, which frees me up mentally and physically to get on with other more productive things I need to be doing. Win-win.

Not Eating Too Much

I need to commit myself to a healthier diet. I’m probably some 20-25 pounds overweight and it’s all in the midsection. Being a Type-2 diabetic pretty much demands a better diet anyways if I want to minimize the need for external insulin input. So it’s back to low carbs and eating in moderation again. I’ve done it before, I just need to stick to it with a dogged determination and soldier-like discipline  . . . develop a machine-like regimen.

(Yeah, yeah, I should probably exercise more too)

Things To Do This Week

Preliminary activities as the new year is kicked off:

• Obtain gainful employment
• Organize my list of Projects
• Write updated descriptions of all of them (for interested collaborators)
• Reconfigure the Projects Page(s) here on the site (for same)
• Commence production on sample pages (for same)

I hope you all had a safe New Years. I want to say a few inspirational words about the coming year, but I see that Warren Ellis has done that much more astutely than I could have on his latest morning.computer entry.

It’ll be different.  It’ll be interesting in many fine and terrible ways.  It’ll be sad, if not in precisely the same way 2016 was.  I’d love to tell someone that it’ll be better.  But I think we were all fooling ourselves with that notion that years get better, just as we fool ourselves into thinking each year is starkly fenced off and the space ahead is virgin field.

It will be memorable. It will have beauty in it, and new things, and it will sing and light up skies.  There will be joy.

Will it be better?  No.  But I trust that it will be worth sticking around for, and that it will not be boring.  That’s enough for me.

Next week will bring a proper Weekly Workbook update, detailing what got done, what didn’t get done and what better get done for that coming next week.

Be good. Live better.

-BLR