I’ve had this post on Draft for a few weeks now, so I figured I’d might as well finish it up and post it – if not only for the motivation.

I’ve been thinking hard about resolutions and what they mean, why I usually fail at keeping them, and what it would take to actually make it happen this year.

Normally, I choose the usual suspects, meaning “I’ll start exercising this year” or “lose some of that extra weight” or “start eating healthy”, which are fine and things I should do, but never things I really needed to do. Yes, I know they should be done, but when you’re not that overweight or don’t eat that poorly, the motivation to start and finish those resolutions isn’t always there. It’s a difficult road, for sure.

So what I decided to do this year is pick a few things I NEED to do. Not only for my own good, but for my wife and daughter. Then start small and gradually build off success to form them into habits. Turning things you need to do into habits is the key to long-term success.

So what are they? Glad you asked.

1) Most importantly, *be a better husband*. Not just showing her I love her more frequently, but meeting her needs: listening and talking more, doing things I say I’ll do, putting our house in order so we live a less stressful life, and just plain good ol’ snuggling. The best part of this resolution is my other two play off it, so success actually touches multiple resolutions. A win-win!

It’s not that I don’t love my wife – not at all – I probably love her more than I ever have in our ten plus years together. It’s more what our life has become since Lucy was born. We’re constantly going and a lot of the time it seems like we’re passing each other more than interacting or sharing.

What I hope to do this year is become more productive with my time and more organized in general to create more free time to spend with my wife and child(ren). (Yes, more on that in another post.) Totally doable and totally necessary.

2) As I mentioned above, *improve my productivity at work and home*. I’ve been following the GTD (Getting Things Done) community for some time. My main problem is I spend more time trying to find the perfect system or perfect way to implement GTD, rather than actually doing anything. (I seem to remember reading something on this at Merlin Mann’s great “43 Folders”:http://www.43folders.com site, but sadly I couldn’t find it again. Anyway, reading it was the ‘ding ding!’ moment.)

Luckily, I came across Leo Babauta’s (from “Zen Habits”:http://zenhabits.net/) great e-book, entitled _Zen to Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System_, which really simplifies the GTD system into chunks that help foster habit forming. And so far I like the results! I’ll have to write up a post that describes what I’ve implemented so far and the improvements I’ve noticed from those changes. More on that later, though…

Anyway, increased productivity means I finish the things I need to get done, hopefully leaving more free time for wife, child and when they go to sleep, video games! Yes, I need my guilty pleasure too.

3) Finally, the most difficult and most needed. *Develop, track and stick to a budget*. We’ve been on and off (mainly off) a budget for years now. We’ve never had much success, but we’ve also never needed a budget so badly. With so many additional children-related expenses, we need to spend our money wisely and efficiently. I hope to accomplish both this year, although it will be a long, hard road to break our past habits.

The one thing that will help this time, is for the first time ever, my wife has our budget and current financial situation on her Palm Centro. She can access our account balances and budget status any time she needs. I’m not blaming her for our past failures by any means, but not having access or knowing the financial situation makes buying into a budget difficult. I manage most of the bills and finances, so I know more, but I’ll fully admit there were times in the past I didn’t check balances for weeks on end. Bill Pay is a sweet invention, isn’t it?

Anyway, I plan on posting more on each of these (details, progress, etc) over the coming year. Stay tuned. I hope to make 2008 our best ever.

Thanks for reading.