New year, new challenges

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions. And anyway, I think more in academic years than calendar ones, so January is a third of the way in for me. I’m thinking of changing that this year though, and setting myself a few challenges. Not resolutions as such, but things to achieve during 2012. Since I’ve started keeping my list of 60 things and regularly writing about them (very tenuously sometimes, I know) I’ve realised how much more focussed I am and how I tune into things that may help me achieve my challenges. So maybe I should try a yearly list too. It might help me get more done and make me more ‘micro-focussed’. In a book ‘Getting Things Done’, I read earlier this year it was recommended that tasks are broken down into minute stages to make them more achievable. So by creating a yearly list I’m on my way to setting step-by-step target stages for my overall challenges. I’m still at the thinking stage, but my ideas so far include:

1. Floating in a floatation tank (I’m hoping to do this in London during the February half term)
2. Reading at least 10 books from the BBC Big Read list (if I read 10 a year, I’ll have the whole 200 knocked off in the next 12-13 years!)
3. Taking at least one photo every day of the year (this will improve my photography skills, be a photo-diary of ‘year in my life’, and help me to learn to use my new camera)
4. Coming up with a fitness plan and sticking to it (the start of my training for Kilimanjaro, though I may not actually climb it for several years yet)
5. Leading at least 4 of my own walks (good practice for my walking group leader’s qualification)
6. Buying another house (need to get my finances in order first)
7. Learning to use at least 3 new pieces of technology or computer programmes (not counting my new camera)
8. Doing a writing course (depends on the length of the couse whether I’d complete it in the year or not)
9. Getting at least one piece of writing published (paid or unpaid, as long as someone else makes the decision to publish it and it’s not self-published)
10. Making a start on sorting out my photos (putting the prints that are currently still stuffed in packets into albums and getting all my photos scanned into the computer – no way will this be completed in a year, but I’ll feel good even if I get started on it)
11. Buying a car/van that I can sleep in (and doing any necessary conversions/adaptations)
12. Getting into cycling (even if it’s just short cycles along decent paths)

That’s twelve. The equivalent of one a month, which seems a good number for a yearly list.

Author: Anne

Join me in my journey to live a life less boring, one challenge at a time. Author of the forthcoming book 'Walking the Kungsleden: One Woman's Solo Wander Through the Swedish Arctic'. View all posts by Anne