2013 Hopes, Goals and Dreams

I. WRITING

1. Complete “I Lift up my Eyes to the Hills,” a memoir of an Indian Childhood

Strategy—Start with 30 minutes on Jan 1^st, increase time by 5 minutes a day until I am writing 1000 good words a day. (Should take 2-4 hours a day). Work six days a week.

2. Blog Though the Bible

Short posts, relating the Bible to our daily and spiritual lives (rather than exegesis or explication) using this plan, but will alternate Old Testament and New Testament readings. So one post a day.

3. “Little Books”

 What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects–with their Christianity latent.” C. S. Lewis

Blogging is prodigal. A long well-thought-out, well-written post can take an hour or two to write—is read for a day, and then has a limited half-life.

So I am going to transition to writing little books, with each reflection roughly the length of a blog post. I will post each post/chapter on my blog, and then (self) publish the book.

Am working on one now, The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth. Will build up to 70 minutes a day.

4. Blogging

For me, blogging is like doing therapy or theology, journaling or chatting to a best friend—but in public. It’s contributed greatly to my health: psychological, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social, shalom, well-being and happiness.

Stop blogging? Not likely.

However, I want to write books which will be read in a year, 5 years, 10 or 20 years–or longer.

So (in addition to blogging through the Bible) I plan to blog per se at least every second or third day. And edit and re-post some archive posts. My mental word limit for a blog post was 800 words (which means they often run to 1000 or 1200). I am now going to see if I can do 500 words.

5. Other Writing Projects

I am on the team writing Bible Reading note for Scripture Union (doing Jeremiah), and will be writing monthly blog posts for the Big Bible Project.

I am part of Holly Gerth’s God-Sized Dream Team, where we dream dreams and report on our progress weekly. Consider this the first post. Follow up progress report: Sunday, Jan 6^th.

II HEALTH AND WEIGHT

I  want to lose 26-52 pounds this year.

Strategy—I have been walking about 8000 steps 5 km a day, aiming to increase it to 10,000.

However, I walk very slowly, and it’s not really helping me lose weight. I am now taking up running, using Runkeeper, an app which talks to me every five minutes, and tell me how far I have run, how long I have taken, and my average speed. I will start where I currently am, and aim to increase my speed daily until I level out.

I plan to do weights or yoga every second day in the gym. I don’t intend to be a weak, stiff old lady, no way!!

Diet—Using a new principle, “Only eat when physically hungry.” And not when bored, sad, tired, anxious, stressed or happy.

And asking: Is this a blessing to my body?

I plan to stick to a largely plant based diet.

III WAKING EARLY

I wake up at 7.10 a.m. at present, and have always dreamed of waking up at 5 a.m. The trouble is the evening hours are my most creative and I love them as much as I love the morning hours. So I am going to aim to wake at 5 a.m. in the course of the year, by pushing back my waking time by 5 minutes a week.

I am experimenting, so far successfully, with biphasic sleeping.  Am a great fan of napping instead of running tired anyway;  even Michael Hyatt, productivity guru recommends a nap every day.

IV CREATING DOMESTIC ORDER

My house was tidy when we had a cleaner every week, but we have now cut back to fortnightly. Why? Heck, dirt has to be pretty dirty for Roy and I to even notice it. We were essentially paying the cleaner to come weekly to motivate ourselves to pick up. Pathetic, huh?

Anyway, there is some decluttering I have to do, especially of books, and some finding places for everything.

Goals 15 to 30 minutes a day of tidying/cluttering:

a daily 5-10 minutes in the bedroom till it’s tidy;

a daily 5-10 minutes sorting books until done;

a daily 5-10 minute organizing/ decluttering in every room in the house, until done.

Starting with… See that bookshelf. It shall be tidy by Jan 6^th, so help me God!!

V GARDENING

Gardening was one of my greatest joys, but, sadly, writing has been –quite unnecessarily–squeezing it out.

I intend to start gardening again, 5-60 minutes a day. At the moment, though, gardening might just involve starting and tending seeds.

VI Reading

This was another of my great joys which I had let slip between busyness and blogs. I started recovering the habit of completing books rather than skimming or reading online last January. How? I set an unbreakable goal to read a book in 31 days in Jan; 29 days in Feb, 28 in March, and so on. And so I have read 17 books this year cover to cover, and am now finishing a book in 14 days. I used to read over 60 books a year.

My goal for 2013 is to steadily increase my reading (including listening to book on Audible as I run) until I am reading a book in 5 days. I aim to read 60 books this year—lots of reviews to come!!

* * *

So, what am I adding? More writing. More reading–60 books instead of 17. Increasing running from 8000 pedometer steps to 10,000. Weights and yoga on alternate days. More housework. More gardening.

Where is the time coming from?

A) By pushing it back 5 minutes a week, I will be waking at 5 a.m. rather than 7.10 a.m. and will be adding 2 work hours to my day

AND

I will increasingly be using AntiSocial and Rescue Time to lock myself out of the internet when I write. I currently lock myself out for 3-4 hour blocks at a time, so that I do NOT disappear into the block hole of Facebook links and messages; Twitter links and messages; urgent email; and fascinating newspaper articles when I should be with the family or exercising or reading or writing or tidying up.

I averaged my time usage/waste on my laptop per week in December using Rescue Time. In fact, since I read Facebook, Twitter and blogs and email on my iPhone, I spend even more time on social media, blog and newspapers than this shows.

So here is what Rescue Time has told me about my average time usage in December (which, of course, included 9 days in Malta, Roy in hospital, Christmas parties and girls at home).

Writing

7 hours a week, 1.10 minutes a day.

Of course, this does not count time revising on paper, which I do a lot.

Luckily I write very fast, and get it right rapidly, but still…

I would like to increase it to 6-7 hours a day by December 31st, but for next week, will be happy with at least 8 hours a week of writing a day.

And I will find this by reducing time on

Social Media

An average week in December saw me spend 11 hours and 17 minutes on Facebook and Twitter. 96 minutes a day.

Of course much of it was reading blogs, and articles people linked to, but much of it was missable.

I aim to reduce it (ultimately to 30 minutes a day) and to under 8 hours a week this week.

News, Magazines, Blogs In December, I spent 5 hours, 21 minutes a week on them, 45 minutes a day. About right.

Email. In December, I spent 3 hours 3 minutes a week, 35 a day. Can be reduced to 20 perhaps?

 

	Time/week
	Dec. avg.	Goal – this week	Goal – year end
Writing	7h 10 min	8h	35h
Social media	11h 17 min	8h	3h 30min
News, Blogs, Magazines	5h 21 min	5 hours	5 hours
Email	3h 3min	2 hours	2h

* * *

My current plan is to do 10-15 minutes of answering email, FB messages, tweets, and blog comments, and then lock myself out of the internet for 3-4 hours at a time, building up to 8 hours. So in a month or so, I will only be interacting or surfing online 3 times a day, which should give me more concentrated time for thinking, reading and writing.

So help me, God.

Now, I do not expect to do all these things every day. But those I miss one day, I will do on the next day, or the day after that, under the watchful, loving eye of my God.

And failure in a long-term good enterprise is no big deal. Pick yourself up, dust off your knees, and start again.

 

And here are some helpful posts on goals

Mark Batterson talks about how having goals activates our reticular activating system.

And, according to The New York Times, we are more likely to keep our resolutions when we reinforce our willpower.

	Mo	Tue	We	Th	Fri	Sa	Su
Wake Early			*	*	*	*
Prayer			*	*	*	*
Family Time		*	*	*	*	*	*
Bible Blog		*	*		*	*
Memoir
Little Book
Blog		*					*
Walk		*		*	*	*	*
Yoga/Weights			*
Gardening
Housework			*	*
Read Blogs
Read BooksTinker wBlog Design		*	*	**	*	*	*