Sunday, December 8, 2013

December 2013 Goals Update #1

It turns out December is a crazy month to attempt a couple of the goals. Work has been nuts so finding time to work on side projects and work out has been a challenge. Sometimes my "workout" has been limited to jumping with the kids in the bouncy house we have in the basement. Or in the case of today, spending time with the kids playing outside in the snow.  A couple days I have missed my workout and/or working on side project.

The one that has proven to be really interesting and more of a challenge than I thought is the no unnecessary purchases for myself rule. December has two things going on: general sales just about everywhere you turn as retailer gear up for Christmas. This is something I was expecting.

What I wasn't expecting is almost every digital distribution channel out there - Apple's App Store, Google Play, Amazon Kindle store, and Valve's Steam - are doing some variation of "Here's the best of the year, and it's ALL one sale." type of promotions.

As someone who enjoys using good apps and playing original indie games, this is really hard to resist. So far I have managed.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

December 2013 Goals - Making December 2013 the Thirteenth Month of 2014

I've decided the best way to make 2014 rock is start figuring out what direction I want to go in 2014 and take baby steps to make it happen in December 2013. Kudos to Scott Smith of Motivation To Move for this great nugget of advice on his podcast.

I have also decided I need to have a limit on how many goals I try to track at once. Five is the absolute maximum, three would be ideal. It happens this month that a couple of my goals enforce each other so I think five is alright in this situation.

Here are my five goals:

  1. Workout daily.
  2. Eat healthy more often than not (or "Be more gooder than badder" as Scott would say)
  3. Work on a side project every day (app development and blogging are the main two I'm considering)
  4. Finish version 1.0 of the Bible Trekking app
  5. No unnecessary purchases for myself
I'd like to unpack that last one a little bit now. I've had previous posts about my tendency to impulse buy stuff I don't need and then I go around the house complaining we have too much junk we don't use. Solution: first, stop buying the stuff! Then get rid of whatever I don't use.

If I buy for something else, that's fine - otherwise Christmas shopping would not be allowed. Buying necessities is of course fine. I plan on just adding anything I want to a list and look at it in January and I'll likely be wondering why I wanted all this clutter in my life.

Today I had my first shopping trip with this rule. For some reason I was very tempted to buy a candy bar (which I do occasionally buy at the checkout) and an energy drink (which I normally only buy when I gas up the car).