2018: The Year of Focus
Editor's note: This was originally sent out in the newsletter on 01/01/18
Just like the end of the year brings reflection, the start of the year brings looking forward to a clean slate. The next few days will be full of people talking about what their resolutions for the year are. I am starting to think resolutions are sort of silly in a way. I am a full supporter of a person having goals, but to think that we try to make these long overreaching goals that are supposed to last us a year is kind of silly. The idea that we can only start these things on this one day is odd. We can have goals any day. There is no need to wait until the new year to start them. If there is something you want to achieve you should start moving toward it now. (Here is a great article from Merlin Mann from about six years ago with some of these ideas.)I am not saying I haven’t done this myself. Each year I usually come up with a few goals for the year, some I never look at, others I see and realize I never did. This year I am going to try something different, I am going to try and pre-frame 2018 with a theme; Focus. Now I am going to admit that from the start I am going to use focus as a loose term but I think I can apply it well. It will stand as a call to action; when I am given free time I can think about where my focus should be. It can be used to question what I am doing, is this the proper focus? Some other great things to focus on;- I can try to real in my focus on what I am taking in, is any of this even important? (Great article about this idea.) I plan to talk about following the news and FOMO more later as well.- I can focus on giving myself time to process information (another idea I think about a lot and will probably write about at some point, good article on that here).- I can focus on cleaning and simplify my digital world. I have 379 apps on my phone right now, could I possibly need all of them?I do still have a few goals for the year; I want to read at least 25 books, I want to track more data points, I want to try to meditate, read, and write every day. These things are smaller in grandeur though. I think they are things I can obtain by making small changes in my everyday life. I like to make more realistic quarterly goals though, I find them much more manageable. I also want to experiment more with this newsletter, I continue to aim for one a week, but I may try and throw in some different formats. We will see how that goes.What are you trying, do you have any goals for the year, or need someone to keep you accountable? Or do you even have things you would like to see from this newsletter? Send me some feedback about any of it and let me know.