New Year Resolutions

I decided that this year will be different from all previous resolution-forgetting, resolution-neglecting years. It WILL be different, it WILL be successful, and it WILL carry its success spirit over to the future.

So other than putting a bunch of WILL's in my post, what exactly will I do differently this time around, to ensure that my goals are met?

For starters, I am now using Joe's Goals to track my progress. It is a simple goal-tracking application, where you give points for days that you were successful, or negative points for unsuccessful days. You can track as many goals as you wish, even writing logbooks to detail them. The only complaint that I have is the negative/positve point system. I'm not quite sure how to utilize negative points to my advantage, and there is no help page. But I'll take a wild guess and say that really, it's up to you how to score goals.

Secondly, I have an account at Mint.com. Money always dragged me down in years past, due to my family's less-than-ideal financial situation, and since October, I have been left to feed, shelter, and clothe myself, with the only monetary help coming from my brother to help fund my tuition. Therefore, because I'm somewhat prone to impulsive buying and forgetting, I need a way to help track my assets without having to write everything down. Mint.com exceeds my needs, even going so far as to track HOW my money is spent, a feature that I desperately need.

Finally, for those who don't know, I have been deep in graphic-novel obsession for months now, and a few notable works have given me hope and motivation to create my own. It's about time to get my daydreams, obsessions, and confessions into the open air and hold nothing back. I hope to free myself from the burdens that has plagued me since childhood, and working on a graphic novel will help with that.

"All right!" you say, "get on with it! What ARE your goals?"

1. Work on my own website. Originally planned for completion by the end of Summer 2008, it... obviously hasn't happened (otherwise, I wouldn't be using Blogger). I hope to have some working version by the end of January. In addition to a blog, I hope to put up an artwork gallery, web design works, a collection of writings, and a music collection. The first item is in high priority.

2. Work on my first graphic novel. This is more of an anthology of short stories rather than a novel, but I lack the proper term to describe this ("graphic anthology"?). A full-fledged autobiography (possible a series) is in the planning stage, though the anthology comes in first; after all, I need first a small step into the graphic-novel industry. This goal is a bit more difficult to achieve, primarily because I don't have many acquaintances or friends who are as obsessed about graphic novels as I am. But I'm sure Comic Relief (the local comics store in Berkeley) has some resources.

3. Draw and/or doodle every day. I got this idea from Dani Jones, who wrote about overcoming artist's block and fueling creativity. The idea is simply to draw anything every day, setting aside a few minutes to do so. The doodles can be ANYTHING, on the condition that they are not for any particular job, and they have to stretch the imagination a bit. I decided to extend it to devoting half an hour every day for doodling and sketching. And what better time to do so than right before bedtime :). Check out Dani's original post.

4. Get no more than 8 hours of sleep every day. Not as trivial as you may think. I sleep a lot (well, definitely a lot more than most CS majors :)), clocking in an average of 10 hours per day. That may seem nice, but seriously, too much sleep isn't good. If I get too much sleep, I feel inclined to sleep more. Not kidding. Under this condition, I could spend a whole day in bed, a situation that I wish to avoid. After all, I want/would like to stay productive.

5. Make music. While I have Reason 4 and Ableton Live, I touched them very sparingly, Ableton even less so. This goal won't have much progress until I get my Macbook Pro (yeah, I ordered one before New Year's) - my current laptop is underpowered, not to mention prone to crashed and lags and slowdowns and frozen screens and yadayadayada. Why music? Because I have a lot of songs in my head that I made up and never got around to record/compose them. It'll be nice to see what they actually SOUND like, rather than IMAGINED like.

The above goals are to be worked on every day. Unfortunately, I can't seem to share my goals on Joe's Goals. A simple profile page would be nice.

So! What's in it for you?

It's much easier to accomplish your goals if your friends are involved: to cheer you on, to lend a helping hand, to bet a hundred bucks that you can't do this. So fellow readers and friends, when you can, when you want to, nag me about my New Year's resolutions. Nag nag nag me until I reach my wit's end. Seriously. Nag me. I'll thank you for it.