Remember last year when I posted 18 for 2018? Yeah. Me neither. Here’s the link in case you, like myself, haven’t looked at it since December 30, 2017. Or maybe you haven’t seen it at all. The idea was one adapted by Gretchen Rubin from a listener to her podcast. It’s essentially creating your own happiness project for the new year by comprising a list of things that you want to do in the New Year.
Recently, Gretchen and her sister, Liz Craft, updated listeners on the progress that they made with their 2018 lists. Not surprisingly, Gretchen had made great strides with her list. Liz made about as much progress as I did. Which is to say not much.
Here’s my 18 in 2018 update...
Learn how to drive a standard. Womp, womp. I think I should recycle this one…
Train for and crush this (or at least avoid drowning). I signed up for this earlier this week. Nope.
Cancel membership to Boost Fitness. Spend the $ at FA, spin, etc. instead as you train for #2. No. But I did cancel my Elements membership that I’d signed on for while in grad school. There's kind of a funny (well, it's funny in retrospect) story that I'll have to write about some time. When I write it, pretend I did not say Massage Envy so no one sues me. Anway....
Plan and go on a trip with Andrea to someplace we haven’t been yet. Yes! We went to a new rental place in Maine this summer. We visited Kripalu together. We also booked a Getaway. We have booked a trip to Ireland, Scotland and England for 2019.
Keep writing AND try art journaling! Yes-ish. I have been writing fairly consistently in this space. But I have not tried art journaling. Yet.
Try a spin class at Rev’d and/or CYCL-3 near my office. Yes! I also attended a Cycle Bar class.
Do another run and/or exercise streak of 30+ days. I feel like I’d remember this if I’d done it. So let’s say no.
Cut sugar for 30 days. Yes. Kick the sugar-free party off in January. Yes. See how that goes. You probably won’t die…. Probably. Then I fell off of the no sugar wagon and ate all of the sugar. Dammit.
Organize your makeup and throw old shit/non-working shit out. YES! I did this!
Overhaul household budget with Mrs. Smith in Q1. We didn’t do this.
Try a barre class at the studio(s) near work. Yes!
Andrea and I to implement “Cell Free Saturday” at least once a month. I think that this was “implemented” in a formal fashion. But I’m giving it a yes-ish anyway.
Meditate. I like the idea of 30-day sprints…. Yes-ish. I did meditate but it wasn’t a consistent practice.
Get together for dinner with your old work pals. Um. No. Not exactly. But it’s interesting that I wrote this in December of 2017. I suspect I wrote this because I was missing so many of these people. I did, however, have breakfast with a former colleague and that’s a whole separate blog post. Later.
Get a reading (psychic medium) from Regina’s at her place. Yes!
Use gratitude journal with more regularity. Nope.
Organize a Puzzle Escape night in Hudson, MA. Yes! I found proof of this in my Instagram!
Work! Delegate when appropriate at work; slow down and cut down on multi-tasking. I wish I could climb into a tiny time machine and go back to what I was thinking when I wrote this. Bee-bah-boop-doot. That was the time machine. Okay. I got nothing. I do, however, have a lot of thoughts about work. Many of which began to take shape as I began to read The Buddha Walks Into an Office while away this weekend. I couldn't read the whole thing in a weekend so I ordered a copy. Anyway. How did I do with this? I did the best I could given team member composition and my singlehanded implementation of HRIS software. So this gets a yes.
What this list like this fails to take into consideration is all the stuff that you DID accomplish or participate in that you hadn’t planned on. For example, Liz Craft produced a new TV show (please don’t ask me what it is…). While I did NOT produce a TV show, I did…
Ran the Falmouth Road Race for Susan G. Komen.
Implemented new software at work.
Adopt a puppy.
Got my poor boob biopsied to bits and received great test results (benign!)
Attend the SHRM conference in Chicago this past July.
Andrea and I helped the Bertinator out by removing the creepy wallpaper from her bathroom.
Attended IDCon in NYC.
Watched Northeastern win the Beanpot!
Andrea and I participated in a paint night – my first!
In spite of my failing grade (it’s a D- at best), I’ll probably do this again. But I should look at it throughout the year, instead of once at the end of the year because by this time of year, you’re a bit pressed for time to make this happen. I should have started this list thing in 2000. Zero for ’00. Nailed it!