Steff.me

I’ve decided to take a look back at my New Year’s resolutions and see just how well I’ve done so far. In previous years I’ve pretty much either ignored what I’ve set out to do or I’ve given up a few days into January.

1. Decide between black and white and buy a workstation around that.
2. Start going to the gym, with a Nike + iPod.
3. Stop spending so much on things I don’t really need (does not include number 1).
4. Work on my concentration skills and stop procrastinating.

The first one wasn’t too hard. I decided on white and have bought myself a new iMac to do all my work on. I’ll also be buying myself a MacBook (although, I may buy a MacBook Pro) in the summer.

Number two. I joined the gym, however due to illness and coursework I’ve not managed to go as much as I’d like to have. I have an appointment with my personal trainer this Friday but I’m planning on getting in a good two or three times before that.

Number three has been a bit difficult. I cancelled my World of Warcraft subscription due to this one and I’ve not been buying as many Wii games as I would have. Also, when it gets late sometimes I can’t be bothered to cook and so I have, unfortunately, been buying take-aways too. In an effort to bring this down I have filled my freezer with food and also have two “ready-meals” available at all times. Having the ready-meals there means that I’m literally fifteen minutes away from eating, so I have no excuse to order a take-away which usually have a half hour waiting time. This will also help with number two because take-aways don’t make the gym any easier. All in all, I think I’ve managed to bring down the amount I spend and hopefully I’ll keep bringing it down too. Being a student, I don’t have all that much to spend!

Number four, definitely the most difficult. It’s mainly due to my multi-tasking nature that I find this very hard. The only reason I multi-task is because I get bored very quickly unless I keep my brain entertained. If I keep working on different tasks, I’m never bored. Just to illustrate what I mean: as I’m writing this blog post I’m listening to music via iTunes on my iMac, I’m watching a trailer for a movie via www.apple.com/trailers and I’m working on some java 2D graphics program on my PowerBook. While my eyes can’t be everywhere, I’m flicking back and forth between everything fairly quickly and I’m constantly thinking about all of them. Yes.. I am a freak.

(Note: I just took a ten second break here to respond to an email, close the trailer which had finished and change tracks on iTunes as it started playing something odd).

In an effort to try and concentrate a bit more I found an application called WriteRoom. I’ve started using it to write blog posts which don’t require me to browse the web at the same time; otherwise I find myself using TextMate. There have been other applications I’ve seen to concentrate you on single applications, however I find them rather irritating. The difference is that while I’m writing I do like to concentrate so that I don’t lose my trail of thought. WriteRoom lets me do that, purely just for my writing, which is great.

So how am I doing? Out of the four resolutions I set myself, I’ve managed to complete two of them and I’m still working strong on the other two. Compared to previous attempts, this is going incredibly well! I’ll do another update in a couple of months, to check how well I’m doing.

How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Have you managed to keep on track or have you already fallen?