Your Worksheet for a More Satisfying 2023
Resolutions shmesolutions. Make a plan.
Since 2016, I’ve taken New Year’s Resolutions (NYR) very seriously. To me, they represent an opportunity to look ahead, plan, and exert some minimal amount of control over my life.
This year is no different, and I’ve made a handful of resolutions that I want to show you. I want to show you how I plan, and help you plan your own year. There’s a free worksheet at the bottom that you can download.
Before anything else, let’s get one thing straight. One can only exert very minimal control over their life. We’re bags of meat on a rock floating in a void going around a massive nuclear reactor. Nothing is inherently meaningful, and everything we worry about isn’t even a pixel on the cosmic scale.
That being said, this nihilism doesn’t help when you’re living day to day and your cat throws up on your couch and you have to clean it up at 5 in the morning. The nihilism doesn’t help when you’re dealing with a troublesome boss, an unhappy partner, or an irreverent government officer.
We deal with thousands of microscopic cuts on our psyche in the complicated mess that we live in. In such a situation, we need to put the cosmic nihilism aside, and make simple plans to help make everything easier.
Also, there is nothing special about NYR. I’ve previously written how every Monday can be a new year.
However, the advantage of NYR is you can have an eagle-eye view of how your life could look. We’re going to start from the top, and then build downwards. So let’s get started.
Step 1: Make your big overview
This Anna Akana video is one I come back to often. She breaks down her life into categories (or domains, as I like to call them) and sets up her “ideal self” for each of them.
We’re going to do the same, but with our own domains. I’ve used her model before to great success, but this year I’m being more tangible. My domains this year are:
Finance: This is a staple category every year because practically, it affects every other category.
Job: My day job is my primary source of income, and I need to factor it in to any plans I have.
Thorough and Unkempt: I’m enjoying writing these blogs and producing the podcast, and I want to maintain consistency with them as much as I can.
Dungeons and Dragons: This is a major hobby of mine.
Fitness: I’ve been consistent for 2 months thanks to a personal trainer. I plan to continue working with him.
Novelty: This is a new category, and something I realize I desperately need in my life to feel happy.
Mental Health: As someone with recurrent depression, I always have to keep an eye on my mental health. Luckily, we’re starting the year healthy.
From the above list, you can see that my goals don’t exist in a bubble. A mistake that people often make is not accounting for the cost of change.
When you add new habits into your life, you need to remove something else from it. You’re not going to magically find time - you need to take it away from something else, even if that something is 6 hours of TV a day.
You watch TV for 6 hours for a reason, whatever that reason might be. When setting goals, be kind to yourself and acknowledge that you’re sacrificing something else from your life.
Goals don’t exist in a bubble. Not accounting for the cost of change is a mistake.
Exercise: Break down your 2023 into your domains of focus. See worksheet at the bottom of the article.
Step 2: Plan a quarter at a time
Through 2016 to 2020, I often ended up forgetting my NYRs, resulting in a measly success rate of 20% on average. In 2021, I started making quarter plans and my success rate nearly tripled (~58%)!
I find that three months is a large enough time-frame to do big, meaningful projects, while small enough to warrant me revisiting my goals frequently.
For each of your domains, create 1-5 goals you want to complete within the quarter.
Here are my goals for this quarter, with a few things redacted for privacy:
FINANCE:
1. Pay [redacted] every month towards home costs.
2. Add [redacted] every month to my investments.
3. Save [redacted] for my trip to [redacted].
JOB:
1. Finish tasks in the sprint plans with consistency.
2. Split tasks into task types and handle one task type a day.
THOROUGH AND UNKEMPT:
1. Publish Everyday People every Tuesday (Episodes 117-129).
2. Publish blog every Friday or Saturday (13 blog posts).
3. Make Instagram reels for podcast highlights, disregarding time delays.
4. Establish user flow to paid subscriptions.
5. Grow Books of Zemera library by at least 3 entries.
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS:
1. Start running the Deception of Teressa campaign again, twice a month.
2. Build Zemera - write history of The Rasavir Dynasty and The Korkynn.
FITNESS:
1. Continue working with my personal trainer.
2. Weight milestones: 80kg, 77kg.
NOVELTY:
1. Video games: Pokemon Scarlet, P5R, Elden Ring, Xenoblade Chronicles 1.
2. Travel to [redacted] in March.
3. [redacted]
MENTAL HEALTH:
No goals. Continue monitoring, and contact therapist in case of a downswing.Step 3: Break down your weekly tasks
After you have your quarter goals, you’re ready to go. Now you just need to have actionable tasks for your days and weeks. I find weekly planning as a good way to proceed, because it gives me some flexibility to account for any mental health dips.
I also like to write brief journal entries and notes to myself. It feels like a dialogue with myself, and helps me treat these tasks as things I am excited to do, instead of just grinding wheels.
My format for my weekly plan changes frequently, so feel free to make whatever suits you. Here’s an example of what I used this week:
And that’s it! Now it’s up to you.
Expect another blog post towards the end of March about closing out your quarter plan and drawing insights from it. Simply completing tasks isn’t going to be satisfying; we have to reflect and attribute meaning to them.
Remember: in a meaningless world, we create our own meaning.
Summary
You saw the screenshots. I made a free worksheet to help you. Download below!
There is nothing special about NYRs. Every Monday can be a new year.
Start by deciding which domains of life you’ll focus on this year. They can be broad categories or specific activities.
Make goals for a three month time-frame to balance flexibility and time. For each domain, create 1-5 goals for the quarter.
Make weekly plans focusing on a handful of goals at a time. At the end of the week, mark off items and write notes to yourself to feel good.
Remember that in a meaningless world, we create our own meaning.