Thought we’d be social not just matter-of-factly-business-minded every now and again?
I have a few big items that are just going to be on auto-pilot (enforced through either work or relationships), but for the things I have control of, I have set a challenge for myself to just set a high score for number of books read this year. No actual goal, just pretending I’ve never read before, and trying to see what number I get to by December 31st. So far I’m one and a half books in.
EDIT: Second sub-goal is “no new projects”. I aim to set a second high score for “number of open projects completed in a year”. Again, no actual goal number, just an open highway feeling of hoping to really impress myself.
What’s on everyone else’s hopes list for this year?
Nice one. Definitely more reading for me as well, as a consequence of my own desire to check less nonsense on the internet. Six days in and it’s working really well.
I’m curious what you’re reading? I’ve had Frank Trentmann’s Empire of Things on the shelf for ages so I’m in to that. Ties in nicely with our recent purge of household items – after the office we spent the next week chucking away a bunch of stuff from the rest of the house. 100% recommended.
I just burned through the Jack Reacher short story collection, and now I’ve got the War of the Worlds ebook out from the library on my iPad.
I read someone’s list of tips on how to read more and the couple that stood out were:
If you don’t like a book, stop reading it! Full agree here.
Have one fiction and two non-fiction on the go. Then you can read whatever you’re in the mood for.
So far I’ve read Jimmy Carr’s Before & Laughter, and David Bessis’s Mathematica. I highly recommend only the latter. It’s rare that a book tickles one’s sense of curiosity. There’s books that kickstart it, or books that drive it. But this book only points it out, then shows how it can be turned into math. Very cute, confidence inducing book.
Ohh this is a trick I should pick up.
Next book up is Anna Karenina, but I am afraid of its length so having some non fiction on the side might be nice.
Happy new year everyone! Looks like I haven’t actually posted here even though I’ve been lurking for ages. Seems like a good thread for me to make my first post though.
I don’t do new year’s resolutions per se as (being in Australia) December tends to be a stressful end-of-the-work-year period and that’s not the best mindset for me to bring to planning. Generally over Christmas to mid-January I make some time to do a sort of yearly review with the help of YearCompass. If nothing else, I try to come up with a word phrase/theme for the new year.
I do have one JD-related short-term project pencilled in for January though: simplify/consolidate my system/s. I discovered JD a few years ago when I was studying part time and doing a bit of freelance/consulting in my previous career, so I built a PRO.AC.ID system. Johnny’s moved on from that, and my life is a bit simpler now (I graduated and am working in my new field) so I can at least think of replacing the various ‘PRO’/project prefixes with a smaller set. The twist is that I graduated in library science so I have to resist the temptation to Dewey Decimal everything
This is very cool. For me 2024 was a year of finding direction, and I’d say I did that pretty well, but I haven’t caught up on my year yet.
I just printed YearCompass, and the JD 93 Workbook Section. I’ve organized my personal projects area in my JD by emotional needs that the projects fulfill. I’ll go through YearCompass first to catch up on last year and see how I feel about it all, then double back through the workbook to see if I missed any glaring emotional needs in my JD system.
Thanks for the rec! I’d also be curious if you’ve done YearCompass more than once or twice if you ever see re-occurrences? Like if you feel your life is somehow some kind of loop?
I think I started doing YearCompass just before or during the pandemic, and funnily enough, the first few years did feel like a loop
I didn’t do it last year because I felt stuck in a rut which is … a great reason to do YearCompass. I haven’t completed 2024-2025 yet but I’m trying to be more intentional about observing how things have been changing (maybe even improving) in my life and in how I view the world.
