Planning for 2012

About this time every year I think about what I’ve accomplished in the current year and what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year. Today’s blog item is about the forward look….what I’ve found works best for me. It is not as simple as making a short list of resolutions although that can be a starting point.

The key ‘extra step’ is to establish some frequently taken measurement toward the annual goal. It is important to do this because for almost everyone ‘what gets measured gets done.’ Here are some examples about developing those measurements that will help you accomplish whatever annual goals you set.

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If you want to take off 20 pounds and get in shape during 2012 some example measurements could be:

• Lose 2 pounds per month for the 1st 10 months of the year and sustain your weight for the last 2 months of 2012 (check your weight weekly to know where you are in the 2 pound window for the month)
• Average 12,000 steps per day (use the same pedometer or other measurement device for the whole year) and measure at least weekly
• Lose 10 pounds in the first quarter (January-February-March), sustain the loss in the second quarter, lose 10 pounds in the third quarter (July-August-September), sustain the loss in the fourth quarter.

Of course, this also means that whatever you measure can warp your behavior for the negative. If you decide that the bathroom scale is your sole metric - don’t fall into the obsession of weighing yourself several times a day. You could even decide to weigh yourself infrequently but use a pair of tight jeans as a secondary metric (it always is wonderful to be comfortable in clothes that were previously tight!).

If you have a previous goal that was very successful, it may have become habit and you really don’t need a new annual goal. I had the 12,000 steps a day goal in 2011 and now it is easily achieved with the way I move through my day. For 2012 it is something I will continue doing it but it isn’t a stretch goal any more. Maybe this year I’ll do something with intensity of those steps; this is something my Fitbit Wireless Activity/Sleep Tracker measures so it would be a way to challenge myself to a higher level of activity while simply sustaining the total steps.

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Establishing a goal to see more of the area you live in - hiking or museums or restaurants - is a goal for many people and may increase in importance if you already know the time you will live in the area is limited. Some example measurements:

• Take at least one local excursion every month (make the list of 12 now or decide that you will magnet the directions/brochure to your refrig at the beginning of each month). If the activity is weather dependent, do it as early in the month as possible so that you won’t have to double up the following month.
• Take a local vacation week and plan day trips every day of the week. Plan an excursion for every holiday rather than spending the day at home.

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If you have accumulated a lot of stuff over many years…and are ready to jettison some of it, a goal for 2012 might help get it done. Here some example ways to measure your progress.

• Spend 2 hours each week reducing clutter around the house.
• Donate or freecycle at least once a month.
• Wipe hard drives then take old electronics to Best Buy for recycling by mid-year
• Participate in the neighborhood yard sale in the fall
• Develop of month by month plan of all of the above

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Sometimes a goal can be about a habit you want to change. A few years ago I decided that it would be useful for me to use my left hand for the computer mouse even though I am right handed (so I can have a pad and pen on the right side of my keyboard and the mouse will not be in the way). It took me a few weeks to get reasonably comfortable and a little longer to get totally proficient with the left hand…but now I actually am more coordinated using the mouse with my left hand than with the right. The key for a goal like this is to ‘just do it’ and discipline yourself to stick with it for some pre-established period of time. I used 2 weeks for my initial time window and by the end of the period knew that I could learn to use the mouse with my left hand and the new habit was well on its way being established.

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I almost always have a goal related to journaling since it helps me keep perspective on everything happening in my life. At first my measurement was ‘write something every day’ - there was no length or quality metric. Then I used ‘write a page a day’ and went through times when poems became my popular form of entry because it would make a page pretty quickly. This year I may go with a word count metric…something like ‘1000 words a day.’

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So - do your goals for 2012 and get a fast start on all of them at the beginning of the year!

Waking Up in the Morning

If you were completely without external constraints on when you needed to wake up – what would your preferred awakening be like?

Most of us would respond that we prefer to just wake up on our own with a gradual transition from sleep to wakefulness…feeling rested and ready for the day ahead.

I sleep fairly easily and could probably achieve this as long as I

• Go to sleep about the same time every night and
• Get up when I first awaken in the morning rather than dozing.

Those are two pretty significant provisos and require discipline that sometime is not possible. The most likely nonconformities are – I stay up later if I am in the middle of something at bedtime and I sometimes decide to go back to sleep in the morning…sleeping longer and waking up with a headache if it goes on too long. If I am not at home, my sleep is different….not quite as sound because I am more wary or a bit uncomfortable; that doesn’t necessarily mean I need to sleep longer, it just may interfere with my biological clock that would normally wake me up.

So – almost everyone, including me, will try various other methods of waking up.

The loud, harsh alarm clock is dreaded but common. It does wake you up. The big negative is that it is jarring. Discipline is required to not hit the snooze button to recover from the shock. Whatever advantage finishing the sleep cycle might provide is completely gone too. It isn’t too bad if it is really just the backup plan and you are really already awake because it is your normal time to get up.

There are better sounding alarm clocks that play music or nature sounds. They too wake you up unless you are a very sound sleeper or the volume is turned too low. Again – they work best if you are really already awake and you avoid the snooze feature. Remember – the snooze feature will not allow you to get any quality sleep since it is too short; it’s only function is recovery from the shock of waking up which you want to avoid anyway by waking up at a consistent time each day.

Setting a timer – say 8 hours – from whenever you go to bed is another technique. I tend to be at my best with about 7.5 hours actually in bed. I’ve found that being in bed for over 8 hours actually makes me feel ill! My timer has a harsh beep so it has a lot of similarities to the alarm clock. I only use this option when I am traveling across time zones and know that my biological clock will be unreliable.

Of course – it helps to have the sun rising when you awaken. I’ve had an east facing window in my bedroom for the past 20 or so years and like the early light. It isn’t there in the winter time when I get up but it helps for a greater part of the year. I’ve considered what it would be like to gradually change my bedtime so that I would always get up at dawn. There is an app that would provide an alarm relative to sunrise….but I haven’t tried it yet.

There are also alarm clocks that start with light to wake you up…simulating a sunrise. Most of them have noise that eventually kicks in if the light does not do the trick. That would seem like the gentlest approach to waking up at a consistent time. Most of them are pretty expensive so a simple timer that turns on the lights in your bedroom may be something to try first!

While we are on the subject of waking up….think about what is driving the time and way you awaken. The determining factor has changed over time for me:

• 40 years ago – being at work or school by a particular time
• 20 years ago –picking my daughter up by a certain time in the afternoon required an early wake up time/start at work
• 10 years ago – leaving home early enough to avoid a lot of traffic for the morning commute to work
• Now – recognizing that I am a morning person

10 Characteristics of a Matriarch

The idea of a matriarch of a large extended family is probably changed slightly for the 21^st century…but only to the extent that families are not so large. Otherwise the concept holds. Here are my favorite characteristics of a matriarch.

1. Past the drive to make a living. The prime drive to establish oneself in the world and make an acceptable home is probably from ages 22-55. It can vary but there comes a point in life where the focus on a career shifts to something else much more integrated with everything else life has to offer because the hard work has paid off and the prospect of doing something completely different can take precedence.
2. Children are living independently. Until ones children are living independently, you are a mother rather than a matriarch!
3. Healthy and full of energy. Matriarchs have retained their health through lifestyle choices and care for themselves. They often appear younger than they are because of their attitude toward life and their energy pursuing whatever interests them.
4. Understands herself better than earlier in her life. The changes that occur as children become independent and the long term career ends (usually intentionally) forces a period of contemplation about what is truly important for the next phase of life. The answers don’t particularly surprise our matriarch…she views the time to think about it to be the tremendous luxury of the in-between days.
5. Self-actualized decisions. As a teenager and adult, she may have followed the advice of her parents or mentors or managers. All that was good. Now she is much more in the mode of making her own decisions with inputs from others not being quite as important as they were earlier in her life.
6. Post-menopausal (i.e. past child bearing). The joy of not having a monthly rhythm…feeling great all the time!
7. Knows how to live within her means. Whatever her financial situation, she knows exactly how to make ends meet and sustain her home. After all – she plans to live to be 100.
8. Assertive. She is nice about it, but she is savvy and does not let people take advantage of her unfairly.
9. Lots of self-discipline. She gets up fairly early in the morning because she is enthusiastic about getting started on the activities of her day. Her rhythms of communication with the people she loves are consistent and thoughtful. The interests she develops are wide ranging and shared as she develops relationships with like-minded others.
10. Married. She is known for her long duration relationships….most notably a spouse…although it could be friends as well. If she is widowed she does not live in the past but she may not feel it necessary to form a new relationship that cannot rise to the same level of shared history.

How about you? Are you a matriarch? Do you know one?