new year’s resolutions
Track Goal Progress and To-Do’s on Google Calendar
7:07AM Gina Trapani | After trying Remember the Milk, Todoist, Sandy, and Basecamp, blogger Zee found his best solution for tracking goals and tasks in Google Calendar. He created five-year, one-year, and then quarterly goals. For each three-month goal, he creates a new, different-coloured calendar, and schedules tasks along the road to completion. By the end of it you should have a calendar full of your tasks, appointments and all of them focused on achieving goals which you set yourself. The important thing to remember is always think when you’re about to add a task: “Which three month goal is this helping me achieve?” If the answer is none, dump it. I use Google Calendar to schedule milestones along the way to goals (like saving money) as well, and with email reminders, it’s an effective way at least to keep your finish line in your mind as the year progresses. Google Calendar as a Todo List [Creative Thoughts] More »
Wager Cash on Your Goals at StickK
11:36AM Gina Trapani | Serious enough about your New Year’s resolutions to put money on them? To appoint a referee and cheering section to check in on your progress? You can do just that at StickK, a goal monitoring web site where you commit to achieving something and literally pay if you don’t make progress. Set up a goal at StickK, like losing 20 pounds in the next four months, and then decide to put $20 a week towards that goal. If you don’t make it? Your total cash goes to a charity of your choice. You can also appoint a friend or relative to be a referee, who checks up on your progress. Looks like a neat way to turn peer and financial pressure on yourself to achieve your goals. stickK.com [via Web Worker Daily] More »What’s your computing new year’s resolution?
3:03PM Sarah Stokely | Forget your waistline or learning to play the violin – how about making a new year’s resolution to kick some of those terrible computing habits you’ve picked up over the years? It could be spending too much time web browsing, or (in my case) a critical failure to backup. The Web Worker Daily blog has offered some suggestions for
making your computing more secure in 2008 – including using a portable
thumbdrive to backup your computer, and using a VPN when connecting to
the internet from a public place.It got me to thinking about the plans I’m making to improve my computing experience this year. On the agenda is setting up regular backups, and ensuring that my backups are done in such a way that system recovery would be quick and simple. I haven’t yet decided if I want to backup to a hardware device or to an online service.And, inspired by our very own Gina Trapani’s Lifehacker book, I’m planning on setting up my computer to create automatic backups this year. I really like the idea of a computer which will wake itself up at 2am to run the backup program, then return to hibernate mode.I’m also considering things like VPNs and encrypted emails, but I wonder whether those fall into the category of ‘over the top’ security.So what’s your computing new year’s resolution? Do you have a plan for making your computing environment more secure (or more streamlined) this year? What do you think is good enough security, and what’s over the top? Share in comments please.
Six ways to start off secure in ‘08 [Web Worker Daily]
More » Resolve to Make Modest Changes
3:30AM Gina Trapani | Productivity blogger Merlin Mann recaps his January “Fresh Starts and Modest Changes” podcasts and posts in an attempt to make New Year’s resolution season less unrealistic and more doable. The point, as ever, is that change is not to be found in the play-acting and sense of personal revolution that the resolution — good-natured as its intention may be — demands of us. The real cipher is to just get into the habit of noticing the small things that might bring about outsized improvements in our lives. We linked several of Merlin’s posts on the topic last year when they originally ran, but they’re worth another read if you’re already rubbing your bottom after falling off the resolution wagon. What small changes are you making in your life in ‘08? Let us know in the comments. Beginning the Year with Fresh Starts [43 Folders] More »
Keep Your Weight Loss Plan Simple to See Results
2:00AM Kevin Purdy | If you’ve got both a weight loss goal for the new year, don’t spend money (or gift cards) and time obsessing over the latest and greatest diet book. That’s according to the New York Times’ personal health columnist, who offers a helpful reminder that if you cut your calorie intake below your maintenance level, you will slowly but surely lose weight: My advice here is to save your money, toss out (or donate to a soup kitchen) the leftover high-calorie holiday fare, gradually reduce your portion sizes and return to your exercise routine (or adopt one if you spent too much of ‘07 on your sofa). Also simple but still relevant, the Times says, is the “gold standard” meal, stacked with vegetables, fruits and whole grains, with a small bit of protein. For a helping hand achieving your goal, check out Gina’s compilation of weight loss hacks. No Gimmicks: Eat Less and Exercise More [New York Times] More »
Free Tools to Manage New Year’s Resolutions
3:15AM Gina Trapani | Happy New Year, lifehackers! Lots of you are kicking off 2008 with New Year’s resolutions, but they won’t keep themselves. To reach the goals you’ve set out for yourself in ‘08, follow through each and every one of the next 365 days—several free tools can help you with just that. Track your progress and help motivate yourself to stick to your New Year’s resolutions with our favorite goal tracking webapps and tools. More »Your Biggest New Year’s Resolution?
10:00AM Gina Trapani | Lose weight. Save money. Quit smoking. Get fit. Rule the world. Is this what your New Year’s resolution list looks like? We spend all day yapping about the ways you can improve your life, and the brand New Year is the time lots of people choose to muster the resolve. So tell us, dear lifehackers, what is your grand Poobah of all resolutions in 2008, the one you’ll grit your teeth and stick to like glue for as long as you can possibly stand it? Inspire us by shouting out your resolve in the comments.
New Year’s Resolutions: Yea or Nay?
8:00AM Gina Trapani | The New Year is almost upon us, a time of relentless weight loss product commercials and self-improvement talk. Personally, I love to make resolutions. That said, hitting the gym on January 2nd is a nightmare, and you can work on improving yourself any time of year. So before we hit you with a barrage of New Year’s resolution posts, we want to know: Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser. Two years ago almost 65% of you were all “Bah, humbug!” about resolutions. State your case on resolutions this New Year in the comments. Photo by Joe Shlabotnik.
