Twelve is attainable.

The nostalgia of December is quickly wearing off for the hope and promise of the new year. Every year I seem to make resolutions, and ever year I don’t follow through with all of them, the dusty unicycle mocking me from the closet is a case in point. My 2009 Moleskin arrived in the mail over the weekend, and I took the time to transcribe the already committed and planned dates from 2008 into it. While leafing through the planner I started humming the  Seasame Street Pinball count, we all know that catchy 1,2,3,4-5-6-7,8,9-10-11,12. Then my thoughts turned to David Allen and GTD. Then I began, for the first time, to break my resolutions up into actionable items.

It is very easy to set attainable goals for my year this way. By breaking down my resolutions to actionable items.Historically I’ve set out with resolutions such as:

• learn to ride a unicycle
• run a 5k
• join the circus
• etc, etc, etc

This year I still have resolutions, but took the time to proactively break them down to smaller actionable items that aren’t nearly as daunting:

• Weekly spend an hour falling off the unicycle
• run 30 minutes 4 times a week
• defeat my fear of cotton candy
• etc, etc, etc

With my new found way of attacking my yearly resolutions I’m now also thinking about other “12’s” I can attain? I also believe that revisiting the goals and re-planning attainable goals will allow me to keep focused on the tasks that I want to lay out for myself over the coming year.