New Years Resolutions – 2005
- Establish a healthier way of life (now that I seem to be “fairly” stable and know which activities help keep me that way)
ü Cycle or walk daily
ü Swim daily
ü Take plenty of short breaks
ü Don’t eat sweets or dairy products
ü Reduce the amount I eat at night
ü Drink more water
ü Learn to cope with pain and frustration (cognitive therapy or meditation)
ü Make it possible to work in as many enjoyable places as possible
ü Continue to improve on the limited success in not biting my fingers and lips!
ü Get my weight down to 11 Stone
ü Use my blog as an outlet for my interests (mainly those not funded by my company or shared by my family)
- Eat out once a week and take Debbie out at least once a week (Friday and Wednesday)
ü Wednesday is evening meal, Cinema or Theatre and maybe in the summer just walking/cycling
ü Friday is a walk and lunch or breakfast together
- Establish my new role at work
ü Final edit of what I think the conclusions are and my requirements
ü Have a meeting to agree them
ü Agree my work plan and key relationships
ü Prepare my development plan
ü Decide which vendors to establish relationships with
ü Write a letter to suppliers to use to ask or access to on-line materials and virtual conference attendance
- Learn a modern programming language (it’s too big a gap in my understanding of the fundamentals of modern computing)
ü Choose object oriented language with excellent support for manipulating XML and a reasonable GUI (Python or Visual Basic.NET)
ü Learn Object Orientation Principles
ü Properly understand XML, XPath, XQuery, Web Services etc
- Improve how I cope with my mild Asperger’s Syndrome
ü Learn the names of people I meet regularly, cafes, health club, restaurants, work etc
ü Use peoples names and try and make small talk
ü Cold call people for a chat as well as using IM
ü Use work meeting opportunities to have social meetings as well
ü Keep attending Library reading group
ü Keep momentum behind “old friends monthly lunches”
ü Present some “Lunch and Learn” sessions at work
- Increase the variety in the kids lives
ü Try and plan an activity each week either one night, or Saturday/Sunday afternoons, in addition to their wide array of regular activities
ü Get their friends involved or get them more involved with their friends
ü Make sure we take a good range of holidays
- Improve how I present written work and presentations
ü Improve my PowerPoint skills
ü Learn to write more clearly and with greater brevity
ü Develop a Documentation/PowerPoint style that allows people to tunnel into detail only when they need it
ü Improve my grammar
- Read more widely
ü Business Strategy
ü Innovation
ü Solutions Architecture
ü Sustainable Living
ü Personal Knowledge Management
ü Business Process Management
ü Political Autobiographies
ü Reading Group books
- Take lots of short breaks
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ü Filey
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- Refine my home lab and personal productivity
ü Learn to touch type
ü Learn to use voice dictation software
ü Refine my backup procedures – combination of Robocopy and Drive Image to USB drive
Looks like an ambitious list. Doesn’t matter how well you fare fulfilling it. Having it, ambitious as it looks, is an opportunity for bootstrapping [= self motivation]. Few people create such an opportunity for themselves.
Let us know how you fare with #5. Cold calls are brave steps. Remembering names and everybody’s significance may require the development of mnemonic rules. I have extreme difficulty in it and some embarassing experiences of sending cards to neighbours using the wrong firt name!
Regarding #8.2, follow the link in my Diktyoma blog to Howard’s big paper on Innovation.