The best idea ever, which may have also just become a 99-cent ebook

Either I am on my way to getting better or just having one of those “only sickish” days. I felt so good that I went for an easy swim—which immediately made me feel worse, but it’s been so long since I’ve been in the water that I’m sure it would have exhausted me regardless of my health status. Anyway, it’s all part of gearing up for my master plan for January, which I will get to in a minute.

So I was thinking about my theme for 2014, “Use it (or lose it),” and how I did either start using or get rid of a lot of stuff. But I’m just not sure having a theme for the year did me any good after about mid-February, because I don’t feel like it prompted me to do anything I wouldn’t have done anyway. So this year I thought I’d try something different: monthly goals, rules, and themes. That way I can be easy on myself when I need to be, occasionally set challenging goals that are still achievable (since they last only 30 days), and keep up the enthusiasm to do more positive stuff (since I get to start fresh every month). Plus, I’ll get to do a ton of my favorite thing, which is New Life Planning!

So here’s my current plan for January:

• Goal: Finish editing M.H.’s book (this is the big one, and it’s on top of the other large editorial task I mentioned).
• Rule: Swim, bike, and run once each per week (no minimum distance).
• Theme: Work when I need to be working, and rest when I need to be resting.

That last one is kind of hard to explain. But I’m frustrated by my tendency to sit down to work and then have my mind wander to other things. Like (*cough cough*) a blog post I want to write. Or “taking a Facebook break.” But I don’t want to give up blogging and Facebooking, so I just need to put them in their proper places somehow. Or another example is at the end of the day, if I’m too tired to do anything productive, I need to go to bed rather than talk my spouse into watching an episode of The Gilmore Girls on Netflix. But I don’t actually want to give up The Gilmore Girls either, so I just need to be deliberate about it. It’s a bit hard to pin down exactly what needs to change here, which is why it makes for a good “theme” to be aware of, rather than a hard-and-fast rule.

I just realized that I’m only an E and an A away from a cheesy self-help book (Make It a G.R.E.A.T. Year! 5 Steps You Can Take Every Month to Achieve Your Dreams) and the appeal of this whole plan just increased, like, tenfold.