New Year's Goals and Resolution
A Little Backstory
As someone who is constantly on the go and juggling a million different tasks, I've found that planning is essential to my productivity and overall sense of well-being. Whether it's mapping out my day, week, or month in advance, or just jotting down a quick list of things I need to get done, the act of planning helps me stay organized and focused.
But it's not just about getting things done - I genuinely enjoy the planning process. There's something deeply satisfying about taking a chaotic mess of tasks and responsibilities and turning it into a cohesive, achievable plan. It's a way for me to take control of my time and make the most of every day.
In addition to my love of planning, I've also recently rediscovered my passion for writing. Over the past semester, I've been writing in a daily diary, pouring my heart and soul into it every day. This has been an incredibly therapeutic and beneficial practice for me, and I plan on continuing it in the semester ahead.
But it's not just personal writing that I'm interested in - I've also realized that I miss the empowering feeling of sharing my thoughts with the world through blogging. So, in the spirit of the new year, I plan on starting off by sharing my goals and resolutions for the year in my first blog post. Here's to a new year of planning, writing, and achieving great things!
Goals and Resolutions
As the section hopefully conveys, I’m really maniacal about planning, so I’m going to partition my goals into to different categories: health and hygiene, academics, and creative pursuits. Plus, I always set stretch goals for myself to strive for.
Health has always been a priority for me. Growing up, I faced a number of medical issues and was even confined to a wheelchair at times. While I've gotten healthier as I've gotten older, a recent eye surgery reminded me just how fragile our bodies and health can be. Furthermore, I’ve decided to group in hygiene with health because I believe both require consistent and concerted effort to maintain.
One of my main health goals for the new year is to sleep an average of 7 hours a night (with a stretch goal of 7.5 hours). Getting enough sleep has always been a challenge for me, and while I’ve always been able to convince myself to go on a run, sip some green tea, or even forego a delicious cheeseburger, getting the recommended amount of shut-eye is a cosmic battle. That's partly because all throughout my life, I’ve strived to be the most productive version of myself, and I’ll often prioritize work over sleep. Plus, my coursework can be demanding, so sleep often gets pushed to the side.
But getting enough sleep is so important for our overall health. It can improve memory, physical and mental health, productivity, and even boost the immune system. Also, I’ve recently been endlessly fascinated in research on longevity, and sleep is absolutely essential for living a long and healthy life.
Another health goal I have is to close my Apple Watch rings 95% of the days (with a stretch goal of 98% of the days). I love my Apple Watch and have been able to close all three of my rings - move, exercise, and stand - for 100+ days in a row a couple of times this past year. I've set my goals at 500 active calories, 30 minutes of exercise, and 12 stand hours. When I reach these goals, it's called "closing my rings" because of how the metrics are displayed on the Apple Watch. I plan to keep these goals for 2023, and I might even increase them. The important thing is to be consistent in meeting these fitness goals every day. I'm giving myself some leeway because there may be days when exams or travel make it hard to close all of my rings.
I also want to maintain a body fat percentage of 8% (with a stretch goal of 7%), a monthly average resting heart rate of 55 bpm (with a stretch goal of 50 bpm), and a monthly average VO2 max of 50 (with a stretch goal of 55). I consider myself to be pretty healthy right now, but I think there's always room for improvement. I track my VO2, resting heart rate, and body fat percentage regularly, and I believe these are good indicators of overall health. These goals will go hand in hand with my resolution of closing my rings 95% of the days.
As someone who is always striving to improve my personal hygiene and grooming habits, I have set some specific goals for myself in the coming year. To start, I plan to shave on 95% of days, with a stretch goal of reaching 98%. I have always preferred the clean-shaven look, but sometimes I let things slide. In the new year, I want to be more consistent in this area. Additionally, I am committed to completing my skincare routine 500 times, with a stretch goal of doing it 600 times. I have struggled with acne in the past, and I hope that by being more consistent with my skincare routine, I can see some improvement in this area. Finally, I want to take 250 cold showers in the coming year, with a stretch goal of 300. Cold showers can be invigorating and are reported to have a number of other benefits, so I want to make them a more regular part of my routine.
In terms of academic goals and resolutions, I'm not setting specific GPA goals for the coming year because I'm not sure which courses I'll take and my grades tend to depend on the subject matter. However, I will aim to attend 95% of my classes (with a stretch goal of 98%). I've generally been good about attendance, so this shouldn't be too hard to achieve, but I thought it would be good to put it in writing. In addition, I've really enjoyed the online computer science courses I've taken and want to take more of them. This year, I plan to complete Harvard's CS50's Introduction to Computer Science, Data Science: R Basics, and Statistics and R, as well as Replit's 100 Days of Code. I started CS50's Introduction to Computer Science last summer and enjoyed it, so I'm hoping to finish it this year. I also want to take a more formal approach to learning R, a statistical language I've had some experience with in my statistics and econometrics labs. Finally, Replit's 100 Days of Code should help me refresh my Python skills and learn more about using Replit, my preferred IDE. As a stretch goal, I'd also like to complete CS50's Web Programming with Python and JavaScript and CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python. I'm particularly interested in web development, so I'll try to complete that sooner rather than later.
I'm looking to increase my online presence this year by ramping up my blogging, tweeting, and TikTok activity. My goal is to get a million total impressions across all three platforms, with a stretch target of hitting a million impressions on each individually. In the past, I enjoyed blogging about political and economic issues, but now that I'm on the job market, I'm planning to steer clear of potentially controversial topics and instead focus on publishing sports predictions. I'm a big fan of Twitter, but haven't been very active on the platform in the past. I'm hoping to change that this year by tweeting more frequently and using the platform to connect with like-minded people and drive traffic to my website. Finally, I'm looking to get back on TikTok and start posting food review videos. I love cooking and think being a food critic could be a fun side gig, so I'm hoping to get some practice in on TikTok.
In terms of specific resolutions, I'm aiming to write 50 blog posts, tweet 1,000 times, and post 300 TikToks, with stretch goals of writing 100 posts, tweeting 2,500 times, and posting 500 TikToks. If I can hit these targets, I should be well on my way to reaching my engagement goals.
Additionally, I've got a couple of miscellaneous goals that don't fit into the categories I've mentioned so far. Right now, I'm competing in FiveThirtyEight's NFL predictions competition, where I'm currently ranked first. Each week, I assign probabilities to each team's chances of winning and earn points based on the outcome of the game. My aim is to finish in the top 5 when the season is over, with a stretch goal of holding on to first place. Here's a screenshot of the current standings.
And finally, I've been really into TypeRacer lately, and my words per minute is around 80. By the end of the year, I'd like to bump it up to 90 wpm, with a stretch goal of 100 wpm. It's a fun way to improve my typing skills and boost my productivity. To be honest, I spent way too much time on the site right now, so hopefully I’m able to achieve this goal quickly, and then I can move onto other things.
Next Steps
Those are about all the goals that I could think about right now, and I think this document should hopefully serve as a guide for me throughout the year. I’ve made a spreadsheet in Google Sheets, so I can track all of these goals and resolutions. Moreover, I’ve always thought it would be cool to be like a corporation and release quarterly reports, so I’ll probably do something like that except on a monthly basis as that would increase accountability, and if I need to, I could contemplate changes to my goals at the end of each month.
In terms of what’s going to happen next, I would like to do some more sports modeling work before the semester starts back up again, and I hope I’ll able to release predictions for the NFL before then. I’ll probably do weekly power rankings for all of the major sports leagues that are in play as a way to generate content.
I should mention that I used ChatGPT to edit and revise a significant portion of the writing here. Essentially, I wrote the rough draft and then had ChatGPT polish it up. While it certainly speeds up the writing process, I'm not sure if I'll continue to do this in the future as it does tend to dilute my personal voice in the writing. Nonetheless, it's been a helpful tool in getting words down on the page more quickly.