I’m quite excited for this new year: 2013. I’ve set New Year’s resolutions almost every year. Some years I have accomplished them, others I haven’t. I think one of the biggest reasons for not accomplishing them is I set too many. Its pretty hard to track 22 different resolutions.

So this year, I am setting only three:

#1 – I will write 1,000 words each day

#2 – I will learn a new language

#3 – I will release an iPhone app in the first 6 months of 2013

There you have it. I feel really good about  these resolutions (goals). I feel that setting three instead of 20+ will allow me to track my goals more easily, and focus on accomplishing them.

WHY THESE THREE?

Goal #1 was inspired by my desire to write more, my recent site structure change, and Nathan Barry. He wrote:

“In May I made a commitment to write 1,000 words a day. . . That slow, consistent progress is what allowed me to write two books, almost two dozen guest posts, and over thirty posts on this blog in the last year.” (You can read more about it here and here).

Goal #2 was inspired by a long time desire to learn a new language. I’ve wanted to learn Spanish since at least 2004. I took a Spanish class in college, but haven’t gone past that. Since my wife and I plan to live outside of the country in 2013, but don’t know where yet, that language may end up being something other than Spanish and will be determined by where we move.

Goal #3 was inspired by, well, I just want to make an app. I have been involved in the process of making two apps: Tap Memory and EveryPlace – neither of which were wildly successful, but I LOVED being involved. I didn’t do the programming, and don’t know Objective-C, but I plan to learn enough this year to release an app in the first six months of 2013. I really feel that it will be a good experience and hope that this will be a segue into releasing more apps in the future.

A FEW CHALLENGES

While I’m confident that I will do fairly well at goal number one, it will definitely have its challenges. In fact, I have already run into 3 challenges:
Challenge 1. How do I track my 1,000 words? I will be writing for DesignToStartup.com, BradyMower.com, guest posts, maybe a book?, etc. Each will be on a different platform, so how do I track each? I just downloaded a Mac app called “Word Counter”, but I have to click the “Count Words” every time I want an accurate count. What a pain! So I’ll need to find something that counts real-time, and figure out a solution for writing for multiple locations. (Nathan Barry just reminded me that WordPress has a word count built in! I completely forgot that. It is right there below the text box. So for now, I’ll use that, and probably just write everything in WordPress. He pointed out Scrivner as well, and it looks GREAT. Maybe I’ll be willing to drop $44.99 for it after I write 1,000 words for a couple weeks and realize why I need it).

Challenge 2. 1,000 words is a lot! Right now, this post sits at 530 words. Thats only half! And I’m about tired of writing honestly. This will either be a really long post, or I’ll have to start writing something else. And for a guy who still hits the “p” on the keyboard with my ring finger, I am not the fastest typer in the world…I think I’ve spent 30 minutes on this already. So 1,000 words is an hour a day? Wow. Maybe I’ll end up adjusting my goal to 500.

Challenge 3. What will I use to track my goal? The app Commit, mentioned and created by Nathan Barry in his posts, looks pretty neat. But I will only use it for one or two goals, so is $2.99 worth it? The app doesn’t seem to allow intervals other than daily, which I would definitely want. Hmmm, maybe there is an idea for an app in all of that? 🙂

And there are a few other challenges I am sure I will run up against:

– I want to get started on learning a new language, but since we don’t know where we are moving I don’t want to start learning Spanish if we end up moving to Italy and learning Italian, or start learning Italian if we end up moving to New Zealand. Plus, I’ve got some serious financial goals for the next month and a half and I honestly need all the time I can get to make that money, so my 30 mins to 1 hour of language time is currently devoted to my work until we know where we are moving and until I’ve reached my financial goals.

– I know building an iPhone app in the midst of writing 1,000 words per day, moving out of the country, learning a new language, work, managing several sites, etc, will be quite a challenge. Shoot, it would be a challenge if I had to do all of that if I already knew Objective-C . . . but I don’t, so I’m in for a wild ride . . . but an exciting ride. I don’t see it being a super complex app, so it won’t take as long as it would otherwise.

And I’m sure there will be more. But what is a goal without challenges anyways?

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

I would love to hear about your New Year’s resolutions. Do you set them? Why or why not? And if you set them, what are they, and how do you plan on tracking them? It is very inspiring to me to see or hear about the progress of others as they strive to accomplish their goals, so I plan to write about the progress, missed days, challenges, and successes I see as I work towards these goals. If I’m able to accomplish these goals, or at least do relatively well at accomplishing them, I’m confident there will be some great results.

Oh look, it appears that I just passed 1,000 words. Maybe I can do this after all . . .