Oh, and not to put any pressure on you, but, according to a 2008 research study done by Steve Shapiro and the Opinion Corporation of Princeton, NJ, 45 percent of Americans usually set New Year’s Resolutions and 17 percent infrequently set them. Only 38 percent absolutely never set resolutions.

So if you’re on the fence about whether you’re going to incarnate your intention to lose weight, exercise more, write your book, build up your web business or expand your operations overseas, I’ve rounded up a few very smart authors of new books to help. Here’s what they had to say about New Year’s resolutions, and all that they entail:

Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project“

“I think New Year’s resolutions (whether made on January 1 or some other time of the year) absolutely can work. However, resolutions are far more likely to succeed if you frame them the right way.

• Be concrete. Think of specific actions that you want to undertake, not abstract goals. So instead of, “Find more joy in life,” try, “Have lunch with a friend once a week.” Instead of, “Be a kinder mother,” try, “Have lunches and backpacks packed the night before so the morning isn’t as crazy.”
• Hold yourself accountable. I keep a Resolutions Chart where each day, I score myself on whether I’ve kept my resolutions. You might form a group with friends to keep each other on track (this is one reason why Weight Watchers is so effective).”

Josh Leibner, co-author of “The Power of Strategic Commitment“

“As management guru Henry Mintzberg said, ‘Strategy and planning don’t make things happen — people do.’ Mere talk about what one wants to achieve in the future is meaningless. But writing down goals — keeping them visible so they provide guidance when other opportunities present themselves or distractions occur — can help keep you on track. While resolutions are never a guarantee of future performance, the likelihood of fulfilling them is significantly increased by:

• Making only a few resolutions you are absolutely committed to, rather than listing everything you think you should do out of obligation.
• Making the resolutions bite-size. If you have always wanted to learn another language, make the resolution that you will start lessons, not that you will ‘speak the language fluently.’ Winning by following through on a smaller resolution will provide momentum for taking on larger challenges throughout the year.
• Including a resolution about what you want to be, not just what you want to do. For example, you may want to expand the degree to which you are known as an expert in your field or the difference you make in your community. Some measurable indicators for these resolutions might be useful, but many may be validated by your self-assessment only.”

Don Joseph Goewey, author of “Mystic Cool“

“New Year’s resolutions are not that effective (according to some research, only 12 percent succeed). But I also would say there are a few things the research has found help increase the odds for success.

• Men should set specific goals. Delineate where, when, how and how often you are going to work on changing this or that behavior. Be specific.
• Women should tell others about their resolutions. Social support helps women stick with their plan.
• Choose a new approach. Using the same old strategy that failed before is not effective. Inventing a new way works much better.”

Sam Glenn, author of “A Kick in the Attitude“

“I believe many people make resolutions with an expectation that just stating the goal will bring positive change to their lives. But resolutions only work if you make a plan to make them work, including:

• Getting a push partner. Find someone who will support you even when you don’t feel like following through on your resolution. That person should care enough about you not to let you make excuses and to keep you going when you lose steam or get distracted or off track.
• Celebrating each small progress. If you watch ‘The Biggest Loser,’ they cheer and celebrate every little step of victory. It helps build the enthusiasm to keep you going.”

And here’s my take on the topic: I’ve always viewed New Year’s as an unofficially pronounced national do-over day. It’s a chance to wipe the slate clean, declare a new beginning and, if nothing else, jettison any past poor performance — business or personal. So on January 1^st, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again — hopefully with a few well-chosen goals. Happy New Year everyone.

What are your few well-chosen goals?

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Yes, I know I said in an earlier article that the New Year is a bad time to set arbitrary goals about changing your life. But while it may not be the best time to start a successful diet, it can actually be the perfect time to do certain resolution-related things for your business.

• Accounting: Jan. 1 isn’t just the start of a new calendar year. For most of us, it is also the start of a new fiscal year for our business. So if we’d like to improve on our methods of accounting or record keeping from the past, Jan. 1 is the time to start implementing those improvements so that any new systems we implement cover the whole fiscal year. Many of us don’t get really motivated to make these changes until we have to deal in-depth with the previous year’s mess as tax time approaches in April. By then, at least a quarter of the new fiscal year may have passed and we have missed a prime chance to start improving our systems from the beginning.
• Statistics & Goals: The calendar/fiscal year is also the natural time frame that most businesses use to set financial and other goals by. As Jan. 1 approaches, it’s a good time to evaluate how you did against your current year’s goals and create a new set of goals (or resolutions) for the new year. Then, put in place a plan that will allow you to make progress towards meeting those goals.
• Projects: We all have a traditional resolution-type project that has been sitting uncompleted: the file cabinet that needs archiving and shredding, an out-of-control inbox, or computer files that really should have an off-site backup. Take advantage of all that social programming that says you should be making a resolution and use it convince yourself to set aside the time to do some of those projects. Don’t bother trying to convince yourself that your file cabinet will be in that pristine condition three months from now. But at least you’ll start out 2010 in better shape than you ended 2009.
• Organizing: Some of the pressure for New Year’s resolutions in January comes from retailers as they spend the month pushing sales on products that are targeted at “traditional” resolutions such as organization and weight loss. So if you have any organizing projects that need to be done, now is the time to do them, because you can save money on any supplies you’ll need to complete them. Everything from labelers and fire safes to closet shelving goes on sale in January. Who isn’t motivated to get things done by saving money?

Don’t expect to change your whole life overnight just because the date on the calendar changed. But if you are realistic about your expectations and make the best of the arrival of Jan. 1, you can use it to start off your business year on the right foot.

What will you be doing to start off 2010 better than you ended 2009?

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Some of these are things that I know and have known I should be doing already, but haven’t seem to be able to implement. Others are tips passed on to me by coworkers and other professionals. No matter the source, there’s no shortage of productivity tips to be had, so I’m trying to pare down and refine the list to a manageable few, since I’ll have a better chance of actually following through come the new year.

Common Sense

A few of the proposed resolutions fall under the blanket category of common sense, which is to say I should already be doing them, but am not, for whatever reason (laziness is a definite possibility). Here are some prime examples of things that fall under this category:

1. Work Longer Hours

I’m not going to lie, one of the reasons I became a remote worker was the opportunity to set my own hours. Coming from a consulting background, where twelve hour days and frequent weekend work weren’t that rare of an occurrence, I think it’s perfectly understandable and a good thing that one of the first things I did was shorten my average working day.

Over time, however, as I’ve gotten better at my job (I hope, anyways), I can do the same amount of work in less time. What I should’ve done was do more work in the time I’d originally allotted for it, but instead, I’ve shortened my days further still. The result is that revenue stays roughly the same, but I have more time off. Too much time, in fact. My resolution here would be to double my output and work a bit longer.

2. Set Up a Twitter Schedule

Nothing is worse for (or better suited to) a terribly short attention span like the one I’ve been cursed (or blessed) with than Twitter. Currently, I have it running 24 hours a day via Tweetie on my Mac desktop, on a third screen set up only to monitor it and my email.

It’s a great way to keep abreast of the news cycle, which is important for some of my work, but when that’s out of the way, it’s a tremendous distraction. I suffer from a chronic inability to browse YouTube or blogs unguided, so I click on pretty much every link that comes my way via Twitter that promises humor or something interesting. In the New Year, I want to keep a strict Twitter schedule, outside the boundaries of which Tweetie remains unopened.

3. Find a GTD/To-Do App I Will Actually Use

I’ve been an avid fan of quite a few to-do apps in my time, both for the computer and for my iPhone. Even the most promising, though, haven’t stuck, and I remain without a consistent GTD process. My quest continues, but maybe I should focus more on the usage, and less on the tool.

Not-so-common Sense

Not quite out of left field, but things I want to try that might not necessarily be immediately apparent as productivity boosters.

1. Cut the Cable Subscription

I don’t really need you anymore, cable, so why do I cling to the belief that I do? I consume almost all of my media digitally these days, via things like iTunes and Amazon. Most of the time, I don’t even bother with video and stick to reading on my Kindle.

Here’s the purpose cable serves: I can put it on when I’m bored and can’t think of anything else to do. You know what else I could do, though? Work.

2. Prepare Meals in Advance

This is another area where my usual habits are awful. Not only do I never have leftovers in the fridge to heat up, but I also can’t bring myself to shop beyond the current day. I honestly go out to the grocery store every other day, at least, and buy just enough food to last me one or two days. Delivery fills in the gaps.

So much time would be saved in food prep and grocery shopping if I sat down and took the time to plan out a week’s worth of meals in advance, and made many portions of things that I could then freeze or refrigerate and reheat. This is one of the biggies on this list for me.

3. Expand Photography Hobby

I love cameras, and taking pictures, and I update my entry-level Canon DSLR whenever one strikes my fancy in a particular way (the latest was the T1i, which stole my heart with its HD video abilities), but I never take it much further than that.

My plan in the new year is to start at least putting some photo work on stock image sites, in the hopes of turning the hobby into a revenue stream. It worked well for writing, so why not for photography, too?

Your Turn

That’s my working list. I’ll probably end up picking about three of those items listed above for my actual list of resolutions going into 2010. I’m interested in what you have to say, though, both about my proposed resolutions, and about your own plans for boosting productivity in the new year, so offer up any suggestions/insights you may have.

Image credit: Marcelo Marfil on deviantART

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Would making our resolutions at a different time give us a better chance to create real change in our lives?

What if we made our resolutions to change at times when, instead of being comfortably settled into our usual routine, we were already in a state of change, so that our resolutions didn’t feel so out of place and had a better chance of getting traction?

I raise this question because for many of us, this may be the perfect time of year to make some positive changes and try to them permanent. Web workers who are home-based, and who have children, usually have their routine changed pretty significantly when their children return to school in the fall.

In my family, back-to-school means a drastic change of schedule, and a restoration of relative order and routine to life after a summer of chaos juggling my home-based web work and caring for my autistic six-year-old daughter. Because of this, back-to-school time has become a natural time to re-evaluate my work processes, routines and environment as I figure out the new family schedule and routine for the school year.

Other great opportunities to overhaul your routines when your life is already in a natural state of change might be:

• Moving
• Taking a new job, or significantly changing your client list if you are a freelancer
• Having a baby

So why is it easier to keep resolutions when you are in a state of flux? Wouldn’t it be harder to keep them because you are stressed from the changes in your life? Depending on the change you are undergoing, maybe. But keeping resolutions during your normal routine can be difficult and stressful, too. If you are just floating along comfortably in your usual routine and try to make just one or two changes, it accentuates those changes and makes them seem like a bigger deal. They probably go against the flow of your usual routine  — otherwise you wouldn’t need to make a “resolution” to make the change — so they take dedication to integrate.

On the other hand, if a lot of things are changing at once, the positive changes you are trying to make don’t become sticking points in an otherwise comfortable routine. They just become one piece of the overall new scheme of your routine. You’re more likely to be able to integrate them into your routine fully because they don’t feel unnatural.

So how am I taking advantage of back-to-school resolution time? As I’m able to have more uninterrupted work time in my office, I’m experimenting with methods to use that time more productively. I’m focusing on uncluttering both the personal and work areas of my home to make our new routines run more smoothly. I’m trying to be conscious of the new routines I am creating to make sure that they are efficient and productive ones.

I’m trying to take advantage of the natural chance to create new routines, and create good ones.

When do you take the opportunity to create new routines?

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Sticky note on your mirror. Write your two or three most important goals or resolutions on a Post-It note, and put it on your bathroom mirror, where you’ll see it every morning and evening.

Social goal setting site. Try Goalmigo, 43 Things, or AimsVille. All these sites let you record, track, and share your goals with a supportive community of people going after their own goals.

Fancy notebook. If you’re a paper to do list type of person, maybe you write your tasks in a nice notebook? Record your goals, resolutions, and projects there too.

Online list application. We like Gubb.

Document on your computer desktop or in the cloud. Use your favorite text editor or word processor, whether it’s online or off.

Index cards in your Hipster PDA. Do you like to manage your life with a POIC (pile of index cards)? Put all your goals on one card so you can refer back to it easily. Or make a card for each one so you’ll have space for capturing ideas about making it happen.

Your blog. Announce your goals publicly as well as your progress towards them and your social network will help you stay on track. They might even help you reach your goals, if they know what they are. If you like the idea of blogging your goals, but not making them available for the entire world to see, use a privacy-controlled blog host like Vox.

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As an example, consider conferences, which are touted for their networking and educational opportunities but often require big investments of time and money. Information Architect Stephen Collins muses that they aren’t always worth it:

You know, conferences, for all their imagined value sometimes aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. The signal to noise ratio ends up being way out of whack and you walk away after two or three days thinking you’d have been better off saving your money and staying at work. There are more than a few conferences that strike me as being mostly noise.

It’s hard to know in advance which conferences will be valuable — just like it’s generally hard to predict which professional activities of any sort will have the best payoff in the future.

But you can look to your past for some lessons about what activities have the most value for you. And the end of year lull is a great time to do it, so you can feed what you discover into your future plans. (Career coach Michael Melcher suggests a year-end review process that might help.)

What was most worth your while this year — whether a conference you attended (or organized or spoke at), a project you took on, a new tool you tried, or a relationship you built?

And what wasn’t worth the time, effort, and money you put in? Maybe there’s something you need to put on your Not To Do list.

Related posts

• Tip of the Week: Create a Not To Do List
• Open Thread: How Do You Decide What To Do From Your To Do List?
• A Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker
• Conferences for the Web Worker

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