Monday, December 28, 2015

Preparation for 2016

I'm planning, as so many others before me have done, to make some major changes with the new year. I hope to bolster my chances of success by planning, inasmuch as such a thing can be done with my work schedule.

First things first: my goals.
1. To set up a regular meditation/exercise practice.
2. To set up a regular writing practice.
3. To brush up on my Japanese-language studies.
4. To learn a new skill: basic electronics.

The fun thing about these four goals is that they are actually very simple with the materials I have close to hand. Meditation, obviously, can be done anywhere that I can remain still and mostly undisturbed, but it's more effective if done after some kind of physical workout. Fine; I've got just enough unoccupied floorspace in my little room to manage.
Bonus: I can fulfill some requirements to earn my White Belt in Hoshinjutsu via their distance learning program!
Writing, likewise. All I need is a pen and paper, though a keyboard and computer of one sort or another is definitely the way to produce something legible.
Japanese: I've got at least three different audio-programs available within arm's reach of where I'm typing, with online study-aids available wherever I have Internet access.
Basic electronics comes from an educational kit, but it's got online video support and it's still something I've been meaning to study for a while.

My plan is to alternate between spending an hour a day on each of these tasks over a five-day workweek (a la high school) and then spending a full day of the week on each topic. I'll borrow a writing trick for efficiency, breaking all the study and work into 25-minutes-on, 5-minutes-off for either 60 minutes or 8 hours, and see how well it all comes together. Maybe I'll add an additional subject on the fifth hour/day. We'll see...