Raising the Bar for the New Year

This is my New Year's Resolution:  raise my typical, weekly "Good Habits" score from 70% to 80%.

What is my "Good Habits" score?  This is a system I started about 2 years ago and described in a past post ("Geeks Guide to Discipline").  It's a Geeky way of keeping myself honest.  It's an Excel file in which I track how often I'm doing the things, like exercising, that I think I should be doing.

Here's how it works.  There are 4 good habits that I want to track.

1. Exercise
2. Meditation
3. Writing in a journal or blog
4. Healthy diet

On any given day, if I do any of these things, I give myself 1 point in my Excel sheet.  I can earn up to 4 points per day and 28 points per week (4 x 7).  

My goal is less than 100% per week.  I don't expect to be successful in all 4 areas every day.  I don't want to be that much of a perfectionist.  I want to be free to have a few too many beers some days or to skip exercise or meditation or writing if I worked a lot of hours or I had a bad day.  So my goal in 2010 and 2011 was just 70%.  If I got 20 out of the 28 possible points in a week, I would meet my 70% goal.  The chart above are my actual results for all of 2011.  I averaged about 68%, just short of my goal.  I had some bad weeks, especially when traveling on business, and I had good ones too.

In 2012, I'm raising the bar.  80%.  I need 25 out of 28 points.  I'm starting a low carbohydrate diet/lifestyle change tomorrow that will help me reach the new target because I think my diet will be good almost every day.  Wish me luck!