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In the last week I’ve come up with a few more I’m just adding to the list I made at the start of the year!

• Better bedtime routine – I’m awful at sitting on my laptop in bed until last thing, so new rule – unless I’m using it in my room in the evening, if there’s nothing I need it for when I go up from the lounge to bed, it gets shut down downstairs. Yes I can use my smartphone, but once I’ve lain down to read, that also doesn’t get touched again ’til morning (unless it goes off etc). I’ve heard a lot about it not being good to have things like computers in the room you sleep – in a shared house this isn’t always avoided, but at least going to bed I’m aiming that the laptop is the first thing to be switched off.
• Sort through my photos and print off some for a photo album – this was apparently in the telegraph top 10 resolutions this year that were read out in church this morning. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for years now, I’ve had a digital camera of some form or another since late 2004 – that’s a lot of pictures to sort through!
• Put clothes away at night – at the moment, anything that doesn’t need to go in the wash I just chuck over the clothes rail when I go to bed, this very quickly piles into a mountain. The aim is to actually put things on hangers at night! This weekend I had a massive sort out of my room and sorted out that mountain, so the starting point is there ready and waiting!

In addition, I kept up my five year diary through all of last year, and so aim to keep that up, but it’s not so much of a resolution as I did it last year already – that’s like saying, I resolve to cook myself dinner, it’s something I was already doing!

I found it really helpful to blog my resolutions last year as it helped me remember them and keep an eye on how I was doing, so if you’ll forgive me, I’ll do the same this year!

• Only buy FairTrade chocolate – The industry has moved forward a lot in the last few years, there’s a lot more choice in Fairtrade chocolate, lots of major brands have started to switch over, so there’s not much of an excuse to not try it! Of course, it raises a lot of questions as to the technicalities, how this actually will work. Originally I was going to come up with all sorts of rules, but I think it’s going to be kept pretty basic – that always leaves the opportunity for improvement next year!
  For example, chocolate cake is fine, (it’s cocoa, not chocolate!), I wouldn’t refuse a gift just because it wasn’t FairTrade, or not buy a cereal bar because of the little chocolate chips on top. If I was buying for someone else I’d probably stick to FairTrade, and for the sake of argument, I’m not going to treat Rainforest Alliance certified as FairTrade, so that eliminates Galaxy! There is also the argument that white chocolate isn’t actually chocolate – I think I might give that one some time, but will probably leave it alone.
  Essentially this year the target is the hard core chocolate purchases. My biggest upset will probably be giving up Chocolate Oranges and Milky Way Magic Stars…. time to write to Terry’s and Nestle! (But I will eat the chocolate orange I have left – no point in wasting it!)
• Read more – I improved my reading the first half of last year, but slowed down a lot the second half, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in time given to reading, and I’ve just bought a ridiculous amount of books, so no excuses!
• Limit daily time spent watching TV series on DVD – Last year I cut down my tele watching a lot, but the result of this was that I ended up watching loads of DVD TV series instead, so the aim is to cut that back and put that time into the reading mentioned above!
• Study well for BSL and aim to pass level 1 – I took this up in September and passed my first assessment in December, so I need to keep this up for the next two terms to pass the course!
• Exercise – ‘Nuff said. This did not happen last year at all, I need to find something regular, with people who will keep me accountable, and that I enjoy for this to work. Also something that’s not too much effort?! Hmm! The difficulty is that I don’t have many free evenings, and so when I do I much prefer to crash out in them!
• Learn to love God more, do everything for His glory, and make time for Him. – This is a resolution for every year!
• Oo, and I might try this:

  

  “Start the year with an empty jar and fill it with notes about good things that happen. Then, on New Years Eve, empty it and see what awesome stuff happened that year. Good way to keep things in perspective.”

Before I set my resolutions for next year, I thought it was beyond time to give this years one last look and see how I did!

Fairly average and straightforward resolutions

• Quit Corrie – Complete. I’ve watched occasional episodes when staying with my parents, but I’ve definitely stopped watching it!
• Watch less tele – Technically complete. I only put on TV to watch shows I want to watch now, but I’ve kind of made up for this by binging on TV series DVD box sets instead, there’s something for next year!
• Exercise more and lose a little weight – I did a 5k jog in May, but haven’t done a single thing since… I lost a bit of weight in August, but that was just as I wasn’t well and is now back on, but I’m happy with my weight now, it turned out losing that little scared me a bit because I didn’t want to lose too much, so happy with maintaining weight now, just need to be healthier!
• Spend more time either on my violin or improve at the piano – This hasn’t gone well at all, but mainly because we moved to a much smaller house so I no longer have my keyboard, and there’s no space to get my violin out really.
• Get my sewing machine back out and use it – Again, tiny house means this hasn’t been possible
• Read more, and not just easy reads – I’ve read six books this year, (well, I’m desperately trying to finish the sixth before the end of the year but it’s non fiction and so I’ve been pretty slow with it). Which is good, but I haven’t put much time into it and reckon I could do better next year. Might be good to go for a higher proportion of fiction just to get through a few more books!
• Less of the irritating chattering – Possibly
• Reduce time spent on social media – Fail! But I am trying to put less content on and cut down on those who are friends who I wouldn’t talk to, will probably tidy up again in the new year.

A bit more deep, meaningful and more effort involved

• Learn to love God more
• Learn to think better of myself – I think I’ve actually made some progress here. No way am I there completely, but there’s been some definite movement in the right direction, a bit more confidence.
• Have a more positive outlook

I’ll be back in a few days with next years resolutions!

How did you do with your resolutions this year? Have you kept track of them at all?