Perhaps as further evidence that I might be a tad obsessed, my first act after thinking “hm, what are my New Year’s resolutions?” was to google “app for managing new year’s resolutions.” Unfortunately, they turned out to be some self-tracking apps for reaching weight loss and quitting smoking goals. So that was disappointing, but then I got back on track. And so, here are my goals for the 2012 year:

Resolution 1: Write an app for managing New Year’s resolutions! Stop wanting to make an app for every single thing that pops into my mind and finish some of the apps that are currently in the works. There’s some time-management and -tracking web applications I’ve been really wanting to do, as well as an application on top of the diigo.com API to help me better wield the mountain of information I relentlessly, and happily, consume.

Resolution 2: Finish “The Novel.” There is a novel – which is yet to acquire a non-embarrassing title – that I’ve been working on the last few months, on and off. I’ve made quite a bit of progress into it, having outlined pretty much all of it, written about a fifth, and done so using a relatively satisfying novel-writing app. Which means, of course, finishing the novel will not accidentally involve making an app for writing novels, so there’s a load off.

Resolution 3: Manage and track my time better. The above two resolutions are not related to work. As a PhD student, I have classes and research and other fun things that I work on throughout nearly every day of the week, including nights and weekends. This is not because I am working 100% of the time at my 100% capacity – on the contrary, I am one of many people who could do a better job of managing my time to get the most out of it and to do the things I need to do in balanced and satisfying moderation. To this end, I intend to reflect more regularly on goals for each day and week, and keep better track of my time to gauge tangible progress.