Weekly productivity links, the new year’s resolution edition

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Welcome to 2013 everyone! It’s the first week of the year, which means it’s the week that most of us set some shiny new productivity goals (many of which we will have completely abandoned by mid-February 🙂 ) It’s also the week when just about every blogger everywhere has something to say about setting and reaching those shiny new productivity goals. Here’s a collection of posts to help you refine your resolutions to be more sustainable, give you some good ideas if you’re still trying to decide what to focus on, or in some cases dissuade you from setting any goals at all this year. Enjoy!

The science of new year’s resolutions: Why 88% fail and how to make them work

The smart fellas over at Buffer get all science-y and explore why new year’s resolutions typically don’t work out. Once you’re armed with the knowledge about why our brains have a hard time keeping resolutions, you can start to re-frame your commitments into something that’s more likely to succeed. Some of the keys: keeping it simple, focusing on habits instead of aspirations, positive feedback, and social accountability.

Quantified New Year’s resolutions: Take an information-driven approach to lifestyle changes

We’ve been doing some thinking of our own about how to stick to your goals. In this post, we examine the use of self-tracking systems to create feedback loops that help you form habits and build up data points that will help you turn your efforts into a game.

New Year’s Resolution Tips for Busy People

It’s all well and good to set goals, even grandiose ones, but the keys to reaching them are focus and iteration. Both can be really difficult, especially given our increasingly busy lifestyles. Tackling your goals in small chunks, with reviews and deliberate next-steps in short cycles along the way.

New Years Resolutions: 11 ways to increase your productivity in 2013

Here’s a list of bite-sized resolutions for entrepreneurs or anyone else who wants to advance their career in 2013. Ideas range from keeping your inbox at zero to reading the Wall St. Journal every day, to pledging to stop bringing your computer to meetings. They’re all over the map, so pick and choose a couple that seem interesting to you and see if you can form some new productive habits.

Google Zeitgeist 2012

Google takes a nostalgic look back at the major events of 2012, but also takes a look to the future with this neat interactive map that let’s you view people’s new year’s resolutions from around the globe. Play around with it, get inspired, and add your own resolutions to the list. (hint hint, can you find RescueTime’s resolution on there?)

5 Reasons Your New Years Resolution is Destined to Fail

File under “resolution tough love”, LifeHack gives you five reasons your resolutions are likely to fail. Do you really care about what you’re committing to? Are you willing to make the necessary changes to put your self in a situation where you’re likely to succeed? Do a little soul-searching, then modify your goals as needed.

What to Do When You Fall Back Into Your Old, Less Productive Ways

You know it’s coming. That day when you look up and say “that was a good run, but I totally failed at that resolution attempt”. Sometime’s our good intentions are much loftier than we can handle. Don’t be too hard on yourself, it happens. Read this article for some ideas on how to respond to a ‘resolution relapse’ and get back on track.

3 reasons to nix those New Year’s resolutions

David Allen, of Getting Things Done fame isn’t so fond of making new year’s resolutions. Here are three reasons why.

Consider Not Setting Goals in 2013

More exploration of the “goals are bad” idea. Instead of goals, just pick some areas that you’d like to focus on, and commit to working at them, without an explicitly defined end-goal. Chances are, you’ll get where you were wanting to go anyway, and you’ll give yourself the flexibility to make the proper adjustments along the way.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and productive New Year!

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  1. Pingback: Pretextos y Motivos. | gustavolemus

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