New Years Resolutions (and how to break them)

Ah the inevitability of it all – Humans the world over crawling out of their beds, bound and determined that this year – THIS YEAR!! – we will quit that habit/change that behavior/lose that weight/do something different. Gym owners love this time of year. Tobacco companies hate it. Millions of people on a mission, what a sight! What a sound! What a mighty fury of effort and intent!

Let’s roll forward to March, shall we?



The reality is most New Years Resolutions (NYRs, for short) have a lifespan approximately equal to the time spent thinking them through before bursting forth with the “Next year I’m going to…” exclamation. A hasty vow after a particularly embarrassing event, most are.



Doesn’t have a lot to do with document management and sharing, does it?? Bear with me…



Why bother? Why change? Or at least, why bother changing some things that are really hard, by throwing an even harder mandate at yourself?



“I’m going to lose that fifteen pounds by getting up at 6am and going to the gym every morning! I’m going to be vigilant! I’m going to be motivated! I’m going to throw all my effort against this and by golly I’m going to say goodbye to that belly once and for all!”



Did I mention it’s March? You’re in the depths of despondency because you’ve slacked off on your regimen, you haven’t lost a single pound, you still ache from that 10k you did back in February, and nobody can stand to be around you because all you do is whine about how you never had a belly when you were 25.



Get over yourself. Be reasonable. Focus on the core of what you need to do, and come up with the simplest way to achieve that without turning your entire world upside down. And be honest – you knew, even back in January, that you couldn’t sustain that full court press approach. You have a limited amount of time, and your priorities are elsewhere. Pick the approach that leverages what you already do, rather than coming up with an entirely new approach to a relatively simple (but impactful) problem.



But enough talking about software for managing and sharing document with your virtual team members, let’s get back to your fifteen pounds. I suggest you allocate an extra ten minutes for every car journey and park at the furthest end of the parking lot when you get to your destination. You might also consider adopting a dog.