The Great Simplification

Last year a friend of mine embarked on what he called "the great simplification" of his life. It appears to have worked - he seems more relaxed; definitely less stressed out. Since it worked so well for him, I'm going to give it a shot this year. Granted, I may not achieve the same results, but I'm hoping for some measurable improvement by May.

There's a couple areas I want to focus on; areas that I've let slip in the past. Now is as good a time as any to work on them. Some are personal; others professional, but they're places where I need some work. What better time to start than now?

Job
What better place to start than with the area that's given me the most trouble?

In the next week, I'll be overhauling my resume and creating a "packet" to send out to potential employers, which will include some samples. I'm not sure yet if I want to tailor the samples specifially to the job, but either way it'll be a step above the old "resume and cover letter" schtick.

Creative
As much as I tried, I couldn't get time or energy to put together any of the projects I had rattling around in my brain. Other things kept coming up and getting in the way. This year, I'm changing that.

In addition to attempting a sketch for every day of this year, I'm also going to put aside some time during the week and a couple hours on the weekend to work on creative endeavours. It could be as small as five minutes monkeying around with Illustrator or Photoshop, or it could be as creating and pulling prints from a woodcut. In any event, I'm hoping that by the end of the year I'll have improved my illustration/design skills noticeably.

I'm also going to make the grand attempt to get a webcomic up and running. It didn't happen last year (again, due to the aforementioned "other things") but by carefully blocking out time I should be able to accomplish it.

Health
This past year took a bit of a toll on me, both physically and emotionally. Lots of stress and finding little or no time to exercise have turned my brain into semi-mush and my body into...well, mush.

During the colder months, I'll find some exercise routine to do inside the house. If nothing else, it'll give the cats something to stare at. I'd also like to be able to block out some time to recharge my brain - some reading; perhaps some meditation. As it warms up, I'll be back on the bike. The goal here is to travel everywhere I can using the bike as the main transportation mode. No more driving to places when I can easily bike there. Gain back the strength in the legs; save money on gas - why not?

This leads me into the last area:
Financial
Last year was a bit of an up and down, and lots of fighting for a decent working wage. With the goal of a better job comes the goal of earning more, and being able to steadily put money away.

Also, if I don't need it, I'm not buyin' it.

Finally, I plan on taking stock of my earthly possessions. If I can't use it, it gets recycled/sold/thrown away. Maybe a garage sale this spring - build up some cash for a vacation...

Progress reports to come throughout the year.