Fleshing Things Out

While it's easy in the abstract to simply say that I want to do "better" with various aspects of my life, that seems like a pretty shaky basis for any sustainable changes.  I think that's also been a problem with past attempts at responsibility (with regard to healthiness, especially).  It was easy to say that I should work out more, or eat more healthy foods.  After a while, though, those really abstract goals seem to break down.  It's hard for me to feel very motivated to keep being healthy if breaking those habits doesn't seem to derail any real plan.

So, in order to actually make some progress, I've thought about some guidelines for any area of self-improvement I try to make.  (Suggestions welcome)

• Set goals:  I should be explicit about what I want to accomplish.  Less body fat?  Save more money?  Try new things?  All of these practices should have a goal attached to them.  If you can't fail at it, it's not a goal.
• Be concrete:   If it's a goal, what are the metrics to use to track progress towards it?  Consuming a certain number of calories?  Losing a certain number of pounds?  Putting X% of my income into savings?
• Be accountable: This is basically the entire purpose of this blog.  I'll commit to things publicly, and I'll keep track of them with this blog.  I want to have people give me crap if I lapse.

Beyond just "being less of a piece of shit," I should probably isolate the specific areas I want to see improvement in.  Each one is big enough to get its own entry, but here are the areas I'm currently considering.

• Health:  Specifically, exercising more and eating more healthy food.  By far the one that's the most challenging for me.
• Finances:  I don't really have problems with debt or anything, but I don't really have much planning that guides my spending habits either.  It would be nice to have a better idea of what I should be doing with my disposable income, beyond just spending it on random stuff that strikes me as cool (though doing that is admittedly pretty fun).
•  Social:  I don't really worry about not having enough friends, but I admittedly fall into ruts when it comes to not really varying the things I do for entertainment.  My introverted side also makes it a little too easy to spend time alone.  So, it would be good to motivate myself to get out more, try new things, and meet new people (as well as being better about doing stuff with people I'm already friends with).
•  Academics:  Being a graduate student, I have to keep up with classes.  On the surface, I get good grades, but my study habits are not what I'd call stellar.  I regularly slack on doing readings for class, and I put off writing my papers until the last second.  This strikes me as the opposite of what a responsible person would do.
• Employment:  Probably the topic I'm going to write the least about, due to general sensitivity.  Nonetheless, in an abstract sense, it would be good to be more productive at work, and be generally more proactive (especially at taking on tasks that would be useful for career advancement).
• Home life:  The stakes for this one aren't very high, but I'd like to be better about cleaning habitually and other general grown-up behavior.
• Other:  This is just a catch-all category for everything else that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else.  It primarily includes random tasks in my life that I put off doing.

My general plan moving forward with this blog is to dedicate entries to each of these things (some topics, like health and finances, are probably big enough to merit multiple entries).  I plan to set out some goals for each one, and provide general updates on how I'm meeting them (hopefully every day, if anyone can stomach reading this blog that much).