Matthew May's blog, Elegant Solutions, is one of my favorites. He came from the Toyota world, so he offers an insider's view of Toyota's elegant mind. Yesterday he presented a different approach to creating New Year's resolutions: "2009: Don't Just Do Something."
Instead of saying what you will do or what you will add to your life, you say what you will not do or what you will delete from your life. On that note, here are my New Year's "anti-resolutions":
- I will eliminate blatant energy wasters from my daily life. Living in Dallas, it will be hard to reduce my fuel usage, but I'm going to carpool more and drive the Honda Civic (35-40 mpg) more than the Toyota FJ Cruiser (18 mpg). Also, instead of flying to Europe for vacation, we're gonna stay close (North America at least). All incandescent light bulbs are already gone or will be gone soon. Baby steps, but they will reduce my carbon footprint.
- I will eliminate excessive TV & movie watching. This past year I got fiber optic cable TV for the first time, and I was hooked. The picture quality was so amazing and choices were so abundant that I watched a lot of everything. It was fun while it lasted, but it's unsustainable as it's a huge time-waster. With the start of my graduate studies and blogging, there's just no time for wasteful activities anymore.
- I will eliminate disgusting food from my diet. I love to eat. My ever-expanding waistline is evidence of that. I'll never be one for eating like a bird and I shudder at the thought of being a vegetarian. But, I certainly would not miss all the disgusting food that I eat. I don't need McDonald's breakfast, frozen food, fried food, anything covered in cheese and/or butter, or any processed "stuff" from the Super Wal-Mart. I would actually like to live past 30.
Well, that's it. I was tempted to add other items to the list, but in the elegant spirit of Mr. May's blog, I will keep to the top three. Do you think they're achievable? If you had to choose three things to eliminate from your life in '09, what would they be?
Happy New Year!
