The Resolutionary War

Money Money Money

Resolutionary Man — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:25:17 +0000

So we are almost a week into the new year and I have read two books, cooked one meal and have been to the gym twice thus far. My business and language goals have gotten the least attention but tommorow is a great oppurtunity for me to nourish them.

The big milestone for today however is that I have started my new budget!

In short this budget allows me to afford $15 per day as well as an extra $15 dollars to spread throughout the week as needed. Every dollar that goes unspent is pooled and will be used on larger purchases (like my car)

The break down follows like this

Every week I get a rough $225 from my two jobs, my cell phone breaks down to $30 a week which brings me down to $195 if I save $75 (33%) then that leaves me with $120 per week or 8 sets of $15.

In the constant quest to make things as simple as they can get I am trying to remove myself from my banking as much as possible. This means that I will be setting up two direct deposits for my jobs and setting my cell phone bill to automatics payment, then when I can see that this system is working smoothly I will set up an automatic transfer to take place biweekly and move $150 from my checking to my savings. Then I can go to the bank and withdraw $60 which should hold me over for four days. As long as I keep some incovience cash around the house and set my card aside I should be able to avoid temptation.

Some rules I am putting into place for myself include not buying anything more then thirty dollars without trying to find a coupon or deal and waiting a week. And not buying anything more then $50 without waiting two weeks and talking it over with my girlfriend.

As of this writing I have $1 recovered from my daily spending!

A Quick Glimpse of the Future

Resolutionary Man — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:07:13 +0000

Although it has been two days since I lasted posted I have not been loosing track of my resolutions, quite the opposite in fact. I have spent my two day posting hibernation studying the tasks ahead of me and breaking half of them into tiny pieces that I can easily take down on a week to week basis.

For my goal to read 52 books I have researched a number of books that have interested me and picked about 60 (just incase some of my first 52 are boring me too much too fast.)

As far as my cooking resolution I have made a menu of 16 different dishes that I will be cooking in the next two months, all visit a basic concept in their creation.

When it comes to visiting the gym I have made a punch cars with 156 (that’s 3 per week) circles for me to fill in as I go. This way I can see my progress in a real fashion.

Tommorow I start my new budget which should ensure that I can save one third of my paycheck every week and still be able to afford a semicomfortable livestyle.

As far as my business goal I have ordered a new book and plan to read and reread two others, once that is finished I am going to review my business plan and set a testdate to launch.

Tommorow I will be looking into getting some Spanish flash cards to help me learn the most. Popular 100 words.

Until then -you enjoy.

Everything can be quantified

Resolutionary Man — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:40:35 +0000

One of the key requirements of any strong goal is the quantifiable rewards,or more practically put “What do I want from this?” And if the answer to that question doesn’t have a number somewhere inside of it then you might need to review your goal. One Key motivational method to insure people stay on track, and one of the things that I hope will make me a successful entrepreneur is the ability to think with the end in mind. Now if we marry these two ideas we come across one of the most powerful points in David Allen’s seminar and book “Getting things done” – What does success look like. So now with these things in mind I am going to be listing what my end-game goals are for my big-6 resolutions as follows

1- Cook 100 Dishes

I am going to attempt cooking in a specific style twice a week for 8 weeks without repeating any recipes, once every 2 month cycle is complete I will start the next cycle by picking out my recipes during the first week of that cycle. This means that by Friday 1/8 I will need to have picked 16 basic cooking recipes and have cooked two of them. My reminders will let me know on the 8th of every month to keep me focused on this goal.

2- Save a third of my income

This one is more straight forward them it might seem. I am going to spend the next two weeks working out a budget for the year, then set my cell-phone bill to an automatic payment and arrange to have the required amount ($75 dollar) transferred to my savings every week. As long as I do not ruin this set-up then I should be able to do this resolution with little more than discipline

3- Read 52 books in the year

This is my third year repeating this goal and unfortunately I failed last year. I believe that this was completely because of my poor planning early in the year, this lead to anxiety about which book to get a hold of next and allowed for too much paralysis by analysis. This year I have made my master list of 52 books and have already completed the first one and have the next four ready for me when I need to read them. I will set reminders for this goal at on the 5th of every third month (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct) to make sure I am on track

4- Strengthen my Spanish, Learn Esperanto and German

As for Spanish and German I am going to be picking up Rosetta Stone programs for these languages second-hand through Craigslist. These programs are broken up into 4 chapters per level, to succeed I believe I will need to complete the first two levels of each of these languages (I’m half-way done with Spanish in that regard). Esperanto is not offered through Rosetta Stone but there is an online college that will offer free tutoring and administer and grade an exam on your behalf. I believe that I can complete my Spanish learning in three months, have three months for Esperanto and leave the second half of the year to learning German. I will set weekly reminders for myself on Mondays.

5 & 6 – Start my Muse Business and Strengthen my physical fitness

Over the next week I am going to be looking over these goals more in-depth to see which direction I want to take them, there are so many different metrics I good pine for that my first order of business is to decide what reward I want from these two goals

You Enjoy!

A Good Cook is Never Without Friends

Resolutionary Man — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:48:04 +0000

It seems to me that cooking is one of those good habits that has new rewards every time you set up to the fryer. When I go out to dinner I end up waiting too long and paying too much for something that is cooked to business standards. I haven’t always felt this way, and the truth is that there are some days where going out with friends and devouring a steak can make all my troubles go away.

The thing is that when I cook my troubles go away too. And when I cook I can’t help but think that I can make an edible and enjoyable dish for $2-4 per person. That is the entire meal – $4 per person! But my wonderment doesn’t stop there, cooking is healthy for me in both the relaxing feeling I get behind the counter and by virtue of the fact that I can control what I eat. And ultimately cooking is the only art form that I feel I can excel at.

So back to my resolution, 100 dishes in 6 different cooking styles in one year. This means I will be cooking a certain style twice a week for two months. What do I mean by cooking style? I mean that I want to continue challenging myself with new things, last year I made the chicken almost all the time. This year I have broken up my cooking blocks as follows

Jan-Feb: cooking basics (always practice the basics)
Mar-Apr: Latin food (I hope Mi Madre will help me)
May-Jun: Oriental food (sushi, curry and fish)
Jul-Aug: Americana (fried chicken, coleslaw, mashed potatoes)
Sep-Oct: Creole (gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp and more fish)
Nov-Dec: Holiday food (wholesome meals for the family)

Every week I hope to post what I am making and if possible the recipes I am using, then I will post my critiques on the dish after they have been eaten.

Happy new years

Turn over my leaves? its much faster to rake them…

Resolutionary Man — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:53:53 +0000

Hello all, as this is my introductory post to my first real blog I can’t say that I am not a little bit nervous. But on the other hand as I don’t think anyone I know will find and face me on these subjects my anonymity helps ease my anxiety.

The Resolutionary War is a journal to chart my path as I set, plot, work on and hopefully achieve different resolutions that I will be setting throughout 2010 and beyond. Although I am starting this blog, and many of my resolutions on New Year’s Eve I am loath to refer to these new goals as “New Years” resolutions, when I have done that in the past it has proven to be more of a hindrance to attach my resolutions to January 1st.

This being said I am going to list the goals I hope to achieve throughout the year now, and how I plan to achieve them. If something new comes up then I will probably add it in later as a monthly resolution, or a seasonal resolution or whatever so that I can make the most out of this blog. I am mostly doing this for my own benefit so I can keep track of everything if you stop by and see something exciting and want to comment it would defiantly give me a rush to see what you have to say, so if you have questions or want to warn me about a mistake I am going to be making please let me know and I will try to respond to all of them.

As this is my first post I am going to be listing my major year-long goals to start things off, many of these goals are super-inflated so that I will have a strict challenge ahead of me, some of them are goals that I have set before and want to renew or make changes to and so not all of these goals are blissful wishes – I am certain that I can achieve everything here with a reasonable amount of dedication.

1. Read 52 books, half fiction and half non-fiction (This is a my standard resolution for the past 3 years)

2. Cook 100 different meals from 6 different cooking styles (I am doing this to develope a good knowledge base in cooking, I started cooking this year but it is safe to say that I have not really learned anything.)

3. Save one-third of my income (I hope to be moving in with my girlfriend in 2011 so I want to know that we are disciplined enough to make the rent)

4. Get 6-pack abs (this is my general fitness goal, I will set the numeric metrics up for this soon but for now I know I want a 6-pack)

5. Start my Muse Business (this concept comes from Timothy Ferris’ book The Four Hour Work Week, which is an excellent read for any entrepreneurs to be)

6. Learn Spanish, Esperanto and German (I already know enough Spanish to talk with others but I want to seal the language a little bit better)

So these are the big 6, if I make these goals then I hope to be much, much more confident with myself and happier in general knowing that I can follow through with no other incentive then getting things done. For the first week I am going to be looking more into these goals and trying to learn as much as I can as fast as I can so that I can better understand what all of this entails.