New Year Resolutions

Seems strange to be talking about New Years day and we haven't even gotten to Veterans Day yet? Truth is, this is a perfect time to talk about the new year coming up, and one of the most important things that you can think about in that context.

Now is the time to get your plans and goals for the new year up and running!

For example, I use a pretty extensive self designed Excel spreadsheet to track all of my finances. If you follow my Blog, you will learn about this, as it is a pretty extensive part of my financial planning, and something that I do feel very passionate about. However, to keep each individual file from getting to be too large, I am just going to create a new sheet for next year. This sheet tracks weekly paychecks, so the date for each weekly paycheck needs to be entered, so that requires a bit of work. Plus, there are other little tweaks and improvements that I want to make, and I am always thinking about something to make the sheet better. So, over the next few weeks, I am getting the "Financial Control 2009" sheet ready to go live on January 1.

What are some good things to do to get ready for the new year?

• Make sure (just as I am doing) that your financial accounting methods, whatever you use, are ready for the next year.
• Look at your goals for the present year. Is there anything that you can do to step up and meet a goal in these last two months that otherwise might not have been met?
• It is a good time to be thinking about what you want to accomplish next year. To do this right will take you longer than the couple of days prior to January 1 that most people think about their resolutions. I wonder if this short planning time coincides with the fact that most of these resolutions are forgotten by January 20? Maybe We could call this "Getting Up's law concerning New Year Resolutions?" How long a resolution is followed directly coincides to the amount of time that it has been thought about before January 1. For each day spent thinking about the resolution, one week is spent on following it. Since we are about at the 52 days until the end of the year mark, if you start now, you might make it through until the end of the year.
• Don't do anything that will torpedo your next year goals between now and the end of the year. This means that you can't go crazy at Christmas time.

I have begun my planning for next year. Have you? Today is a good day to get started!