How To Create a No Excuse Resolution

AKA Small is Better than Nothing at All

It’s easy to make resolutions at 11 pm on December 31st. Keeping up them up for longer than a few weeks is often difficult. But it doesn’t have to be.

making it work

This year I’m trying a “no excuse” approach to some of my resolutions.

As you saw in my January 7th post, I’ve been 0% successful on my resolution to get up an hour earlier every day. I have been 75% successful on my resolution to exercise every day. The difference? My time management resolution was a traditional goal while my exercise resolution was made under the “no excuse” rule.

There is no excuse not to [insert resolution here].

The important part of that sentence is the “resolution”.

My exercise resolution is to do 25 sit-ups, 20 leg-lifts for each leg, and 25 jumping jacks. It takes me a total of 5 minutes.

There is no excuse not to exercise for 5 minutes every day.

That is the key to creating a “no excuse” resolution – resolve to do something small, something that fits into your existing routine, something you have no excuse not to do on a daily basis.

And while it’s not going to get me in shape to run a marathon, five minutes of exercise a day is more than I used to do, and something I know I can and will do every day, for the rest of this year. This is a resolution I will keep.

So what’s your writing no-excuse resolution? Writing for half an hour a day? Reading one chapter of a book on writing? Producing one page in manuscript format?

Daisy Adair: I died in 1938, for exercise we drank sloe gin and smoked Lucky Strikes.
- Dead Like Me, “Ghost Story”, 2.3

Jan 12, 2010

Tags: no excuse  |  productivity

Categories: time management