I didn’t write a focus areas post for 2021. Bluntly, I just didn’t feel like doing it. I started to feel the self-driven pressure of the rising streak—having written a post yearly since 2017. Between that and the tumult of covid, it felt like a great year to skip. Here I am in 2022, picking it back up. Below are my focus areas for 2022.
In my mind this has to be my number one focus. It takes true effort to maintain, nurture, and grow the bond my wife and I have together. Without this, the relationship will stall at best and fail at worst.
I tend towards routine. And this is especially true with the world of covid! This area of focus requires me to push outside of routine and have new experiences with my partner, something that is very important to her and that I find value in.
After my most recent move, I fell off in my consistency of running. I used to live in one of the most beautiful areas of town and would run almost daily.
Where I live now, I have to run up a mile-long hill first thing in my run, and it’s not particularly pretty until I make it past that first mile. This has caused me to fall off a bit in consistency.
Recently I’ve done a better job at pushing past this, but I want to be even more resolved in 2022 to consistently run and keep myself in top shape.
I’ve done a pretty good job the last couple of years of keeping up with reading. I had the insight a few years ago that I need to abandon books rather than try to push through—otherwise I end up in a quagmire and don’t make progress. I’ve been doing a good job of abandoning books this year!
However, I could be even more consistent and make reading more of a daily habit rather than a weekly one.
This focus area is not about number of books read, number of pages read or anything similar—It’s about a habit of consistently learning and acquiring knowledge.
I don’t like owning things. Generally, clutter makes me unhappy. Because of this, when possible, I shouldn’t get new things to bring into my house and I also should make an effort to get rid of things that are no longer needed or are being replaced.
I’ve realized that—for me—getting rid of things is significantly harder than obtaining things; as such, I want to make a purposeful effort this year not to obtain new things when possible.
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And that’s a wrap on my focus areas for 2022. Predictably, the post isn’t that different than previous years. In some areas I’ve regressed a bit (running) and in others I’ve done a good job being relatively consistent (reading). With some effort, hopefully this year I can iteratively improve across the board.
Happy 2022!