Happy New Year!

The theme for 2013 is EASE.

2012 made me into a goal-setter when I had never been one before.  A to-do list maker? Sure.  An action-item creator? You bet! A deadline setter for accomplishments? Absolutely!  But I had never really set the goals that all of those to-do list and action-items were serving. 

Then I had a baby.  The time that was MINE was instantly in smaller and more discrete bites and goal-setting, naturally and intuitively, was how I dealt with making every minute of that MINE time count. 

The other thing that happened to the MINE time, though, was that over time it became fraught.  On a great day I had four hours to work on my career; more recently a good day is three hours and that's pushing it.  Soon, as soon as my kiddo was asleep and it was time to work on my to-do list or action items I was increasingly paralyzed by the tension around "I only have a little bit of time! What should I do?! What if I don't get it done?! What if the baby wakes up?!?!?"  I was wasting my precious time - already in short supply - with tension and anxiety.

So in 2013, my watchword is EASE.  It means working just as hard as before towards my goals but skipping over the extra worry that slows down productivity.  So far, I'm mediocre at EASE, but just having the intention has already made a good difference.

Happy New Year!