Happy New Year!

I’ve come to dislike New Year’s resolutions. Don’t get me wrong—I still believe in setting goals, but I’ve found that if you break a resolution, it’s easy to convince yourself to give up entirely and just add it to next year’s list. That’s why, for most people, resolutions rarely last beyond the first few weeks of the year.

This year, I’ve created a list of goals for 2025, but I’m being more deliberate with the number. If you’re new to goal-setting, I’d recommend starting with a number you think you can achieve—and then divide it by half. There’s a good reason for this. Having too many goals, especially when you’re just starting out, can feel overwhelming and can derail your progress. Goal-setting is like a muscle you need to train, and starting small makes it easier to build momentum.

Fewer goals also help avoid decision paralysis. It makes it clearer where to focus your attention, which increases your chances of success.

Sneaky Marketing

I allowed a Costco AT&T salesperson to smooth-talk me into upgrading to the iPhone 16 and signing a 3-year contract with AT&T.

The pitch was well-executed. AT&T at Costco was running a campaign where you could trade in your old iPhone and get $1,000 off the new iPhone, plus a $100 gift card. Throughout the conversation, I was led to believe that the $100 gift card was something I would receive simply for choosing the Costco route. Which, to be fair, is true—but what wasn’t made clear was that the gift card only offsets the tax cost of the new iPhone.

This key detail was conveniently left out, and I only realized it once I was about to sign the final agreement. At that moment, I noticed the total amount was much higher than the monthly payment the salesperson had initially quoted.

Weekly post numbering

Leading up to this post, I deliberated on whether to reset the weekly post number to start with 1, indicating the week number for this year, or if I should continue from where I left off.

I decided to continue the count, mostly to make it easier for me to track how far I can go.

New year problems

New year means new promises and with that comes the challenge of choosing or finding the right tool for the job. This year I decided I wanted to be more deligent about accomplishing my goals.

This meant putting a system in place, which involved going down the rabit hole of how I want to do my planning. Digital or Analog? If analog how do I want to put the system in the place. And if I chose the digital what apps and system do I want to build then.

My search began with the intent to organize/plan using analog system. I spent a lot of time going through daily planners, weekly planners, diaries. One company I was eyeing was Ugmonk. Strangely, my choice for analog was driven by the belief that it would be more cost-effective. That thought quickly fell apart when I saw Ugmonk’s pricing.

Pros of analog:

• Simplistic
• Distraction-free
• Process-centric

Cons:

• If privacy is a concern then it becomes a problem. It can become a target to prying eyes. And if you have a toddler it is most certainly the space for their artistic creativity despite their room filled with most interesting toys you would love to engage with as an adult.
• You have to remember to carry it around.
• You could end up with a bit of clutter (if you plan on having them around)
• Less eco friendly(if you are into that thing)
• Searching can be hard

It quickly became clear I wanted to go digital route. And this is where I spent a lot more time trying various different apps and systems, going through various productivity videos to get a glimpse of their working system.

After all the hours of trying to find the perfect app, it dawned on me that essentially I needed the analog experience digitally. If I look at the pros it is really simple and I was needless complicating it my search for “the” app. Now I have the perfect 4 days of war tested :P system. Planning in Notes.app coupled with Calendar and Reminders.

Yep! Notes.app that comes default on all Apple devices. ¹

The system as it is working:

• A folder labeled with the current year.

• A file labeled “Goals” - as the name suggests lists the goals for the year

• A file labeled “Planner” - This is pretty much where everything happens. The file is sectioned like this:

  • Quaterly Goals
  • Weekly planner
  • Daily

  The quaterly goals are things that I would like to work from the yearly goals for this quarter. From there the weekly goals for the next 3 months should come from the quarterly goals. And similarly the daily goals should be coming off the weekly section.

  Essentially each day’s plan should help move the needle closer to accomplishing the weekly tasks which in turn should help accomplish the quaterly and eventually get us to striking off one or more of the yearly goals :)

Best of this system is that you don’t need any tools or subscription or anything fancy. No notes.app fine you can do the same thing in google docs or even text file. But the advantage to docs or notes app is its seamless sync with cloud making it available on all the devices. I will post back on how this process is going at the end of the quater :).

Happy planning!

Through the lens