I’ve written before about how much I love autumn as a time to set goals and make life changes. I learned a long time ago that making New Year’s resolutions wasn’t going to work for me, mostly because I was a) way too ambitious, having come out of a holiday season peppered with excesses of every sort, and b) too deep in a funk of seasonal depression to ever even get excited about my reslutions, let alone get started. It’s kind of like learning to work with your biorhythm: I know that my best working and writing time is between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., so showing up to the office at 8 in the morning isn’t the best course of action.

So, here’s what I’m trying to get done this fall.

  • Spend money consciously to make my wardrobe better. I don’t mean buying more clothes; I just mean buying better ones, and being more prompt about replacing things that need it. [Pile of holey tights shoved in the back of my drawer, I'm looking at you.] Typically I can get whatever I need or want at thrift shops, but I could still use a round of new shoes, contemporary-style blouses, tights, and underthingies.
  • Go out more, damn it. I don’t know why this happened, but sometime in January I developed serious agoraphobia and started staying in. The weather was horrible; I probably also had a bad case of seasonal affective depression, because I stopped writing for awhile, too. When the weather got better, I just never started going out again. It’s only been in the last couple of weeks [read: since I moved into my new apartment] that I’ve gotten excited about going out again. [Notice how I've been blogging a ton more, too? Yeah!] I doubt I’ll ever be someone who’s okay with going out seven nights a week, but I’m getting to the point that I enjoy and look forward to it, when it used to be something awkward and dreadful that occupied my mind and my anxieties in the worst way.
  • Stay on track with repaying my debt. Kids, I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve been awesome at this. I’ve repaid almost forty percent of my total debt this year, and I’m hoping to have it completely done by my birthday in 2011. As of right now, I’m right on track. I’m super-obsessive about it, too – I have an Evernote worksheet that I use to estimate my income and my expenses of all my upcoming paychecks, and I use that to figure out how much I can pay every week. [If I had more time on my hands, there might be spreadsheets and line graphs. Yeah. You love me for a reason.]
  • Take a course on indexing online. I’ve rocked the editing game for over eight years now, y’all. It’s time to expand the skill set.
  • Guest blog a whole bunch more. I had a blast earlier this month when I did some guesting and interviews for Punch Debt in the Face and Yes and Yes. I love that it’s allowed me to write about things I don’t normally cover here – work-related stuff and personal finance, and I’d love to keep going with it. Right now I’m pitching my little heart out.
  • Move. This should be self-explanatory, but . . . Cincinnati leaves a little to be desired, and ever since I’ve been here I’ve regretted leaving. Obviously a lot of good has come of it, but I feel like I’m much more prepared to take on New York head on, instead of flying by the seat of my pants like I so frequently did last time.

What are you guys getting up to this fall? Do you make goals for autumn, or just for New Year’s?

Related posts:

  1. Things I’m Looking Forward to About Autumn 2010
  2. Back-to-School Time for Big Kids, Non-Students, and Autumn Lovers