“Most New Year’s resolutions fail.” Thus begins the video below by Veritasium’s Derek Muller.

And then he explains how to give yourself the best chance of keeping your resolutions.

He gives a few tips:

1. Pick small habits to build.
2. Make resolutions specific.
3. Write down the goals.
4. Do not use willpower; restructure your environment.

I want to follow these as much as possible in my resolutions, so I am using this post to write down my goal and to make it as small and specific as possible.

Here is my first New Year’s resolution: waste less time.

I admit that that goal is not specific or even actionable, so I need to fix that.

I will waste less time by:

1. Not following news, like Derek.
2. Not following social media.
3. Reducing the amount of time I spend on YouTube.

Numbers 1 and 2 are good, but 3 is still not actionable, so to accomplish it, I will do the following:

1. Stop watching Tim Pool.
2. Stop watching the Daily Wire.
3. Stop watching Steven Crowder.
4. Stop watching gaming channels, like Mumbo Jumbo, Grian, and Iskall85.

This shouldn’t be too bad; after all, YouTube will change after the New Year anyway.

And as the icing on the cake, whenever I am tempted to watch YouTube, I will instead write a blog post, either for this blog, or for my new blog Courting Precedent.

My second New Year’s resolution is to be healthier. Again, that’s not specific and actionable, so let’s expand it:

1. I will exercise every work day. (I already have a routine that I have started.)
2. I will not consume processed sugar outside of what is already in my regular food.

For number 2, I will have to make exceptions when my wife tells me to, because she likes me to eat desserts with her. But my habit of eating hot chocolate straight when I am not happy will go straight out the window. And I will work on making my sweet tooth disappear in general by making it a habit to reject dessert when I can get away with it.

So that is what I will do for New Year’s. I encourage you to do something to improve yourself. After all, self improvement is life improvement.