I also added some static pages which might help you determine your first “tweak:” the method, rules (don’t let the term fool you), and benefits sections.

What are my goals?

I may not go into too much detail, but I have a pretty concrete idea where I want to go.

It’s pretty scary saying I want to make changes in so many areas, but it won’t happen overnight.

I am willing to accept that small changes, small victories, will add up to bigger ones.

My goals fall under these categories:

• diet
• fitness
• health
• organization
• productivity
• skills
• spiritual

(Note: I know how much weight I want to lose, and just how disorganized my desk is, but I am not going to go into too much detail at this time.)

What goal am I working on this week?

My first tweak falls under (for want of a better word) “diet.” I am not using the word in the narrow sense of restricting calories, nor in the shortsighted sense of “eating a certain way for a period of time and then giving it up.” I mean it more holistically.

My diet is not terrible. I eat lots of vegetables, fruits, and a good amount of wholefoods like legumes. It could be better.

I don’t eat fried foods every day, but I admit a weekness for french fries. If the sandwich comes with fries, I am all over them. I’ve been known to order fries and a salad. Not the worst thing in the world, but I could do with a bit less of them.

My first tweak is not to have any this week. I’m starting at midnight, New Year’s Day.

I know, it is not a very big tweak, but it makes sense to me. It’s a five-day week from 1/1 to the Sunday when my next tweak begins.

We’ll see if I decide then to keep this one up too.

No pressure. That’s the idea.
What are your goals?

What’s your first tweak?

Say as much or as little as you like, but let me know you’re out there, tweaking.

Remember, one small change, one week five days.

We can do this, eh?

Next week, we’ll re-assess and see where to go next.

Onwards!

1. Goals: what you want to change, as specific as possible. Bigger goals may also be broken down into sub-goals.

2. Steps to accomplishing the goals (it is only necessary to have the first step for each goal, though having more will help you as you go on). Those steps represent the tweaks.

Let’s take some examples:

Let’s say Karen wants to reduce stress: that’s one goal.

She also wants to get into grad school: that’s the second goal.

So what needs to be changed? What contributes to that stress? What could help reduce it?

• Karen does not sleep enough
• she does not exercise enough
• she drinks too much coffee

One set of sub-goals would be changing those habits:

• get eight hours of sleep a night
• exercise 5x a week for 30 minutes
• go from 3 cups of coffee a day to one, or switch to half-caff or decaf
• add habits or practices that reduce stress (T’ai Chi? Yoga? Meditation? Therapy?)

Still, we need to break those down further.

Just working on the coffee concern alone, she might come up with a number of possible steps:

• cut out caffeine after noon
• make each coffee “half-caff”
• go to one coffee per day
• go from one coffee per day to one half-caff
• go from one half-caff a day to just decaf

I do not expect Karen will feel the need for all those steps. Her next action would be to pick the one tweak which takes her from where she is now (3 cups a day) close to her goal (which she has to identify as one half-caff, decaf, whatever).

What Karen needs to do is not make things too hard or too easy. Tweaks should take you somewhere. You should be better off at the end of the week than the start, at least in this area of life!

But they should not be so strict as to be unmanageable (e.g moving from 3 coffees to only decaf overnight). That will give you headaches and you are probably less likely to succeed.

Moving towards the larger goal (de-stressing), Karen might brainstorm the following tweaks, any of which could be a week’s project, with no particular order required by many of them:

• go to sleep by midnight every night
• relax for an hour before midnight so she can fall asleep
• start walking 30 minutes 3x per week
• up that to 30 minutes 5x a week
• take two yoga classes this week
• take two T’ai Chi classes this week
• make an appointment with a counselor to talk about stressful issues
• stop watching the 11 o’clock news

The other goal (getting into graduate school) would call for its own set of tweaks.

At the end of the week, Karen can decide if she wants to keep it (”I will continue to go to yoga twice a week”) or dump it (”Forget yoga! Let’s try T’ai chi next.”)

Either way, a new tweak can be added the next week.

None of this should be stressful or onerous. Try to brainstorm tweaks you can manage. And be open each week to what your intuition will tell you you need, and what you can manage that week.

If your overall goal is eating more whole foods and less processed ones, then don’t try to do it all at once. The first week, swap white rice for brown. The next week, have an ounce of nuts every day. And so on.

It helps to know yourself. If you have had trouble keeping to resolutions in the past, it may be because you take on too much at once, and expect perfection. I know that was my problem. So this time, I am going to come up with concrete steps, tweaks I can manage. Just for a week, if need be.

There are 52 tweaks in a year, and I think you can get really far by changing just one thing, every week.

If you’re going to work on more than one area of your life, then the first step is to identify the different areas. Think of it as your long-range goal.
Brainstorm a list: try to make them as specific as possible.

Not “organization” (too general), but “make home liveable” or “re-do office.”

Not “weight loss,” but “lose 20 pounds.”

Not “exercise regularly,” but “by the end of the year, I want to be running a 5K and exercising four times a week.”

Once you have identified a number of goals/areas to work on, tweak your list. What’s most important? You can’t change every area 100% in one year. Manageable goals are likelier to be met.

What steps will you take to meet those goals?

Next, you need to consider what kinds of steps might lead to each goal.

It may be impossible to know what all of the needed steps would be to take you from where you are now, closer to your goal for the year.

Brainstorm a list of steps which might help you reach the goal.

If your goal is to “run a 5K and exercise 4x a week for 45 minutes,” then you probably aren’t exercising regularly now. Think about where you are, and jot down some intermediate steps. For example:

• get new walking shoes
• start walking 4x a week for ten minutes
• walk 4x a week for 20 minutes
• walk 4x a week for 30 minutes
• exercise 4x a week: walk for 5 minutes, jog very slowly for 5 minutes, then walk for 20 minutes more

(Research may help you decide on appropriate steps. So will how you feel. This is just an example.)

Be flexible

The only step you should have decided on for sure is the first one in each goal area. Once you’re working on your first tweak, you will ask yourself these questions:

• Is this helping me meet my goal?
• Is it too difficult? Too easy?
• Is there something I should have done first?

Because flexibility is needed, don’t spend too much time deciding on your areas/goals or your steps. You should expect them to change as you go.

Just identify at least one goal and one step for the first week.

If you’re new to the site, find out what this is about.

52 tweaks is gearing up for the start of the New Year.

For simplicity’s sake, I am going to begin my tweaks on Sundays, which is the start of the week for me.

If your weeks start on Monday (or some other day that seems logical to you), that’s fine too.

The first week, however, I am going to start on January 1st. The first tweak will therefore last only 5 days. It will be an easy tweak in that sense.

Watch this space for posts before the first on how to get started. And please, drop me a comment and let me know you’re in.