Joe’s Blog

Happy New Year Everyone! It’s time again to start making those resolutions for the New Year. I was curious just how many people planned on making resolutions this year and so I dug up this poll from the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. Their research shows that 44% of adults plan to make a resolution this year, a large increase from the 35% who said they planned to make a resolution in 2006. Women are more likely to make a resolution with 46% saying they will do so compared with 41% of men. One interesting tidbit in the poll was that 71% of men said they kept their resolution last year compared to only 57% of women. I suspect that guys are more likely to pick easy resolutions. It could also be that they are also less likely to recall whether or not they actually achieved their goals from the year before.

Here are the most popular resolutions for the upcoming year:

• 17% Lose weight
• 13% Be a better person
• 13% Stop smoking
• 8% Spend less money
• 7% Exercise more
• 6% Eat healthier
• 5% Get better job
• 5% Improve health
• 3% Get closer to God
• 3% Use time better
• 3% Increase family time
• 3% Go back to school
• 2% Set goals
• 2% Stop drinking
• 1% Be kinder to others
• 1% Buy a new house

This closely mirrors the vast majority of goals and logbooks created by Joe’s Goals users. Most people simply want to improve their health by eating better and exercising more, improve their mind by reading and studying, and improve their habits by proactively adopting routines that benefit their lives such as getting up early and cutting out body toxins. That is what Joe’s Goals was designed for, tracking and reinforcing the positive aspects of your daily life.

Joe’s Goals - The Perfect New Year’s Resolution

Often the hardest part with keeping any resolutions (especially habit oriented resolutions) is staying aware of your successes and failures as time goes by. Joe’s Goals is designed for just that. It provides an easy and customizable way to create daily goals and track them. You can even add notes and create basic reports to help you monitor your progress. I believe that it can be invaluable tool for anyone who is trying to break bad habits, create new habits, and go further in 2007 than they did the year before. The tool is totally free and you can sign up here.

My Personal Resolutions

I’ve adopted a couple of simple and yet important daily resolutions for 2007. The first is to do something for my wife every day. Something special, something that I might normally be inclined to avoid and even pass off and her responsibility. I want to bless her and make her feel special next year.

My second resolution is to attempt to blog everyday, at least for the month of January. I have a lot of big changes and additions planned for the products I’m working on and I’d also like to do a better job just keeping the nearly 14,000 users of Joe’s Goals in the loop as to what is happening with the application.

Anyway, that’s all folks. Here is to a great year everyone!