resolutions – Christopher Wink

Build the habit of making habits: resolutions of mine that stuck

A friend asked me what I thought is the best skill to develop. Build the habit of habits, I told her.

That’s how you get the most out of yourself and your place. It won’t always work but if you develop the rigor and constitution to choose to add a habit and then go and do just that, you’ll be gold. That is how you develop discipline.

My method for doing this is my near obsessive approach to annual resolutions. Each year, I put forward a dozen of them, many straightforward goals but often several tied to habits I want to add to who I am. I tie them to individual months but in truth I plan to do many of them throughout the year and beyond.

Recently I was considering how many personality traits of mine I believe started as resolutions. I think they’re a good example of building the habit of building habits. I wanted to share.

Continue reading Build the habit of making habits: resolutions of mine that stuck

My 2018 Resolutions

I’ve put a lot of time for many years in resolutions. They drive me forward, and I can continually retool what helps me most accomplish my goals.

After another important year for me, I’m looking to get to work in 2018. I’ll be looking to add good habits and drop bad ones. This year I took a focused look to make sure I was offering SMART resolutions. I also want to have fun. I’m mostly there.

Continue reading My 2018 Resolutions

Goodbye to 2017

For my own sake, I took a look back at what was another wonderful and exciting year. I feel as fortunate as ever.

Below I share some examples of things I’m proud of.

Continue reading Goodbye to 2017

What I accomplished professionally in 2016

Each year I look back to review what I’ve done.

For the last several years, I’ve kept my professional resolutions here and my personal ones elsewhere. Here, I aim to do something of a look back on myself and share it with you all.

Continue reading What I accomplished professionally in 2016

30×30: 30 things I’m proud I did before I turned 30

I like lists. I find them motivating and easy to understand. It’s a structure to limit and highlight, whether they be daily to-do lists or curated honors or resolutions — both personal and professional. I also like somewhat arbitrary milestones to serve as an opportunity to review my progress to the goals I have. It’s the same reason why I celebrated my 10,000th day alive.

Here’s another. I turn 30 this week and have used that as a reason to feel good about what I’ve done so far.

Continue reading 30×30: 30 things I’m proud I did before I turned 30

My proudest professional outcomes of 2015

I want to keep developing as a small business owner and leader.

That’s why I keep track of my professional goals each year — in addition to personal resolutions. This past year was no different. Most of those goals involve my company Technically Media but not all.

Below see what I’m most proud of having accomplished in 2015.

Continue reading My proudest professional outcomes of 2015

Some professional accomplishments of mine in 2014

Here’s what the year of 2014 looked like for me.

I have a thing for resolutions but I’ve decided to keep my personal goals elsewhere. So this is just a chance to capture some of the professional successes I had in 2014 and to be thankful for them.

Continue reading Some professional accomplishments of mine in 2014

Here’s what I accomplished professionally in 2013

Setting aside personal resolutions, I also wanted to take a look at some of my professional accomplishments of the year. (Find my 2012 professional milestones here.)

I took a month-by-month look at 2013 to get a sense of my year, always striving for having a bigger impact than the year before.

Continue reading Here’s what I accomplished professionally in 2013

2012 professional milestones

It was a good year.

January 2012: I moderated a CSPAN-televised online privacy panel held at the National Constitution Center.
February 2012: We celebrated three years of Technically Philly.
March 2012: I finally became an official member of the Pen and Pencil Club.
April 2012: Invited to private roundtable discussion held in the Pulitzer Room at Columbia University on the next stage of news innovation academia, which resulted in this academic report released in November.
April 2012: We hosted the second annual Philly Tech Week.
May 2012: I designed and launched Ph.ly/newsweekly, as first discussed here.
July 2012: After first hiring a reporter back in December, we hired another in Philly and our first in Philly.
September 2012: After a July soft launch of Technically Baltimore, we more formally expanded by hosting the inaugural Baltimore Innovation Week.
October 2012: A short profile of Philadelphia’s new Chief Data Officer was my first proper clip in a major regional print magazine. (I also landed another Temple Review feature.)

My 2012 professional resolutions with a focus on RISK; review 2011 goals

A year ago, I felt scattered. I wanted to focus in 2011, and I think, as a full-time employee of my own business with clearer goals and objectives, I have accomplished that.

As detailed below, I feel very proud of the success I had in meeting my professional resolutions for the year. So, it’s important to me that I do so again, which I also did below.

In them, I’d say the theme for my 2012 is RISK.

It’s time to risk fast or succeed for me professionally. I want to be more aggressive in business and outreach, now with a more stable company and clearer focus.

I’ll set goals to do so, but it’s also worth reviewing what has been a wonderful year. Here are some professional milestones not included in my planned resolutions below:

January 2011: Launching Technically Media, a consultancy that publishes Technically Philly and launched that month a new blog strategy for the National Constitution Center.
February 2011: Philadelphia magazine covered a multimillion dollar journalism effort at Temple Unuiversity and referenced that we at Technically Philly helped conceive of its structure. (I offered other strategy around the effort and wrote about a similar effort.)
March 2011: I helped develop the strategy around OpenDataPhilly.org, an open data catalog built by Azavea and unveiled in April during Philly Tech Week.
April 2011: I was invited to attend the Hardly.Strictly.Young conference on news innovation at the University of Missouri.
April 2011: Addressing Philadelphia City Council, regarding Philly Tech Week.
May 2011: NBC 10 listed me as among 20 locals who are worth following on Twitter.
June 2011: I was invited to attend an intimate Aspen Institute roundtable on news innovation.
July 2011: I spoke about technology issues on local NPR affiliate WHYY several times, like here, here, here and here.
August 2011: Alumni magazine or not, I had my first glossy print feature published in the Temple Review.
September 2011: With the generous support of the Center for Public Interest Journalism, I attended the national Online News Association conference in Boston.
October 2011: I released a particularly large piece of journalism around a bottlenecked city data set.
November 2011: Yes, I finally got a smart phone.

Below, see my 2012 resolutions and a review of how I did with my 2011 goals too.

Continue reading My 2012 professional resolutions with a focus on RISK; review 2011 goals