Hasta La Ideas

October’s resolution was focused on improving my posture. After reading the book Willpower and learning that something as simple as reminding yourself to stand up straight can increase self-control and resolve in other areas of life, I decided to try it. My posture was awful and my willpower could have used a boost.

Willpower is an essential component of living an uncluttered life. You have to be able to avoid the distractions so you can focus on what matters most to you.

I started the month by implementing some simple strategies to help improve my posture (see “Simple strategies for changing a bad habit“). I’m glad to report that my posture has significantly improved and I’m fairly certain I’ll be standing up straighter in the future.

However, I’m disappointed to report that I didn’t notice much of a change in my willpower levels. To be fair, I started the month with a good amount of willpower already in my skill set. On a scale of 1 to 10, I was probably looking for an improvement from an 8 to a 9. The posture trick might be better suited to helping people who want to move from a 2 or a 3 up to a 5 or a 6. I’m interested in hearing from others who also worked on their posture this month to see if they experienced a boost in willpower.

In the end, I have better posture, and that is okay with me. Still a decent resolution, as far as I’m concerned.

For November my goal is to take one complete day off from work. I have not taken a day off from work since August 2008. I even worked for about two hours the day my son joined our family. Whether I’ve been writing, editing, jumping on a conference call, consulting with a client, deleting spam comments from the forum, checking load times, invoicing, responding to reader emails, or whatever it is that needs to get done, I’ve done at least some work every day for the past three years.

My friend Patrick Rhone so aptly tweeted yesterday: “The danger of being able to work from any where at any time is that we will always work every place all the time.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I haven’t yet decided when my day away from work will be, but I’m committed to making it happen. Honestly, I think the hardest part will be not thinking about work on my day off from work. Uncluttering my mind is going to be a struggle. As simple as this resolution appears on the surface, I’m extremely fearful that this may be the one resolution this year I do not achieve. I’m not sure I can actually “log off” from my career for an entire day. Do you need a day off from work? If so, join me on my November resolution adventure. If you don’t need a day off from work, what resolution are you working on in November?

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Erin’s 2011 monthly resolutions: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and October.

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