The New Year always heralds a new approach and a new found desire to stretch oneself with new goals and new plans, and in the main people tend to put these down as resolutions.

I don’t normally make resolutions, because I’m more the kind of person who doesn’t like waiting around until January 1st in order to get things started.

You could call me impatient if you like (I don’t mind, I’ve been called much worse )

I just figure that if you’re passionate about doing something then putting it off until January 1st is a step backwards.

Of course, there are things I’d like to do, and looking at 2011 ahead of me there are personal goals and plans I want to achieve.

But let me make it clear – these aren’t resolutions…

…they just happen to be plans I happen to be putting into place this month

So, what are my plans I hear you cry (well, not so much of a cry, maybe I hear one person murmur quietly in the background). I only have a few, and they fall into just a couple of categories.

Continue To Learn New Stuff

Those that know me know that I’m always reading a book or magazine, or surfing the t’interwebs and reading a thousand different things on my Google Reader feed. I can’t help it, I’m just one of those inquisitive types who has issues sitting still.

I read stuff because I find it interesting, and a lot of the time I learn things I never knew before – whether it’s something really useful like how to integrate new Facebook stuff on a website, or less useful (but highly entertaining) stuff on how there’s a gym in London which uses little people as weights.

Either way, I’m gonna continue sticking my nose in books / magazines / RSS readers for the foreseeable future, so I’m gonna continue to learn new stuff.

Learn To Unplug

Although this directly contradicts what I’ve just said, I’m going to make a conscious effort to switch off all my connections to the outside world when I’m at home.

This isn’t to say I’m becoming a hermit who shuns the world and all technology, retiring to a wood cabin in remote wilderness, and living a unabomber lifestyle…

It simply means that once I’ve gone home then I’m going to be spending more time with my wife, my kids, my friends and my extended family – rather than with all my other friends on Twitter, Facebook and the crazies from the various forums I frequent (you know who you are).

This doesn’t mean I love you any less, it just means that I love my family more, and that’s a good thing.

Lose Some Weight Fatty

If I’m completely honest (and as honest as all my mates are to me in the pub), I need to lose about 4 stone.

I kid you not.

I mostly sit around on my ass 24/7 working on a computer. It’s a very nice shiny iMac, which is fast, reliable, clean etc., which makes it a joy to sit at. But nevertheless, I sit on my ass all day and don’t do enough exercise (unless you count making coffee as exercise, which most people don’t).

This coupled with the fact that I love chocolate, kebabs, pizza, curry, chinese food, steak & kidney pudding and chips, beer, wine, crisps [and the list goes on...] means that I have gone in the past few short years from a svelte 12 – 13 stone handsome chap, and grown somewhat into a 17 stone 1 pound behemoth.

It’s not good for me, and in the long term it won’t be good for my kids, so this is the year that I drag my fat butt off my very comfortable chair and do some exercise.

Put My Head Above The Parapet More

Like most people reading this (all two of you), I am just as insecure and fret about people saying / writing things about me. It’s part of the human condition, we all want to be universally loved (especially if it’s Halle Berry or Michelle Pfeiffer), and none of us want people to come back at us and swipe the rug from under our feet and kick us while we’re on the floor.

The problem is that on the internet if you want to make some money or build out a business, then you need to put your stuff out there for people to read and comment on.

Thankfully I’ve not really had any bad incidents of people name-calling, trolling my comments, or saying nasty things about my weight on Twitter (unless you count the people I share an office with – and that’s not really trolling, it’s witty banter, and it’s frequently started by me )

So this year I’m going to be putting out more content, whether it’s quick updates via Posterous, or an update on my Facebook Page (which you should go and like by the way), or even a monster blog post like this one.

I’m also going to be messing around more with all the Facebook changes, so if you are looking at this blog you’ll notice that the comments will move across to FB comments at some point (when I get time / can be bothered), and if you’re looking at my FB page then you’ll see me making changes over there as well. These are as much for my continuing to learn, as well as finding out what works and what doesn’t.

Try More, Fail More, Learn More

This is actually something which has been ongoing now for a couple of years, so it’s not actually a plan for 2011 as such.

You see, I’m not one of those people that cry over spilled milk. I cock up all the time, and each and every time it happens I learn something from it.

So this year I’m going to continue to try to do more stuff, take action, and see what works. If it doesn’t do what I thought it was going to do it doesn’t mean it’s a failure, it’s just new data for the next iteration…

So that’s my ongoing plans (remember, they’re not resolutions), hope the coming year brings you what you’re hoping and aiming for, and if it doesn’t then you have some test data to work with next time round

Jon Dean