My Goals for 2025

Every year I like to set a few goals for the year. I know all the reasons why this is silly, but I still find it a useful exercise. Without further preamble, here are my goals for 2025.

Stop letting the internet hijack my brain

Someday I’ll delete all my social media accounts. Until then, I occasionally need to make changes to rein in my use. Lately I’ve once again noticed that I’m spending way too much time scrolling Instagram and Facebook, reading random AITAH and ultrarunning posts on Reddit, and engaging in the X outrage machine.

This isn’t harmless. I’ve noticed that when I do this sort of thing it has several negative consequences.

• I’m less productive
• It’s harder to focus on tasks that require concentration
• I avoid mentally challenging tasks
• I feel more anxious

Clearly my use of social media is a bad habit. To break a bad habit you have to take steps to avoid it and replace it with something else. So my plan to minimize social media use has four parts.

1. Remove social media apps from my phone. I can still use them in the browser as needed. ✅
2. Install a browser extension on my laptop to make social media use during the work day a hassle. I particularly like LeechBlock NG for this purpose. If I genuinely need to access a social media site for some reason I can easily override the block, but the extension keeps me from scrolling mindlessly. ✅
3. Don’t keep my phone in my pocket when at home. It’s way too easy to pop out my phone and start scrolling the moment I have a second of boredom. I leave it on a charging dock while working and I’ll pop it on the kitchen counter when I’m not working. ✅
4. Get back into reading. Prior to the birth of my youngest daughter in 2021 I had gotten pretty good about always having a book or two in progress. I’ve badly gotten out of the habit, though over the holidays I did read two books. I want to keep that forward progress rolling forward and replace my scrolling with reading. ✅

Get back to healthy and consistent running

Last year I very ambitiously set the goal of running a mile per day. That lasted all of two weeks before lower leg ailments put me on the DL.

Several years ago, when I first started running I set one simple rule for myself: never run on back-to-back days. I did this because my history as a runner was one of frequent injury. For the last couple of years I’ve tried to set this rule aside and ramp up to running around five days a week. During this same time I also started running longer ultras: the Georgia Death Race, the Cruel Jewel, and the Georgia Jewel. As my running frequency and ultra length have increased I’ve found myself injured on a regular basis. Over the last two years I’d guess I’ve been injured close to 50% of the time.

For 2025 I’m making two changes:

1. I’m reinstating my rule of never running on back-to-back days
2. I’ll only run races that are 25k or shorter

It’s possible that running on back-to-back days simply isn’t sustainable for my body. I had hoped my body would adapt to it, but it hasn’t happened yet. Also, I do want to get back to running long ultras some day, but for now they aren’t compatible with staying healthy.

I’m grateful to be able to run at all and in 2025 I want to focus on enjoying running by running in a way that works for my body.

Lose 10 pounds

I exercise a lot. I weight train three times a week for a few hours, I run or engage in some other form of cardio six days a week for several hours. Despite this, I’m carrying perhaps 20 pounds of excess weight.

The answer why is simple: I eat too much and I eat things I shouldn’t.

Losing 10 pounds doesn’t represent a major achievement. I weigh about 185 right now. I think around 165 or 170 would be an ideal weight for me without losing any muscle mass. So 175 should be quite achievable over the course of the year with some modest changes to how I eat. What are these modest changes? I want to make three simple changes to how I eat:

1. Don’t go back for seconds. I never need them. I only ever eat them because I want them. Fix one plate and be done.
2. No desserts except for on the weekend. I have a bad habit of eating ice cream every night. I’m not going to give it up entirely, but I do want to trim it back to the weekends only.
3. Late night snacks have to be whole raw foods. As I mentioned, I have ice cream nearly every night. Rather than cut myself off entirely I’ll allow myself to have a late night snack, but it needs to be a raw whole food: an apple, a banana, a cucumber, something like that.

Keep my office clean

I am lucky to have a private office. As someone who works from home having a dedicated and private area to work is huge and I don’t take it for granted. Something I have noticed though is that the state of my office is a pretty good representation of the state of my work organization. When my office is clean and organized I tend to be much more organized and productive, and vice versa.

I don’t necessarily think a clean office causes me to be more productive and organized. I suspect that when work and my office get a little disorganized both are symptoms of the general state of my brain rather than either one being the cause of the other.

However, I do think the act of stopping to intentionally clean and organize my office regularly has a calming and clarifying effect on my state of mind. In other words, a clear desk tends to help calm my mind and makes it more likely that I’ll be productive and organized in my work, and that’s what matters. I care deeply about the work I do and I want to do it better. A clean office will help me do that.