Reflections on a New Year

In many ways, I am pretty lucky. Every year my husband schedules a winter time Caribbean cruise. (Go Husband!). He grew up in Florida, so he this is a pretty typical vacation for him, and I have to say it really is the best way I can imagine to spend my late Dec-early Jan.

The most important thing that I got out of my cruise was a fantastic feeling of Zen that I am hoping to keep with me for as long as possible. For 5 days I didn't have to worry about grants, papers, teaching, cooking, cleaning, driving kids around, music practice or anything. These kinds of breaks give me a chance to think about what really matters and how to get my life in order to achieve it.

My new years resolution is to learn to say no. Not just to others, but to myself as well. I really want to be successful and it is hard to turn down opportunities to write papers, go to conferences, even to apply for this grant or that grant. But in the interest of sanity, I will try my hardest to manage my commitments. This means:

* No more than 1 paper review per month
* No more than 1 grant per month (2 months is better)
* No more than 2 invited reviews per year
* No more than minimum # of committees that chair will let me get away with
* No more than 1 outreach activity per term

* No more than 1 extracurricular activity per kid per week
* No more than 1 gourmet meal per week (hard for me I love to cook)

Hopefully this plan will work. Here's looking to 2009. What are your resolutions?