My simple choices

Until now I had never made a resolution at New Years, ever.

Partly because everyone I knew without exception broke theirs within a week of making them, and partly because I was lazy. I couldn’t be bothered to put that much thought into something that was doomed to failure.

So what’s difference this year?

In short, timing.

Recently I’ve been cutting down on my procrastination by not putting off decisions to do things. Going raw was one such decision. I was planning on waiting until I had used the groceries I had just bought, then I realised that if I did that I would just put it off until some other excuse came up.

There is also the fact that I am simplifying everything, which makes the choices on what to resolve much simpler. I also want to try a little experiment.

Instead of making New Years Resolutions I will be making a services of Choices. The idea is the same but choices are something that I make and stick to all the time. Resolutions seem to be thing destined to be forgotten or inevitably broken.

So for now, here is the list of my New Years Choices each of which will be explained in more detail in the coming weeks.

1. To weigh  myself weekly and post my weight, body fat and total body water over at theuncookeddiet.com.
2. To follow a 100% raw diet (with the caveat that I can leave my diet only to convenience others, I don’t want people who invite me out for dinner to have to panic at the thought of preparing an uncooked meal)
3. 100 Things
4. 100 Mile UnCooked Diet
5. No more being bored
6. No more procrastination
7. Write often
8. Read often
9. Write letters

That’s about it for Choices at the moment, as I said earlier I will go into a bit more detail over the coming weeks on the whys and the wherefores of each Choice. But for now, Happy New Year to you all. If you want to share your Resolutions or try making Choices of your own, please don’t be shy, I’d love to know what you want to change about your life or habits and why.

simplifying me, my goals

As the title of my blog suggests I have decided to trim the fat from my life, to remove the clutter and the chaos that has haunted me for as long as I can remember.

The goal?

Clarity… peace… tranquility… serenity… a calmness and sense of order that I have never had.

My life has always seemed pretty hectic. At times bordering on free-fall, everything rushing at me at 100 miles an hour and me doing my best to cope with or avoid whatever came my way.

In order to make this “mammoth” task more manageable I have decided to break it down into separate tasks.

Simplifying my life

• I want my life to be simple, it sounds so easy doesn’t it?
• I want my life to be organised, not rocket science, you would think?
• I want to work in real life the way I do in my visions of how I want to work.

Simplifying my home

• I want to like where I live, at the moment I don’t. I bought the place out of necessity and it shows.
• I want to live in a Yurt or a Strawbale home, NOT a box made out of 2×4s.
• I want to be out of town and off grid. A far cry from the street front utility hog that I can hardly bring myself to call home.

Simplifying me

• I’m a geek who in six short years became a pack rat. If its light shiny and expensive and I don’t have it yet, I want it!
• I have collected way too much stuff in way too short an amount of time.
• The Solution? 100 Things.

Simplifying food

• I gave up milk and felt better for it. Not because I was lactose intolerant or anything but because I read an article and it made sense.
• I don’t agree with modern farming practices, growth hormones and antibiotics have no place in the food chain. So I gave up meat.
• I wanted to simplify things and what better way than not cooking, so I became a raw foodist, raw vegan, whatever you call it, I don’t cook my food and I don’t eat meat, fish, eggs or dairy.

Simplifying blogging

• I’ve always enjoyed writing, so I want to find a way to run a number of blogs at the same time, I know, once you start its addictive isn’t it?
• While I don’t see myself making a living doing any one thing in the future, I want to have money coming in from numerous sources, including writing for an online audience.
• Putting all my eggs into one basket has never been my style, mostly out of confidence issues but also because I love the undeniable safety net that it gives me. Running multiple blogs gives me just that.

So there you have it, as it stands at the moment. This is my mission. No more procrastination, no more planning.

Planning isn’t doing after all.

An Introduction

Hi there.

My name is Andy Hawkins. I turned 40 this year, passed the 250lb mark and I’m generally unhappy with my lot in life. Sound familiar?

Thing is, I’m not depressed by any of this. I know I need to change those things that I can, but I have decided not to let it get me down the way it used to.

Instead I have come up with a plan, a plan that I intend to share, not in some post revelation book deal, but while I do it. I will be posting what I do and most importantly I will let you know what works and what doesn’t.

My plans are all emcompassing and include;
Health (specifically the weight that I need to lose and exercise that I need to start doing)
Wealth (why it’s no longer all about the money)
Travel (my plan includes travelling near and far and more as a vocation than a vacation)
Low impact living (lifestyle changes I am making to generally reduce my impact on the planet and its resources)
Technology (I’m a geek, so there’s software and gadgets I use all the time that some of you wont have heard of)

add to that the occasional philosophical indulgence piece and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I want to share with people.

Now I’m not a preacher by any means so take from this what you will and leave the rest. You can disagree or agree its entirely up to you. I make no promises that the things I try that work for me will work for you, nor do I beleive that anything that doesn’t work me won’t work for somone. And that’s kinda the message behind my first post which will appear next week.

At this point my plan is to have a schedule of posting every Thursday with the first post being made December 3rd. In the meantime I will be setting up Twitter and RSS and all that other cool blog related stuff.

So welcome to my life and the changes that its bringing, grab a coffee, put your feet up and come along for the ride.