I’m Reducing to Gain: A New Year’s Resolution Approach

Happy New Year. The greeting and statement of renewal, absolution, and betterment. We’re one-third of the way into the new venture, and if the world continues its normal rotation functions, nearly 80% of us will fail the resolutions game by February. Let me add more positivity. Yesterday, January 10th was known in the New Year’s Resolutions camp as Quitters Day, the day most of us give up on those goals and changes. This is why I waited until January 11th to set my resolutions. Wink, wink—however, one thing hasn’t changed: I’m reducing to gain.

Twelve years ago, I started a personal trend of abstaining from certain foods or beverages. Not for 21 days or the season of Lent, but the whole year. My objective was to influence other disciplines in my life through food self-control. Every year I learned about my strengths, weaknesses, and goal differences based on frequency of use.

Food and beverage consumed during one part of my day was easier to refuse than a food group I wanted to eat throughout the day. Ice cream was easy because I typically ate it at night. But bread, crackers, cookies and cake covered all meals and snacks from toast in the morning, to wheat crackers at lunch, to shortbread cookies during my afternoon coffee. That abstinence goal was more challenging, and I failed in September. I’ll give some credit to the Covid virus for breaking me. I didn’t seem to notice or care that I was eating sandwiches and half-a-box of Wheat Thins during those three days of the Covid mental warfare.

As I celebrate January 11th and start a new goal, having missed Quitter’s Day, I’m adjusting my category and moving from food to social media consumption. The categories for personal resolutions remain the same year after year. We want to improve our financial, physical, and emotional well-being categories in one year. I have goals in all three folders, but I’m adding my smartphone to the well-being category.

The image above indicates I have nine accounts. Note: Messenger doesn’t count because it’s Facebook’s direct messaging service. I have the TikTok app but no account. I’m waiting to see what happens with the Supreme Court after January 19th. Clubhouse has the cloud icon next to it because the service burned out as quickly as it flamed up, but for some reason I wouldn’t delete it. So, I have six accounts I look at regularly. Before last year’s fourth quarter addition of the new Bluesky, it was five apps.

Time limits set on the apps. Occasionally, I hit one of those limits and I select the Ignore Limit option. However, those occurrences increased last year. I could blame it on Covid like I did for my food failure, but it started earlier. I’ll place some of the blame on the ramp-up to the 2024 election. Everyone else uses that excuse so I’ll join the club.

When I reviewed the smartphone usage analytics, my social media usage wasn’t the largest category. As we got into December and I started thinking about my 2025 disciplines, I realized I was tapping one of those apps every time I grabbed the phone. During football playoff season, I was looking at my phone more than the game on the big screen TV.

The familiar question returned: What will I gain if I reduce my consumption? We’ll find out, but I know it won’t be replaced with meditation, although it would be one of the best results. In the early days, I’ll spend more time in the News app reading full stories until the social media app-withdrawal subsides.

However, I’m certain one of the initial time-replacement outcomes will be more listening to radio station apps. That’s positive because it’s a large part of my business. My clients will benefit from me devoting more time to their products. Will it be the typical substitution of one habit for another? Absolutely. When I abstain from a certain food, I don’t stop eating. Something else, hopefully something healthier, takes the place of the forbidden fruit.

As with the food, my 2025 whacky social-media-on-the-smartphone goal is to watch my time influence another discipline where I need help. Check back at this time next year and I’ll let you know how it went.

Transparency: I’m not closing those accounts. I’m not joining a monastery, just trying to reduce some noise. Those accounts will be visited daily, maybe more, but on my desktop. Based on my habits, I spend much less time on a desktop than my always-on-me smartphone.

What makes sense for you or your business to reduce and refocus? If you’re a social media manager or a content creator, my little resolution post Quitter’s Day isn’t right for you. But there’s something occupying the 60-minute hour and removing energy to be a more disciplined social media manager.

The internet is filled with articles from professionals helping us refine and improve our resolutions. Specificity is important in my experiences. I’ve changed my greeting to Happy January! One month at a time. The year won’t be affected until I focus on the month. Before I can improve the month, I have to change the week. Oh, and before I can impact the week, I have to win the day.

You’re rolling your eyes right now and saying, “He’s one of those ‘one day at a time’ people.” I avoid speaking that term, but it’s true. Some would go deeper and advocate one hour at a time. Been there. Resolutions, goals, plans, pledges. Choose your word. The synonyms all have one thing in common: purpose.

Here are the three Oxford Dictionary definitions of the noun purpose. 1) the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. 2) a person’s sense of resolve or determination. 3) a particular requirement or consideration, typically one that is temporary or restricted in scope or extent.

May your experience with resolutions create more focus on your purpose. Reduce The Noise To Increase The Volume™. Oh, and I just picked up my phone and couldn’t find the Social folder. This is going to be interesting.