Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a festive and restful winter break! I sure did!

(FCC Disclosure: I work for IBM. IBM is in our 17-day "quiet period" before it announces full-year and 4Q results on January 18. Therefore, I picked today's topic that has nothing to do with storage products, recent client wins, or financials.)

It's January, so I thought I would discuss [New Year's resolutions], a tradition in United States in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior, to accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their life. Early Romans made promises to their god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.

Sadly, most of us are unsuccesful. This is often because the resolutions were unrealistic, people failed to measure and track their progress, or simply lost interest midyear.

From my own experience, most resolutions can be lumped into four major categories:

• Get healthy: Eat better, lose weight, exercise more, sit less, quit smoking
• Get organized: Stop procrastinating, pay off debt, de-clutter, switch to a better job, reduce stress
• Become social: Spend more time with friends and family, meet new people, travel, volunteer for charity
• Learn new skills: Learn a new language, take up a new hobby, learn to paint or create arts and crafts

A technique I use to develop presentations might help people keep New Year's Resolutions. The technique called [SCIPAB®], created by Mandel Communications, is an elegantly simple, six-step method for starting important conversations or create [Effective Presentations]. Since Resolutions are basically "conversations with yourself", let's give it a try!

SCIPAB is basically an acronym of the six steps. Inspired by a blog by [Dick Stark], we can demonstrate SCIPAB with a familiar story line of [Dudley Do-Right], a fictional Canadian Mountie, featured in segments of [The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle] television show.

1. Situation: "Oh No! The boss's daughter, Nell Fenwick, is tied to the railroad tracks!"
2. Complication: A train approaches!
3. Implication: If nobody does anything soon, she will die
4. Position: "I, Dudley Do-Right, will save her!"
5. Action:
   • Untie her from the tracks and set her free
   • Arrest the villain, Snidely Whiplash
6. Benefit: Nell lives! "Dudley Do-Right, you are my hero!"

Let's see how we can use this approach on different categories of resolutions. To get healthy, we might use:

1. Situation: "Oh No! My latest doctor visit indicates that my numbers are too high!"

   (AMA Disclosure: I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Here numbers could represent any appropriate health measurement of your BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, liver enzymes, or blood sugar, for example.)

2. Complication: I am not getting any younger.
3. Implication: I am at risk of heart disease, cancer, or other health issue. This situation will not go away on its own.
4. Position: I need to change my lifestyle to get healthy
5. Action:
   • Set appointment to see my doctor
   • Follow doctor's recommendations for diet, medication and exercise
   • Schedule follow-up appointments to measure and track progress
6. Benefit: My health measurements will return to normal range.

Rather than resolving to "Eat less and exercise more", the above approach is more focused on the end result, rather than intermediate actions, and therefore has a better chance of success, getting your health within normal range.

Let's try another one. To get better organized, we might use:

1. Situation: "Sigh! All of my projects are over budget and behind schedule, my desk is a mess, I forget important thoughts and ideas, and I am always late to meetings."
2. Complication: I just got assigned to lead project XYZ.
3. Implication: If I am not better organized, I could lose my job.
4. Position: I need to change my work routine to get organized.
5. Action:
   • Read David Allen's book and learn his system for "Getting Things Done" [GTD], or one of the many variants, like [GSD] or [ZTD].
   • Decide on where to write down and keep track of my thoughts, tasks and projects, either on paper like a notebook or [Hipster PDA], or an online mobile account like [Evernote] or [Google Keep]. Chose something that will be within arms reach 24 hours a day.
   • Work with project managers to track and measure progress of project XYZ.
6. Benefit: Project XYZ will be completed on schedule, within budget. I might even get a bonus, raise, or promotion!

I could go on, but you get the idea.

In his WSJ article [Blame it on the Brain], Jonah Lehrer cautions against trying to change too many habits all at once. If you have multiple resolutions, try to focus on establishing new habits for one resolution for a month or two, before starting the next one. Prioritize what is most important.

technorati tags: IBM, New Years Resolution, Janus, Mandel Communications, Dudley Do-Right, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dick Stark, Nell Fenwick, Snidely Whiplash, David Allen, Getting Things Done, GTD, GSD, ZTD, Hipster PDA, Evernote, Wall Street Journal, Jonah Lehrer, Google Keep