Annual Report 2010

Before I lock-in on the resolutions for 2011, let's have a look out how I performed on the ones made on the eve of 2010 (as was published here):

#1 (Quit Smoking): 7/10
Was able to stay away completely from smoking for about 14 weeks (cumulatively), in 2 major bouts, after my arrival in Mumbai; also, the avg. no. of cigarettes per day came down to ~4 from ~6 during the regular smoking phases (ignoring one-off surges during booze sessions, which had also come down quite a bit). Fair improvement, I'd say, but still leaves much to be desired.

#2,#3,#4 (being Punctual, Proactive and more Organized): 5/10 (average of 3, 8 and 4)
Things improved quite a bit thanks to the nice apartment (with a very inspirational maid - she leaves things so organized that you feel guilty if you leave it otherwise!), the "professional" life and the fact that I was finally earning some money which I could use to pursue activities that I always wanted to (buying a keyboard and taking lessons, for example) and be more proactive. However, a lot of improvement is needed on the punctuality front, and I realized my organizational ability goes for a toss when working under pressure - a critical fault that needs to be addressed. Need to work on these issues.

#5 (Not being a Dog): 8/10
Fairly successful on this front; have reached a point where I'm fairly comfortable with myself and have improved drastically on almost all aspects - be it chewing bones, barking too much or chasing skirts. I'd like to say some stability on the relationship front and the fact that I was earning a decent salary doing a decent job helped. There were a few low-points here and there, but I'm more confident about their non-recursive character than I ever was; and yes, I do need to work on a few aspects, and I will be working on it - but on the whole I'm fairly happy.

#6, #7 (Sleep and Exercise): 4/10 (Average of 3 and 5)
Sub-optimal sleeping patterns continued due to no particularly good excuse, though there was significant improvement over the WIMWI madness; did start off hitting the gym, but faltered due to circumstances which look trivial in retrospect; bought myself a racket after placements as planned, but the tennis training plan didn't hit off primarily due to laziness. Not very happy how these turned out; need to work quite a bit on these aspects.

#8 (Composing 6 songs): 8/10
Composed 3, so I'd say 50% successful on that front. But, more importantly, assembled Studio Leila (and also started taking serious keyboard lessons), so +2 (and +1) for these. Only negative I see here is that I got involved more into the technicalities rather than the creative process, and a lot of time (and effort) was spent "trying things out" and "noodling" - not an entirely bad thing, I'd say, 'cause I discovered quite a few things in a fun way - but not exactly the most efficient way; need to work on that aspect.

#9,#10 (Relaunching Your Ad Here, Blogging more): 5/10
Made some progress - wasn't up to expectations, but wasn't really that significant, so not really too bothered about it.

Overall: 6/10
Verdict:
Not that great, but not as bad as I thought it was, actually! Let's hope 2011 turns out to be much better - I have a feeling it is going to be. It's hard not to, actually, on a YoY basis, given the low base we are working with for CY10.

But still, wish me luck!