It’s that time of year when it seems traditional to consider the ways you failed last year and to make resolutions so that you can establish a new pattern of failure early next year.

I’ve already noticed a few blogs like that.

The way I get round this is simply to look at my targets, and if I’m not meeting them I adjust them to meet reality. For instance, when we closed down for Christmas I set myself the target of writing my 300th post before the end of the year. That’s now. This is the 296th post. I just set a new target, to write 296 posts before the end of the year, and am currently basking in the warmth that comes from the satisfaction of meeting a target.

In truth it wasn’t an important target and I’d have been better not putting pressure on myself. That’s what we need to remember – most stuff isn’t important. Looking back on the year it’s pretty certain that you did what was important and that what didn’t get done wasn’t important, though it seemed so at the time.

I’ll leave it here, as one of my targets is to avoid being maudlin at New Year, so I’ll finish with a song that sums up my approach.

Happy New Year everybody.