After abandoning the habit almost a year ago, I am once again writing my goals each morning. The format consists of 10 things that I want to accomplish in my life, and 10 this year.  The two categories help me to better maintain both a long term, and a short term perspective.

It’s a valuable mental exercise that helps me stay focused if I ever become distracted by meaningless activities.  Earl Nightingale, a prominent expert on success & self-improvement once said that “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal."  There are a lot of things that I want to accomplish by design, instead of chance.   Guess I’d better hustle.

At the risk of sounding morbid and stating the obvious, all of us will die one day.  But assuming there’s no apocalyptical event that wipes out humanity, or more accurately its technology, then the digital records of ourselves will essentially last forever.

This has huge implications. In the past only a miniscule number of people gets remembered by history, while hundreds of billions lived, died, and were forgotten.

But in the future, people can form a much clearer and sharper impressions of us through our photos, videos, and writings.  Social networking sites such as Facebook makes this archive especially easy.  We slowly accumulate a digital record of our lives that will be here forever…  How will we be judged?  Tragically wasted, or full of life?  And are we recording our real selves, or merely a carefully crafted image presented to the outside world?

Pictures and videos are great for immortalizing our appearances & actions.  But what about our thoughts?  Unless we take the time to write them down.  No one will truly know who we really are. 

So start writing.  And imagine yourself as a recorder of history.  Because in a very real sense, you are.

Life is full of distractions that prevent us to do really meaningful things.  The distractions are usually entertaining, enjoyable and easy, whereas the meaningful things usually take a long stretch of uninterrupted time.  But the latter has the most impact on our future.  I made this observation about my own life, and realized that I needed to cut back on certain activities, such as playing games, watching movies, and dancing.  I will still do them occasionally to relax, but only after the more important things in my life are taken care of, such as family, relationships, and health. 

I will audit my time more frequently to ensure that I’m on track.