Start 2013 right!

Studies have shown that by the end of the first week into the new year people have already lost sight of their new year's resolution and in fact resorted back to their old habits. It's been 18 days into 2013, so I'm assuming that people are way off track when it comes to their goals. Whether you want to lose weight (which is probably the resolution of 99.98% of the world's population), be more puntual, do better in school/work, everyone's resolution could be aided by one thing...an agenda!

Ever since I was in elementary school, I always a huge believer in agendas. Oh the excitement I felt whenever we got our school agenda on the first day of school  and even now when I see a new display of the yearly agendas at a book store - nothing gets my motivational juices flowing like a brand new agenda.

An agenda can help you keep track of whatever your new year's resolution may be. It tracks fitness classes and workouts, due dates for school/business projects, important meetings, events for you and your family, anything you need to know your agenda will be there. Also keep in mind that writing things down increases the likelihood of you actually accomplishing it therefore an agenda is an ideal way of logging your progress through out the year.

When I buy an agenda there are three things that I keep in mind:

• Why do I need one?
• know what you're going to use it for
• are you someone that tracks things daily? weekly? monthly?
• do you need a lot of space to write because it's a multipurpose agenda? (ex: you're tracking work, fitness and family life all in one)
• How does it look?
• buy an agenda that is going to make you want to use it - buy it in your favourite colour or pattern so you're more attracted and more likely to use it
• is it durable? remember this is going to (hopefully) be with you for the whole year so will it last?
• know the format that you need - personally I need to have both a monthly and weekly section for my adenga so that I see both macro and micro perspectives 
• are the pages too busy? I like to have very simple pages that use clean cut fonts that way I don't get distracted 
• How much is it?
• know your budget - don't spend a fortune when you know you're likely to just use it once a week or (even worse) once a month
• if you're willing to invest make sure you will get your money's worth and use the heck out of it

With all these things in mind, the agenda that I have been using for the past two years is this one. It fulfills all my requirements - from the format to the price, it's an agenda that I keep going back to. 

An agenda can do wonders for your life but it's a habit that takes time to develop. It took me about a year to really find what works for me. So remember that there's no right or wrong way to use your agenda but just make sure you use one!