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Lately I've been identifying a lot of things about myself that need improvement and thinking about ways to fix them. This post is intended to A) talk about some overall strategies for self-improvement/goal-focusing, and B) if anyone's having similar problems, or wants to talk about additional problems they face, discuss specific strategies for dealing with those problems.

Those issues I'm facing include but are not limited to:

1) Getting more exercise (I work at a computer for 9 hours a day, and spend about 3 hours commuting on a train). Maintaining good posture while working at said computer might be considered a related goal.

2) Spending a higher percentage of the time working at a computer actually getting stuff done, instead of getting distracted by the internet.

3) Get a new apartment, so I don't have to commute so much.

4) Getting some manner of social life. More specifically, finding some recurring activity where I'll probably meet the same people over and over to improve the odds of making longterm friends.

5) Improving my diet, which mostly means eating less cheese. I really like cheese, so this is difficult.

6) Stop making so many off-color jokes. Somewhere there is a line between doing it ironically and actually contributing to overall weight of prejudice, and I think I've crossed that line.

7) Somehow stop losing things so much, and/or being generally careless/clumsy. I lost my wallet and dropped my lap top in the space of a month, and manage to lose a wide array of smaller things on a regular basis. It ends up costing me a lot of money.

Of those things, three of them are things that require me to actively dedicate more time (finding an apartment, getting exercise, social life), and the others mostly consist of NOT doing things (eating cheese, making bad jokes, losing things, getting distracted by the internet), unless I can find some proactive thing to make it easier to not do them.

I *feel* like I have enough time that I should be able to address all of them at once. But looking at the whole list at once is intimidating. And when it comes to the "not doing bad thing X" items, remembering and following up on all of them is difficult. The worst one is "don't lose things." There's no particular recurring theme in how I lose stuff, or they type of stuff I Iose. I'm more careful with my wallet and computer now, but spending my entire life being super attentive and careful about *everything* seems way too stressful and impractical.

I guess my main question is:  when faced with a list of things that don't necessarily require separate time to accomplish, how many does it make sense to attempt at once? Just one? All of them? I know you're not supposed to quit drinking and smoking at the same time because you'll probably accomplish neither, but I'm not sure if the same principle applies here.

There probably isn't a universal answer to this, but knowing what other people have tried and accomplished would be helpful.