New Year’s resolutions are not for the indecisive, or the chronically over-achieving, or people carrying 8 bullet-point to-do lists over from 2010. Unfortunately, right now I’m all three.

It wasn’t until this past week that I finally crossed off the last task and deemed myself ready to start thinking about how to live my 2011 life. Ready to start thinking about, being the operative sentence part. A few weeks back I’d received a helpful e-prod from the new-year, new-you! focused people at Weight Watchers to jump start resolution season (*see below if you’d like your own help from WW). Apparently they’ve geniusly (a word?) re-tooled the classic “points system” to the new Points Plus system giving women everywhere the opportunity to both organize their weight loss plan and practice memorizing the assigned point value of every food known to man. I filed the e-mail in my “to be dealt with” folder – a folder I just opened for the first time in 26 days.

There is nothing quite like that feeling of deciding to finally deal with something you’ve put off for way too long – pick a New Year’s resolutions being low man on a totem pole that includes “Check funds in bank account” and “Schedule lady doctor appointment.” It’s pit-in-your-stomach slash rock-in-your-throat inducing, or in my case spontaneous-and-unstoppable- restless-leg-syndrome).

And yet this time when I opened the file I experienced this very strange sense of knowing exactly what to do, which is among the strangest senses a 20-something female with a new job/life/boyfriend/car/pants size can feel.

Delete, respond with an apology, file in “SuperSave”, click link through to purchase, add to research, delete, deleter, respond with dates available. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Bing, bang, boom, out! And with it the pit and the rock and the jiggles.

I’d put it all off and on account of that lag in time now knew just where things did slash should stand.

And with that I finally figured out what my 2011 resolution should be:

No doubt some responses should have been sent earlier, and for those examples I am regretful, but the general list of crap-to-think-about-and-decide-on could wait, did, and was all the easier to make a call on as a result.

So with more procrastination comes less frantic urgency to know/do/fix/respond.

It’s like the Marlboro Man once said at a high school assembly at which I was a lucky audience member, “don’t just do something, sit there.” (And you thought the Marlboro Man only knew cigarette and/or cowboy-related maxims).

I think in our attempt to pack it all in before the buzzer goes off we can (or at least I most certainly can) end up in a haste-makes-waste situation. We rush to make decisions. We rush to make plans. We rush to assign judgment.

So I think I’m going to attempt to spend 2011 not rushing.

I’d also like to read the New York Times online at least three times a week, develop strong skills in the kitchen and, when R says, “Sure, I’ll go with you to that,” not respond by saying, “Are you suuure?? because you really don’t have to, at all, if you don’t want to, so…”

Happy 2011, again. I think 11 months of being resolute will be plenty this year.

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