As most of you know, I gave up on “New Year’s Resolutions” several years back. There’s two problems with them. First, they are made at a time of year when you have a little bit more free time, over the holidays, and therefore you have a tendency to over-estimate how much time and energy you are going to have to devote to your resolution. But more importantly, I think New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure because during the year major things happen that divert your attention from the resolutions. Stuff that must be dealt with. Stuff that must take priority.

But a few years back, a friend told me that while she does not do “resolutions,” she does “themes” for the year. I think this is a powerful idea and I immediately adopted it. What’s the difference between a “resolution” and a “theme.” Resolutions are commitments to specific actions, which you may or may not have time and energy to deal with. On the other hand, themes represent an approach, a set of values, a overriding concept that guides your actions as the inevitable Stuff Happens.

My theme for 2010 was “Calvin: The Reboot.” It was a play on “rebooting” movie franchises like Star Trek. The idea was to get rid of a bunch of cruft activities that had built up over time and focusing on some core topics, notably my relationship with Pat and my interest in media production. 2011′s theme was ”All In The Family,” Kinda obvious because that’s the year Pat and I got married and two families were coming together. But it was more than just getting married. It was about recognizing extended family and starting to build bonds between the multiple families that exist in our lives. To borrow a concept from Google, it was about multiple overlapping circles of people and highlighting the important overlaps and making them important.  Looking back, I can see all kinds of thins I did (or made a conscious choice NOT to do) that were consistent with the theme of the year and I can look back on these years and be satisfied with the theme.

So what about 2012?  My theme for 2012 is “Taking Care of Business,” Credit to Pat for coming up with the actual name based on my ramblings. But I like it. It’s perfect. Basically, it means focusing on the Stuff That Must Be Done Even If You Don’t Particularly Like It.

This is hugely applicable to my day job. Somewhere over years, I’ve gotten too much into getting involved in work efforts, teams, this and that, that is not part of my core responsibilities. The nature of some of my assignments in past years has given me the very good opportunity to meet and get to work with lots of folks across the company and develop relationships with them. But the downside is I get invited to informally participate in this or that all the time. My core work responsibilities have suffered. Badly. So “Taking Care Of Business” is a reminder to ask myself, “Is this work consistent with my team’s work and with what my funding execs want me to be working on?” I know. I know. That’s a blindingly obvious question to ask, and yet I’ve fallen out of the habit of asking it.

“Taking Care of Business” also relates to my “hobby.” It’s amazing to me how much of my discretionary time is spent on new media, audio production, podcasting, blogging, etc. I deliberately chose to do this. It’s something I’ve been enjoying since 2005 or so and Ireally started devoting time and effort to it in 2010 and 2011. But I am at my limit. I cannot devote more time to it. But what I can do is start focusing on the aspects of this “hobby” that can be turned into actual work and even an actual career path. This means doing all the not-so-fun parts of the hobby that would enable me to convert it to a business. As luck would have it, I ran across an opportunity to help someone do sound engineering work for a comedy podcast he wants to develop. And so January kicked off with an actual paying gig related to my “hobby.” That’s a great start. Again, to state the blindingly obvious, it’s amazing how much a client focuses your attention. I need to apply that back to my day job as well.

“Talking Care Of Business” also applies on the home front. Being married feels good. Satisfying. Happy. Secure. Nothing would make me go back to my pre-married life. But I’ve been putting off some of the responsibilities that come from combining households. Lots of legal stuff like putting Pat on the deed of the house, getting her house ready to put on the market. Updating beneficiaries on retirement accounts, insurance plans. etc. etc. None of it is that hard, but it’s also very easy to keep putting it off to tomorrow. So “Taking Care Of Business” helps me focus on these things and make them a priority.

So “Taking Care Of Business” is my theme for 2012. And it doesn’t hurt that there is great theme music to go with it.