New Year Resolutions

     I guess it is logical that with a new year beginning we examine our lives with some perspective on how we might want to make some positive changes in our lives.  I have had some successes and failures with New Year's resolutions.  I have tried to be realistic in not setting resolutions that will be too difficult to implement.
      The resolution that I have made on a couple of occasions is to learn to speed read.  I become frustrated with the time it takes me to read all the books I put on reserve at the library.  The fA act that I usually only read before going to sleep is a contributing factor to my lack of success in this area.  Somehow I feel that I can make up for my limited reading time by reading faster.  I have looked at the speed reading classes at the Howard Community College but have never enrolled.  The choice comes down to devoting more time to reading or take a course.
       The past year I have had success with my resolution for 2019.  For the past 40 years, I have been using a pocket calendar for my schedule, passwords and tasks to do.  In a non-digital world, this was a convenient way to track each of these tasks.  When I came to buy another pocket calendar last year the $25 for a new calendar and the time to transfer over all the information from the previous year's calendar made me decide to just go digital with all of these tasks for 2019.  Google made it easy with using its online calendar, tasks app and password saving app.  Getting notifications for meetings and appointments made it easier to not miss these events.  Having this online password protected makes it safer than having them in a written form in a calendar.  If I had ever lost my calendar I would have been in trouble before.  I now have each of these on my phone and my computer.  I have also started to use a grocery list app rather than a paper grocery list that I frequently forgot to take when I got groceries and would have to call home to have someone read me the grocery list.  I have started saving all my documents to Google or Microsoft cloud.  This allows me to not have to print out many of my documents and give me access to the files anytime on my phone. I have started only receiving my bills online which is convenient when we travel.  I listen to many of the shows I like on an app called TuneIn.  As a frequent listener to MSNBC, this app allows me to listen to the channel in the car or their shows while I exercise in the morning.  I have not used my SLR camera this year at all as my Pixel 3 phone camera takes great pictures and automatically saves my photos to three clouds.  Amazon Prime Music on my phone allows me to listen to any music I like on Bluetooth in the car.  I know that many people (mostly younger) have been doing these things for years but for many of us older folks, the transition from paper to digital has taken a little longer.