I tend to shy away from personal new year's resolutions, partly because I know exactly how likely it is that I'm going to stay away from sugar, vacuum the house once a week, or finally go through all my (three year old) wedding photos to make an album: not very likely at all. In spite of that, I feel like the new year is a great time for me to make some professional resolutions, since I feel like in the professional world, I have more accountability and more motivation to keep them. Here are some of the things I want to do in the new year.

1. I resolve to continue my professional development in the area of management. Having started a management role in September, I find that I am already learning a lot about how to effectively manage a team and help them to do the best work they can. Still, I know there's a lot more I can learn. I will make use of my organization's human resources department and web-based professional development, and will also spend time bouncing ideas off other managers in the office, in order to be the best leader for my team that I can be.

2. I resolve to do some cleaning...of my resources. While our office has a lot of resources that we use in our work, and they're all too much for one person to comb through and clean up, I can at least make a good dent in cleaning up the international research resources that I helped put together several years ago. I'll check links, update them as needed, organize bookmarks, add newer information, and so forth. (NEDRA's Resource Refresh think tank might help me with this!)

3. I resolve to do some physical cleaning. While the ideal of a paperless office is great, it's not something that I've been particularly good about putting into practice. Call me a Luddite if you must, but I still find good old-fashioned paper useful for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, I've accumulated so much of it that it's no longer organized or curated, and therefore isn't as useful as it could be. This year, I will spend what time I can on sorting my papers, filing the ones I want to keep, and recycling or shredding the ones I no longer need.

What changes would you like to make in your work in the new year? What practices would you like to implement? What projects would you like to tackle? Share in comments, and maybe others will be inspired to start 2017 off with some fresh resolutions!