Barry Ritholtz: Why your New Year’s resolutions won’t work out

It’s the time of the year when we are barraged with lists: Stocks to buy, books to read, explanations of why the bad choices made in the past year will work out better next year. And the forecasts; so many forecasts. Worst of all are the horrible suggestions for New Year’s resolutions.

Rather than my usual pedantic finger wagging, let’s take a page from the Charlie Munger playbook, and invert. Consider my list of resolutions, each one less likely to succeed than the next.

1. Save more money: This is the year when the Ritholtz household will tighten our belts, and sock away some money for a rainy day.

Out: going to expensive restaurants, vacation travel, Broadway shows, music concerts and stand-up comedy, two-day delivery on unimportant stuff from Amazon. The expensive car leases, the boat and marina docking fees, first-class seat in the plane – all gone. Oh, and no more Starbucks lattes.

In: Streaming, cooking at home, borrowing books from the library, staycations.

Make a budget, stay with it. See, this is easy, right?

2. Spend more time with the family: How hard can it be to carve out an extra 10 hours a week to spend more time with your loved ones? Schedule a date night or three each week with the spouse, go to the kids’ games and recitals, invite the in-laws over for brunch, read bedtime stories to your children. Family is everything, right?

3. Invest more: You already max out your 401(k), but that doesn’t mean you can’t scrape up some more money for retirement savings or other investment goals. Put together a few themed investments – say, cannabis companies, or emerging-market small cap value – and throw some money into that each month. Also, any time the market falls 10 percent, overcome your own panic and throw a few bucks into a Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fund. Saving more money is easy. So is this.

4. Lose weight /eat better: I mean, how hard is this one? Cut the sweets and fat, reduce your portions, don’t eat after 8 p.m., add more fresh fruits and vegetables, eat less processed food. (You’ve already stopped going out to restaurants). Oh, and limit yourself to one glass of red wine a day – no more spirits or beer. The pounds will just disappear.

5. Read more books: The U.S. publishes about 300,000 new titles a year: surely you can find some time to read a few of them? Cut out a television show (or some of that family time you just regained) to pick up a few hours of time for you. Then pick a few books each month to read. You will be smarter and better-informed before you know it!

6. Get to the gym: We all know the health benefits of exercise. Lift some free weights, hit the speed bag for a while, jump rope, work up a sweat. Buy yourself a rowing machine, stepper or elliptical, and stick to a routine. You’re guaranteed to live longer and better.

7. Get more sleep: Why didn’t I think of this before?! I will just sleep two hours more each night. Start by going to bed earlier and waking up a bit later and not putting in that half-hour on the computer before heading to the office. This is something you’ve dreamed of doing forever. How hard can it be?

8. Stop multitasking: Don’t respond instantly to every email and text. Also, turn off the flashing, pulsing, vibrating notifications on your smartphone for each new email or text message. Pick two times a day to read and respond. Almost instantly, you will be present in the moment.

9. Reinvent yourself: Learn a new language, take up a new hobby, volunteer for charity. If you’ve done the above, you will now have enough time that you can surely squeeze in another few hours a week to reinvent yourself. While you’re at it, indulge your creative side, let go of negative things from the past, revel in what the future holds. See, making yourself into a better you is possible.

10. Stop procrastinating/being late: Just because I waited until Dec. 31 to get this list published doesn’t mean I am any less committed to ending my habit of putting things off to the last minute. If I can do it, so can you.

And with that, one last piece of advice – one to be taken seriously: Make small, achievable changes toward a set of measurable goals or a clearly defined objective that has a positive feedback loop. That’s a resolution I can get behind.