Resolutions the Seinfeld way

I've never been good at New Year's resolutions. Every year in my teens and 20s I made a resolution to dunk a basketball. Even back then I had the hops of a Galapagos turtle. And I didn't exactly acquire more hang time as I got older. So that resolution is pretty much dead unless I buy one of those Fisher-Price goals.

This year I approached the resolution thing a different way. Here are my three resolutions for 2008:

1. Exercise 30 minutes every day.
2. Eat healthy every day.
3. Write at least 500 words every day.

You notice the common thread of "every day." I used to have resolutions like "write a novel" or "run a 10K," but those are long-term goals and easy (at least for me) to give up on somewhere around, let's say, the second day of January. This year I'm going to try to accumulate small changes over time and hope they turn into something big. Sort of like throwing a few bucks every week into an IRA.

The way I'm keeping track is through a Seinfeld chain, which (if the story's true) comes from the way Jerry Seinfeld puts together his material. Every day that he writes something, he marks it on a calendar. Eventually the marks make a chain. And then the goal is not to break the chain.

This isn't an original idea, of course, but it's simple and effective -- if you don't break the chain, you're almost guaranteed to succeed at your larger goals. (A free printable Seinfeld chain is here -- make sure to get the leap-year version for '08.)

So what are your resolutions? And if you've actually kept any over the years, how'd you do it? Educate us in the comments.