A couple of days ago, I saw a tweet from Bill Gross that made me pause for a moment.

New Years Resolution Tip? Maybe it’s easier to make a STOP doing instead of a Start doing list?

This tweet crossed my queue while I was reading the brutally honest bio of Steve Jobs.  Steve was a well documented master of product simplification and complexity reduction. While the ability to be ruthless in saying “no” served Jobs extraordinarily well professionally, according to biographer Walter Isaacson, it didn’t work as well in his personal relationships (as husband, father, brother, son, etc.).

But I’m digressing a bit here…

As 2012 approaches,  I’ve stumbled on a couple of good blog posts with tools to help set the year up right, and I wanted to share them with you.

Good to Great author Jim Collins wrote an honest post back in 2003 where he highlighted that the best thing you could do in your personal planning cycle was to create a “stop doing” list.  If you have the time, I suggest you read this post.  Jocelyn Glei also recently wrote a nice “simplifying your life” post via her 99% blog (#3–is all about removing the clutter).  Chris Guillebeau offers up a solid .xls template that can be used to do an annual review and get you moving in 2012.

So, here’s to discarding what does not fit or is not doable in 2012!

Happy New Year.