I am quite certain that new year resolutions don't really work, are more wishful thinking (gyms are full in January and empty in February)… except that interdicts have worked in history: halal/kashrut dietary laws, etc. I have personally never been successful with positive resolutions, but have been with stated negative year-end rules: in 2007 (never be late for the year 2008 which worked well by injecting redundancies, and seems to have effortless carried over to today) and 2012 (** reading outside of math for 2013, with weak exceptions).
Intuitively this makes sense. Easier to eliminate some bad practice, rather than doing something new. We'll try in 2014.
