It seems like I've been here before. The year begins and I make resolutions that will revolutionize my life forevermore. You do the same thing? How well have you fared?

For as many years as I can remember, there is one resolution that I've made annually -- to back up my computer more often. In some years, I do it -- at least for a few weeks or a few months. After that, I fall into old habits.

A few years ago, I finally broke down and acquired the proper hardware and software to make it very easy to backup. I have a large external disk drive attached to my USB port and a backup program that can automate my process so I don't have to do it manually.

That works great at my office, where the program runs automatically every week. It usually takes only a few minutes. Most of that time is spent by the software analyzing the disk to find out what needs to be backed up and comparing the files that were copied. During the course of a single week, I don't create that many files to place a time burden on the software. There are only so many things I can do before time runs out on my week.

At home, it's a different story because we don't keep our system on full time -- almost full time, but not quite. Occasionally, we turn it off because we don't want to hear the fan noise when we're watching TV in the same room. Unfortunately, we usually forget to turn it back on. So my well-configured backup system can't back up when scheduled.

Even when it's turned on, it can't always backup. Sometimes, it's busy using Windows Media Center to record a TV show that we will watch later. (We use our Windows Media Center computer the same way many people use TiVo or other digital video recorders.) Other times, one of us is using the system -- perhaps doing our home finances, checking e-mail or, heaven forbid, doing homework. So we turn off or delay the backup. These activities can happen any time of the day or night -- making it very difficult to schedule a backup around them.

Generally, I get the backup done often; never as often as I promise at the beginning of the year but much more often with the external hard drives than I ever did when I was backing up to CD or tape.

This year, I also resolve to re-examine my e-mail subscriptions and unsubscribe to those I don't read. I've made this resolution before -- and as long as I do it early in the year, I keep it. It's nice to know there's one I'll keep faithfully.

I'll also add a new resolution: To not misplace my cell phone as often. It's black, so it gets lost easily when it's not in fully lit places. I have little hope for this resolution, but perhaps more hope than the one I've had on my list every year since the beginning of time: To not bring home work from the office.

This year, I'll change that resolution. Instead of not bringing home any work from the office, I'll only bring home certain types of work, only a certain amount of work, and only a limited number of days a month. That should make it much easier to keep -- and will limit the amount of work that I bring home.

But what do I know? My past record of keeping this resolution has been awful. In fact, I'm writing this column at home -- breaking the resolution before the year gets in full swing.