Twitter is like Facebook on crack. You know the people who update their Facebook status 40 times a day? That's basically all it is. It is, in fairness, a rather excellent concept, and like its devotees claim has the capacity to revolutionise the way information is transmitted. In theory it's rather beautiful - reliable sources of information gain followers, information gets shared rapidly with the people to whom it is of interest, and rumours are overtaken by facts, like some giant self-repairing neural network in which we're all nodes.

But it freaks me out. I opened my account this afternoon, and within a quarter of an hour had my first follower, Bridget. Thinking this rather odd, I said so (with Twitter, of course). Soon enough, she stopped following me.

Have I offended the poor woman? Are there some rules of Twitter etiquette that I've broken? The truth, of course, is that I don't particularly care. But I do find it rather interesting.

Since then I've acquired three more followers. One, Guardian Tech, is one that I'm following. I'm following it because it's a news source. But why is it following me? Is it doing so because that's what you're supposed to do in Twitterland?

Because if so, perhaps I should start following Mihai from Bucharest and Scott, who presumably saw me on the list of Journalism.co.uk followers. But why would I want to track the lives of people I don't know (especially since Mihai doesn't appear to speak English)? Scott is a journalist and a fan of Firefly and Tolkien, according to his bio - in other words, we'd probably get on quite well. But the whole notion of choosing to observe strangers' lives from a distance (none of Bridget, Mihai, Scott or GT have said hello - it's strictly a one-way thing) is one that strikes me as fundamentally weird.

Twittering is not the same as blogging. I'm quite happy to type away into the void here - it's my space, and I don't particularly care if no-one reads these pages. The whole 'following' thing is what makes Twitter so different. Next time I update my status on Twitter, three people will read it - Mihai, Scott, and whoever controls the GT account. Will that change what I choose to write, knowing that I'm addressing three specific people? I imagine it will.

1. Swim

I used to swim all the bloody time. I love swimming. Em often likens me to a penguin - graceful in water, a malco-ordinated fool on land. And yet these days I never do it, and it shows - my body is in a wretched state.

This is partly because my job leaves precious little time for it, and partly because of the year I've had. About six months ago I started showing symptoms of wheat intolerance or coeliac disease, and started on an exclusion diet which left me underweight and lethargic.

It now looks like I've got IBS, which is much less serious, but I still only have a fraction of the strength or energy I once did. A new year is as good a reason as any to stop feeling self-pity and start fixing myself.

For once I've actually started as I mean to go on - I've just come back from the pool. It was great. Though you can tell when it's the school holidays - the water tastes saltier than usual. Unpleasant but true.

2. Be more grateful for my job

I consider it to be one of my strengths that I'm never really satisfied with how things are, either in my own life or the world at large. That's not the same thing as not being happy, just a recognition that things can always be better. Without it there can be no ambition, or drive to improve things and solve problems, which to my mind is a far sorrier way to live even if it does imply perfect contentment.

But it can be taken too far. I spent altogether too much time last year wishing that I was doing something more exciting than writing for New Model Adviser. I shouldn't have. NMA is a fine magazine with a healthy community of devoted readers, and I was damn lucky to get it as my first job. It's not All the President's Men or The Insider, but then the fact that those two films were made is a testament to how rare that kind of journalism is.

Instead I should have spent more time thinking about the amount of stuff I was learning, the variety of work I was doing, and the quantity of free booze I was consuming. None of them should be taken for granted.

Anyway, when I go back to work on Monday my job will have changed. I'm no longer on NMA, but will instead be responsible for Citywire's video output across all the different editions of the website. It's a golden opportunity and I have a lot of ideas for the site, more on which at a later date.

3. See people more often

I'm lousy at keeping in touch with people, and last year I was worse than usual. Emma's slightly better, and since most of our friends are mutual I let her arrange my social life, but there's plenty of people I haven't seen in years that I would love to have a beer with.

4. Learn to play the harmonica

I don't know why I have a harmonica. I can't remember ever buying it or being given it. But for whatever reason it's right here in front of me, and I'd love to be able to play it. I pick it up from time to time and stumble through Baa Baa Black Sheep or Mary Had A Little Lamb (sheep-related songs are easy to memorise, you see), but I ain't no Huey Lewis.

On a similar note (pun wholly intended) I've been meaning to relearn to play the trombone. I put it on display in the lounge thinking I'd casually pick it up now and then, but the only time I play it is when people come round, see it, and cajole me into doing so. And it just sounds like a wet out-of-tune fart.

I know that I'm never going to lead my own band on a world tour or provide the rousing counterpoint to Rule Britannia at the Last Night of the Proms, but it would be shame to squander the hours I spent practising as a child. That's not how a youth is supposed to be mis-spent.

5. Blog more

I started this blog on 31 March last year. In the nine months since I have made 29 posts, ranging from the mildly pointless to the utterly banal. That's slightly more than three a month.

Which is pathetic.

You may wonder why I've bothered with even that many, since this is largely an echo chamber - by far my most avid reader is Google's indexing bot. But even for a narcissist like me there is a purpose to this beyond self-publicity. Blogging forces you to sit down and engage with your own thoughts, and I'm a firm believer (though you may find the evidence lacking) that it sharpens writing skills, particularly the ones that wither and die when you spend your working day obeying the 'pyramid rule' and fretting about nut grafs longer than 24 words.

You can be a good writer and a lousy journalist, but I don't believe it's possible to be a good journalist if you're a lousy writer, so those skills are important to nurture.

More generally I'd like to spend more time working on this website - its innards are in need of a spring clean, and I'd like to reacquaint myself with some of the technical stuff behind it (PHP, Javascript, SQL) otherwise learning it in the first place was a waste of time.

So there, I've committed myself.

I invite you to do the same - make your resolutions a matter of public record in the comments below, so you'll be jolted into action when you chance upon this post in a few months. Yes, I'm talking to you, Google-bot.

• Someone called Richard Harris. Err....
  
• A young husband and wife, the former of which has the intriguing email address comeonmyglasses@******.co.uk
  
• Someone whose notes say 'Renewal to be refused'. What sort of person do you have to be in order to be barred from the BNP?
  
• In a similar vein, this bloke was suspended: 'Activist. Membership suspended 20.9.05 (inappropriate tattoo). Suspension lifted 27.09.05'. Seriously, what was that tattoo of? (Office suggestion earlier today: 'One World One Love')
  
• A member whose file features a warning from a BNP activist: 'member describes himself as a witch: potential embarrassment if active'
  
• The owner of a shopfitting and surveying business who has decided against renewing his membership because 'Jehova God only real hope for mankind'
  
• A ham radio enthusiast who also lists playing the keyboard among his interests. One person you really don't want to get stuck in a lift with.
  
• One poor chap whose files notes say "No 'promotional material' requested. Concerned about his job"
  
• A 'holistic therapist': 'Qualifications in reflexology head massage, Swedish massage, aromotherapy, anatomy and physiology. Hobbies: metaphysics, cartoon drawing'
  
• Any number of people who have cancelled memberships due to ill health, i.e. old age, i.e. little old ladies who sit around grumbling about wogs and dagos taking over the country
  

Ah, bless them. But the truth is I do feel rather ambivalent about this whole episode. I'm a big fan of Wikileaks, but this doesn't feel like the proper way to use it. A lot of its members will be people who joined quite innocently because they were tired of the mainstream parties and genuinely thought the BNP might offer them something different, and have no more antipathy to foreigners than any reasonable person (which is to say enough to find jokes about the French and the Germans funny).

Granted, the vast majority are fuckwits. But by opening those people up to vilification and mob judgment, we've gone further down the slippery slope that the News of the World first pushed us down with its campaign to name and shame paedophiles (which, for those of you with short memories, culminated in an attack on a paediatrician by an illiterate neighbour).

Anyway, enough seriousness. Time to go and chuckle at some LOLGriffins - kind of like a xenophobe's edition of I Can Has Cheezburger. And when you get bored of that go and watch the BNP party political broadcast again.