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Most common New Year's resolutions

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By Topics | Analytics Data Visualization

Can you guess the 5 most common New Year's resolutions? Compare your guesses to the survey results!...

Being a data meister, I'm always on the lookout for seasonal data. I recently did a Web search for "new year's resolutions" and found an interesting article on the You Gov UK website. Of the 30% of British adults who make New Year's resolutions, the article put the resolutions into 14 categories, and created the following bar chart:

The chart "drew me in" but it took too much studying & concentration to make sense of it. First I wondered about the numbers - were they the number of people, or a percent value? And then I started trying to match up the bar colors with the color legend, and found that to be quite a chore (with 14 colors to try and keep track of).

So, you guessed it - I did a SAS makeover of the graph, where I keep it simple and easy to read!

new_years_resolutions

Were you able to guess the "top 5" resolutions?

What others do you think should be in the list?  And do you have any unique resolutions you'd like to share?!?

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About Author

Robert Allison

The Graph Guy!

Robert has worked at SAS for over a quarter century, and his specialty is customizing graphs and maps - adding those little extra touches that help them answer your questions at a glance. His educational background is in Computer Science, and he holds a BS, MS, and PhD from NC State University.

6 Comments

  1. Pingback: Mastering Weekly Goals (Free Template Included) – Pass the Hat for Eddie

  2. adraine upshaw on

    I just used the code provided to create a vertical graph. With the help of your beginner's tutotial I was able to understand most of the options used. But I am clear on the html= option (html=my_html
    des='' name="&name"). Where can I find an explanation of it?

    • Robert Allison
      Robert Allison on

      The html= option tells it which variable to use for the html hover-text/drilldown info.
      The des= option tells it what to use as the html 'alt' description for the entire graph (I blank this out).
      The name= option tells it what name to use for the png file where it writes the graph.

  4. LeRoy Bessler on

    My favorite assessment of New Year's Resolutions is due to Art Kumbalek, a long-time columnist and still active raconteur in a weekly Milwaukee newspaper and former star of a much-missed former local public radio comedy program, Hotel Milwaukee:
    "Resolutions are for quitters!"

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