Dear Reader,
Welcome to 2025! Are you ready? I'm not! 😂
Normally I'm a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions, but this year I skipped them. Some of that is probably due to the two, quite strong white cosmos I rang in New Year's Eve with, but mostly its because I've already got a system in place.
Here is what I use:
- Daily goals and little productivity rewards.
- If I meet my daily word count or editing pages or hey, you went to the gym goal, I give myself a sticker. What can I say? My inner kindergartener is strong! It really doesn't have to be much to get that rewarding rush of happy brain chemicals... 🥰
- Monthly check-ins and reevaluations.
- Because if those goals start to slip catching at the end of the year
is useless.
- Also if I've set myself an I need to do x number of things during this month goal and then come down with a nasty flu--thank you, December 🤧--I need to figure out how to compensate for that, instead of marking that goal as a overall failure and beating myself up.
- Beating myself up is a) unproductive and b) leads to more failure... at least in my experience.
- Lay out a yearly overview.
- I mark off the days around
holidays and travel time from my productive time. 🗓️ It gives me a realistic assessment of how many work days I have in a year.
- Plan for fun.
- I like to schedule in days dedicated to fun, like going to a museum or the Texas renaissance faire or a watch party for a new season of my favorite TV show--have I mentioned that Season 3 of The Gilded Age will be dropping some time this year!
- I also have a excel spreadsheet of when all my favorite
authors new releases will be dropping. It's month by month and color coded by my level of excitement.
- Yes, I know I'm a nerd 🤓 but planning in these little events gives me things to look forward to and stops me from feeling guilty about taking the time to enjoy them.
And speaking of time, seriously where did 2024 go? All I did was publish
a book, visit my folks in Australia, take a month long epic trip through Europe, and move cities...
Okay, so that's where 2024 went.
