Hello 2020

Happy new year lads. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I’m back at work properly tomorrow (I’ve worked a couple of random one-off days over the festive period) and am torn between really not wanting to tackle my inbox and yet relishing the thought of some routine.

I’ve just been doing some new years admin (renewing my railcard, checking which dates I need to book off for weddings, planning a potential holiday for 2020) and it got me thinking how normally at this time of year, I like to write a ‘plans for the year ahead’ style blog post which usually involves a couple of cliched ‘be healthier’ style goals as well as all my plans (both concrete and hypothetical) for the year ahead. I love em, not going to lie. Me and planning go hand in hand; my job title is literally ‘Project Manager’ so yeah, I really enjoy a project plan what of it?

This year though, I want to take a different approach. I already have several things booked over the next few months including two weddings, a hen do and a new kitchen so, don’t get me wrong, I’m still project planning my year but rather than make specific goals, I want to adopt a mindset for the year. 

I almost felt a sense of alarm when I plotted out 2020 and realised that there is already something (sometimes more than one) in the diary every month between February and June, which says a lot about 2019 because normally I love seeing such plans neatly plotted in my calendar. Last year was intense. Our wedding, our honeymoon, buying a house and my hen do are the first things I think of when I remember last year; those key events standing out so brightly that it’s sometimes a struggle to remember what I did in between them. Once they were all over, life became a DIY blur. The year did not relent and I am not moaning at all but cor blimey, I need to change the pace. I wrote less, I read less, any kind of exercise routine I had collapsed post-June and I can’t remember what it feels like to be calm. This needs to change. 

I have no plans to change my job or my people or ‘better’ myself but I do want to lean back into the things that bring me joy, to find a sense of calm, to breathe. And to enjoy the time of life we are currently in rather than drifting around in a frantic state. 

Rather than this just being a wishwash claim that gets lost amongst the chaos of life and is forgotten about by February, I plan to use the next few days and weeks to gently tease out the specific things I want to address to bring about these subtle changes.  

I know some people like to pick a ‘word of the year’ in January and, whilst this has never really felt like my jam before, the concept has been unconsciously floating around my mind over the last few days. The words that have come up the most are purposeful, simplify, focus and calm, and I feel they sum up the approach I want to take towards my daily routine, travel, health and hobbies. 

At the risk of this is starting to sound like some kind of mindfulness class, I’m going to return to catching up on Doctor Who. Gary’s making soup and we’ve taken the Christmas tree down… guess the festive season is well and truly over eh? 

Let’s do this 2020!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash