The Year Ahead

2 Feb 2020


Tell you what folks, it’s quite refreshing to allow yourself January to figure out what you want from the year ahead rather than trying to sort all your shit out in that first week whilst you’re still battling the post-Christmas hangover and wondering where the hell all the pretty lights have gone. I’ve spent most weekends in January curled up under a blanket and gently trying to get myself organised and make plans for 2020. Spreadsheets were involved so I think we can agree I’ve spent too much time with Gary.

Here’s what’s in the calendar or on my agenda for the next 12 months:

Habits

One of the biggest things I would like from 2020 is to form solid habits. I’ve felt a little adrift since moving, so focused on the house that establishing habits in a new place never really got beyond the basics (i.e. what time I leave for work). Here’s some habits I’d like to become part of my day-to-day routine in 2020:

Working on my book for approximately half an hour on weekdays; because a mammoth writing session once a week no longer seems to be working for me and National Novel Writing Month did so this is my new realistic goal. I’ve created a Trello board to actually get my ideas and plot into some kind of organised state (yes it currently looks like my brain threw up on the screen) and I am DOING this. 
x Clear my backlog of photo albums still-to-be-put-together; if this doesn’t become a regular little-and-often habit, I’m going to be crushed by a lifetime’s worth of photos (the curse of always being the photographer). I’ve made a spreadsheet of all the photos that need sorting and am going to power through until they are done (which – genuinely – might not be until the end of the year; there are that many).
Exercise – this is not a new years resolution to ‘exercise more’, rather an admittance that the steady 2/3-times-a-week gym session routine collapsed dramatically the moment we moved house and, like, I miss it? I’ve been gently easing back in with a bit of yoga these last few weeks and I’m going to see where it takes me. 
Every time I go to pick up my phone without a purpose; pick up my book instead. Simple. Effective. 

Kitchen & Home

I struggle to remember a time I didn’t spend all my free time searching for decent blinds (serious amount of ugly blinds out there guys). It’s fair to say, I am starting to reach my DIY limit. I am truly grateful for our house but it does feel like a black hole sucking up time and money (we used to have savings, that was nice) and I am looking forward to getting to the point where we can actually enjoy all the work. The kitchen renovation starts tomorrow which feels like a big step, the last big hurdle and I’m hoping for one final push so that, by early spring, we’ll be able to relax and open up weekends to other things like, I dunno, having a social life or something.

Travel

Having had our 2019 travel in the diary for so long and it sucking up a huge part of the year’s annual leave, it was really rather refreshing to hit 2020 and have no travel plans. How did we want to use 2020’s annual leave? Where did we want to go? Should we just stick a pin in a map? Oh the possibility. We are in agreement to see a bit more of Europe, and more of our local area, this year. We currently have a weekend in Berlin and a few days in Lisbon on the cards, and I’d like to explore some of the cities and coastline within an hour’s drive of home. Oh and apparently I’ve agreed to go camping. Not for a festival – actual camping. This is adulting no?

Embracing London

I know you’re probably thinking ‘er don’t you work in London?’ but as any fellow commuter knows, if you work in London but don’t live there, it is incredibly easy to develop a christ get me out of here mentality. I mostly associate London with work and being tired & irritable, and it would be nice, just occasionally, to associate it with the amazing city it is – to see parts of it that are not Kings Cross station. It won’t be a regular thing but a handful of days out to the city, ticking off a few things on my neglected ‘to-see/do/eat’ list would be a nice way to appreciate the capital and do something a bit different.

Weddings

Three to be precise + a hen do. I love a wedding, love em. Spread throughout the summer, they’re going to be such joy.

Summer

I’ll admit it; summer and I have not got along well the past few years. I start out with good intentions and then a heatwave rolls in (usually when I’m on a packed commuter train) and my inner Lord Voldemort appears. I just struggle with heat. But I am determined to try and embrace it this year, particularly as we now have a garden and live within reasonable distance of the coast. It will also help not having to move house/DIY said house but I think a lot of it will be to do with my mentality (and being better prepared for the heat – I will invest in a decent fan). I want to take regular leave and do every cliché summer thing – BBQs, trips to the beach, pub gardens and do em all with bells on.
It’ll probs rain constantly now.

How’s your year looking?


Photo by Denise Karis

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