What is your favorite week of the year? Spring break? Memorial Day week? The Thanksgiving holiday?
For me, it’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s. You know, the parties and celebrations are over, and you feel like you can finally exhale. You work your way through leftover holiday foods and stocking sweets and savories. You enjoy some quiet, a bit of relaxation, and maybe a new book or a new gadget. Maybe you watch movies, play games, or put a puzzle together.
In the post-celebration haze, you lose track of what day it is. The days seem to move more slowly; the year feels as though it’s actually winding down. Then the in-between week starts to draw to a close, giving way to the New Year, shiny and new and full of potential. Just waiting for some plans.
Do you like to plan? I do.
Choosing a new planner every fall is as much fun for me as back-to-school shopping was when I was a kid. I’ve had simple planners with one month per page; thick and heavy planners dense with details; slim, no-frills pocket planners; fine art or floral wall calendars; and even desk pads for doodling.
For weeks, I’m continually on the hunt for the perfect planner, which would not only hold appointments, special dates to commemorate, and hazy dreams of future trips. The perfect planner would also somehow make me be more organized and be more productive.
Of course, no planner can do that. Only I and my day-to-day decisions can do that.
(Just between us, sometimes I procrastinate or daydream and call it “living in the moment.”)
Despite that, I do plan, I do get things done, and I make goals. Through the years, I have honed my life to fit my gifts and callings as well as my priorities, and I’ll continue with those things this year. So my 2025 goals look similar to 2024’s.
This year, my goals can be described by one word, more: reading more deeply about topics that fascinate me and will inform my writing on Glimsen and elsewhere; spending more time in prayer; adding more steps to my daily total; scheduling more time with friends who inspire me; listening to more music every day (and maybe dancing some too).
Finally, I want to pay more attention to and be more grateful for the simple beauties of life. Because I believe those simple beauties can add up to a life of beauty, and that’s one of my biggest goals of all.
What about you? Do you like setting goals and making plans? What is your system for doing so? I’d love to hear. Leave a comment and let me know.
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Photos courtesy of Unsplash.