Happy January Blog Family

In the vein of slower living we’re just moving into our 2022 goals now. I hope this finds you all well and with a successful year of progress in whatever area you chose for 2021.

My To-Do list seemed never ending last year as is common for so many of us but full of a lot of unimportant, incidental nonsense that took up time but achieved very little in either moving forward or making progress on achieving goals. I did a lot of time wasting in various forms and that has been aggravating me recently. I know I’m not alone in this but it makes it no less frustrating, right?! This is actually a good thing. I don’t know about all of you but when I start to aggravate my own self, stuff usually starts getting done.

Moving right along. There were some big & important gains last year and those achievements meant a lot. Job stability was the main one which I was incredibly excited and grateful for when it came. I have been settling into my new role and loving it. Slower living also progressed. Ease was a focus and doing for ourselves. For us this looked like handyman jobs around the house being completed by us. Home made curtains are underway. Painting our home ourselves. Simple joys like camping and reading were put onto our agenda. Cooking together. Family time, home movie nights, home made popcorn (not microwave). No-one really wanted to go out much in the time of the plague anyway. Most of what we did cost very little besides our time, energy, the cost of the products we were using and some petrol.

When November rolled around I started planning for this year. November is usually the month when I sit down to plan out goals for the following year ahead and that’s exactly what I did as per usual. Here’s what I’m looking to for 2022.

Next year I’m going to continue curating my belongings & simplifying more areas of my life. It’s an ongoing process. I have found over the years by removing the excess and keeping mainly the things that call to your heart it becomes so much easier to prioritise the things that really are important to you. It free’s up much more time for you to focus on doing, being or achieving the things that would make a difference to you or your life. That would improve or enhance you personally, your life, finances, relationships, musical skills… You get the idea.

In that vein I’ll be looking to create new habits and continue to more fully explore the slow living lifestyle I’ve been adopting more of over the last couple of years. I am going to automate any tasks that can be so that I don’t waste time doing things I don’t need to and will schedule others. Things like bill paying and savings easily fall into these categories along with dental visits, car maintenance etc when you pair them with a note or reminder on your calendar of choice.

I’ll be removing some of the time wasters that I have developed and that snuck up on me ever so slowly. Less screen time, more books and board games for sure. Last year It felt like I time travelled backwards a little to what feels like a simpler time. Some baking, cooking from scratch, hand sewing & mending. I’d like to explore handicrafts more, do some more art, finish of some old projects. Finish styling the home except maybe the kitchen & bathroom renovations that are still sitting waiting for inspiration & funds. I’ve set new financial, personal, health & work goals as well.

Now my friends, it’s time to get into this year. Appropriately we have moved more slowly. Enjoying Christmas, savouring what was 2021 and some time off before slowly now getting ready to welcome 2022. A fresh new year of new goals and lots of promise.

What are you guys up to? We’d love to hear down in the comments what you have planned for this year.

Talk soon