There is no softness in the resolute - and going into our third year of a brutal pandemic, we need softness. I am not buying the new year new me chatter - it seems silly to abandon the practices I have worked so hard to build over the last two years. In my last newsletter, I said I would come back to share my resolutions when I was ready, but I am finally just leaning into the fact that resolutions are harshing my 2022 vibe. I have read a few articles to validate my feelings on this (here and here).
Still, a New Year seems to demand some form of introspection and planning. So I decided this would be my “year of I”: Intrinsic Motivation, Intention, and Impact.
Intrinsic Motivation: I need to reach into the gallows of my chest and excavate not just my motivation, but the whole rosetta stone to it. People spend a lifetime on this, so I am not bothered to figure it all out this year. In order to keep going forward, this is a paradigm I want to be good friends with.
Intention: This is my replacement for resolutions, and the concrete and absolute opposite of “SMART” goals. It’s condensation, not concrete. What do I intend to make of myself? What feelings do I intend to inspire in my friends and family? What do I intend to explore this year? Resolutions draw boundaries, but intentions make for a tangible starting line.
Impact: What am I going to come out of this year, no, this life, having completed? I am not afraid of nothingness or death, but I am afraid of having nothing to grasp for. I am afraid of it all adding up to nothing. I want neither a whimper or a bang, nor do I want to seize anything. I want to create, exhale, and build. This year I will dust off the foundations.
On Productivity
I commonly get asked how I get things done. I have the same question for others too, I want to know people’s patterns and habits that help them succeed. The details of people’s lives are so interesting! As for me, a bitter concoction of insomnia, anxiety, and fear of failure push me forward, but I do follow a few cardinal rules of organization:
Planner - I am obsessed with my planner. This year, I have the 18-month Shinola Runwell Planner (you can still get the 12-month one here)
Here are some great options to shop below (that I have used throughout the years!). From left to right, The PonderLily Daily Planner, The Appointed Task Planner, and the Shinola Runwell 12-month Planner. Oh, perk of the Runwell is that you can get a custom monogram for free!
Notes App/Bookmarks - I love lists. I have lists for everything: movies I want to watch, shows coming out, books to buy, vocabulary words, etc. When I get to mark something off my list, it feels like an accomplishment (even little things like watching a movie). Also, I get anxiety around the feeling of “losing track". I hate that feeling of circumlocuting around the idea or word I am looking for. To avoid that, I write it all down. Here is a little view of how I use BookMarks to keep track of my skincare:
Check-ins to the Deadlines - I am a procrastinator and not proud of it. Something about the eleventh hour releases my best work like a pressure cooker whistle. I produce fast, furious, and efficient. The KEY for me is to calculate the pre-deadline. The date I need my first draft to be done so I can use my eleventh hour to EDIT. I always come back to work (especially writing) before submitting it because the magic happens in the editing process. I use my planner and Google Sheets to map out my deadlines, and I always write down the pre-deadline, because that’s the real deadline to me. While I am talking about this in terms of writing, the same concept can be applied to anything. For example, I am planning to run a marathon in March, and you can bet I have the marathon date AND my check-ins delineated in my planner.
Intentions but Make it Reading
I currently have a lot of dread around the number of unread books on my shelves, so this year, my reading will be less focused on hype and acquisition, and more on reading through the gems I have already mined and brought home. I read best with goals and structure, so I am going to be participating in a couple of self-guided reading challenges. The main one is #10Books10Decades, created by my friend Reggie. The goal is to choose 10 books, each from a different decade. All my picks are from the last 100 years this time, but I am definitely excited to have some classics on my list. Here are the ones I plan to read this year:
2020’s: The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honoree Fannone Jeffers (I finished it earlier this week!)
2010’s: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
2000’s: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
1980’s: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
1970’s: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1960’s: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
1950’s: Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks
1940’s: The Street by Ann Petry
1920’s: Passing by Nella Larsen
1910’s: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
A few other goals: I plan to read a lot more translated literature (I have particularly been into Latin American and Spanish translations this year), to not shy away from reading longer books, to avoid celebrity memoirs and their book clubs, and to read at least one or two books in Spanish!
Do you have any reading goals this year? Number of books? Trying audio books this year? Let me know!
In case you need some help choosing some books, here are some fun lists of recent and upcoming pubs:
50 Best Book Covers of 2021 according to PRINT Mag
2022 Books Vulture staff are excited to read
Best Books of 2021 according to the New Yorker
Lit Hub’s most anticipated of 2022 list
I am in love with my Appointed planner, thanks to you! <3