figuring out what works for me
happy new year, bear! please ignore that i’m giving this greeting more than halfway through january & i hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your loved ones <3
i know, i know—i’m starting another blog post apologizing for not having written anything in a really long time again. i wanted to write more last year and had a couple of drafts started, but i struggled to find the right words for the feelings i wanted to express1; that kind of killed my momentum so i left those posts half-finished and unposted. it just didn’t feel right having those posts on my blog (which i guess i view as pretty personal and introspective) when i didn’t fully resonate with my own writing. so much for my goal to consistently blog, right?
this ties into what i’ve been thinking a lot about lately, which is trying to figure out what works best for me when it comes to goal setting and self-improvement (shocker, it’s the new year motivation). it’s forced me to self reflect so much i’m starting to become kind of uncomfortable with how many things i’ve had to come to terms with in the span of a couple weeks.
the first thing i did this year was work on a brand new notion dashboard for myself to actually keep track of these changes i’m trying to make and generally just have my life laid out instead of doing things based purely on vibes. i’ve had many notion dashboards before but the problem i’d give myself with them is they would always require a lot of upkeep and maintenance. it was very micromanage-y and exhausting, so after a couple of months i’d get too lazy to update anything that wasn’t my main calendar.
i decided to take a very different approach this time, partially inspired by the hobonochi weeks everyone’s been posting spreads of lately. i think they’re very cute but i have NEVER been good with physical planners so i didn’t bother buying another one just to not fully use it again. i know i’m more consistent with digital planning, so i thought i’d try and adopt a similar layout onto something i know i’m more likely to use instead! plus, notion is free!
inside each month of my planner is a page containing a column for my weeks and another column for my month at a glance using a calendar. on my weekly column is a list of each day once again divided into another two columns, one for my to-dos and the other for general thoughts, reflections, and reminders about my day! i didn’t want to feel like i had to write down something meaningful all the time, so some days have a picture i took or sometimes nothing at all. the very bottom of the page is just a place for me to note things down or paste links from something i want to check out at a later time.
for my main page, there isn’t much other than the planner. i have a column that contains pages for my journal, my finances (rosidssoy’s budget tracker template is incredible!), a wish list of things i want to buy, and a habit tracker; all of which i think are pretty self explanatory. i will say that i don’t really view my habit tracker as a goal to accomplish daily though—that would be unrealistic because my work load tends to vary and i wanted to accommodate spontaneity, so i think of my habit tracker as something more observational. i’ll feel tired and realize it’s because i haven’t slept well in the last three days so i’ll make an effort that day to be in bed by 11pm and get my 8 hours in or something like that. it does feel great when i manage to check every box in a day though!
the last column on my main page is just a list of goals i want to achieve and a small toggle for things i’ve already accomplished so i can look back on my progress for the year! i wanted to keep my goals as a column on the main page so they’d always be present in my day-to-day, kind of like post-its on a refrigerator. i admit that this would’ve made me grow resentful before, as i would've seen it like having my lack of discipline shoved down my throat every time i open notion—but i’m also trying out a new way of goal setting this year that hopefully won’t overwhelm me.
learning about quantifying goals a couple of years ago was the first step in the right direction for me. a goal like “draw more” is kind of vague, whereas “draw something everyday for 30 days” is specific and i’ll know exactly when i’ve achieved it. unfortunately i’ve come to the realization that being this specific stresses me out if i start feeling like i’m even a little bit behind on a goal. this leads to me slowly fizzling out and not achieving anything for the year (pretty self destructive, i know! i’m working on it). it just doesn’t feel very motivating to have hard deadlines and targets looming over your shoulder, it feels too much like work to me 😟
to resolve this problem, i’m trying out goals that are measurable (not quantifiable, so no numbers) and more action oriented this year! so instead of “draw something everyday for 30 days” i’ll write down “draw a new portrait of my oc” along with other things i want to try drawing2 instead. it’s still specific enough for me to know when i’ve done it but without the pressure of an immediate deadline or a quota. i think that having a big goal can often feel intimidating, so writing down small things that eventually build up to that big goal feels a lot more feasible. i also think it’s more motivating to set goals that are actually realistic and achievable, even if that means that they're incredibly easy! you have to help yourself a little bit by setting yourself up for success methinks
i want to end this little self-reflection with this twitter post rayne fisher-quann made. if these new measures i’m taking end up not working out for me again, then that’s fine—i’ll just have to try again next year, hopefully with a little more knowledge and experience :)
Last year I made a series of horrible mistakes that cannot be repeated. I will do the same thing this year but hopefully with different mistakes. Beginning to think this is the whole point ..
— rayne fisher-quann (@raynefq) January 5, 2025
have a good year, everyone!
until next time <3