As part of my end of year reflecting and forward planning, I’m tidying things up, and setting up new routines to test (everything is an experiment).
Housekeeping #1
- I sorted out the office, dusted, tidied, and reviewed everything before putting them back on the shelves. This reminds me of what I have, because out of sight out of mind otherwise! Also giving everything a little clean before putting it back in its place feels pleasing. It reminds me of the parents’ introductions at the start of the Amelie movie.
- I took down all the wall post-its and notes, and decided what I’ve learnt by now and what can go back on the wall.
- I sorted out and put away all the workshop stuff (pens, post-its, fidgets, etc), which had got a bit (very!) messy towards the end of the year.
Housekeeping #2
- I deleted my Bluesky account. I rarely looked at it and got stressed by the surfeit of information every time I did.
- I deleted my toot.wales Mastodon account. I nearly kept it dormant because I’m fond of the Welsh server, but I don’t actually have the bandwidth to interact on it, or to post regularly. So in the interest in reducing mental load and digital clutter, it went.
- I sorted out the temporary folders of info and screenshots I saved in my downloads, and saw some interesting patterns emerging. I’ll post about those separately if I get round to them!
Scheduling and weekly rhythms
- I want to try and take week-ends off work more. (Off work that should be done during the week I mean.) As a freelancer I am flexible with my time and my work bleeds into my week-ends often – tying off things that I haven’t completed in the week. I treasure this flexibility and I chafe against strict routines, but also I have noticed how much better I start a week on Monday if I’ve had a proper break at the weekend. It supports my resilience and wellbeing.
- Instead of weeknoting on a Sunday evening, I’m going to trial it on a Monday morning, as way to start the week by reflecting on the previous one.
- I want to get back to reading my folders of saved links, and blogging some more thoughts, so I am going to test doing this on a Saturday morning. That would be me starting the weekend with quiet reflective time just for me.
- The reflective summaries on closed projects are really valuable (I have just reviewed all the notes from 2025 and I’m so glad I do these summaries), I’m going to roll them into the admin day on every 1st day of the month (when I do invoicing and do the project closing admin). Ideally I will then also blog the closed projects as case studies (or at least schedule them, but it would be good to get them done and dusted in one go).
- I must do more Welsh homework and practice on a more regular basis. I love having single focus days (maker schedule vs manager schedule) but when it comes to learning a language this isn’t helpful. I can’t do 5 hours of homework once a week and expect the same result, things just won’t stick in my head. I have to do little and often and keep up with the repetition. So that’s a challenge with protecting my focus time and deep work – I’m going to try and wrap Welsh homework and practice in with break times. If I have to stop for food anyway (context switching) I might as well combine it with a bit of Welsh revision. To support this I have to make sure the materials are ready to go, I’ll blog about this separately I think.
- I do want some totally focused and constraint-free days for learning and development (and also for crafting / hobbies). I am going to test scheduling some Saturdays as this is not “business as usual” work (so it’s acceptable to do this on a weekend, it is for my own growth and development), and also I’m unlikely to be able to carve out a weekday for this at the moment (a Monday or a Friday might be possible but the projects I am running right now all have regular meetings on those two days).
Booking dedicated time in my calendar does help me to keep all the different things in mind. Things are colour coded so I can see at a glance what the purpose is. I’ve set up the above from next week onwards, and will review in a few months to see what’s worked and what’s needed adjusting.
Photo by Félix Prado on Unsplash