It’s been a long time since I did “New Year’s Resolutions” (I wrote about that last year and the year before). Nonetheless, in these waning days of 2020, I find myself in a reflective state of mind, drawn towards the notion (fantasy?) of getting myself more centered/grounded/organized before 2021 rings itself in.

Part of it is that odometer-turning energy that gets me every turn of the calendar. Part of it is the positive side effect of allowing myself to really-and-truly check out of work—-something I’d not done since COVID started.

But let me be clear: NONE of this is irrational exuberance about 2020 turning into 2021. As far as that cosmic detail is concerned, I agree with this wisdom I’ve seen going around Twitter and FB:

pic.twitter.com/LcF5pkQvtW

— Aaron (@ABombP19) December 27, 2020

Solid advice, as far as I’m concerned.

Still, I find myself doing some preparatory things for this quiet walk into 2021.

I’ve been meditating on what focus word I’m going to choose for the upcoming year. I have one very specific one noodling around the edge of my brain, but I’m too embarrassed to share it yet. Which probably means that yes, it’s the right word to choose—that mild embarrassment being suggestive that this is a growth edge for me.

I’ve started doing some research into Ed.D. programs, and I expect to really dig into that over the next couple days, weighing out the benefits of different programs and their application requirements so I can make active choices—rather than the passive “whoops! I missed the deadline” kind of choice….

And I’m thinking a LOT about getting better organized. That’s partly about physical stuff: my overflowing closets and bookshelves, the endless untamed paper dragon, the cross-stitch and needlepoint supplies that I should either get back to using or give the hell away.

But it’s also about some deeper layer of disorganization I feel in my mind, my schedule, my life. Like, I basically keep on top of everything but it all feels very much by the skin of my teeth. It’s something that I’d like to feel more solid on: as evidenced by the multiple planning solutions I bought at different times over the past 18 months and unearthed during my on-vacation-office-cleanup that I’ve been chipping away at during the past week.

So there’s a Clever Fox Planner, the instructional guide for original flavor Bullet Journaling™, the 52 Lists “wellness planner,” and a basic 6-ring binder with calendar pages—that could, if I so desired, be supplemented with other speciality 6-ring pages I got for a steal from Michael’s a couple months back.**

So yeah: lots of options. And I can’t use them all at once. Which means now I’m puzzling over what planner to try first. With any luck, I’ll choose wisely and it’ll work like a charm. Or it won’t work, and I’ll learn something about myself that helps me in my next attempt at setting up a planning system for myself.

Regardless, my odds of success are much, much higher if I can make a choice soon and use the rest of my vacation to get myself set up. If I wait till I’m back full-speed at the NPO next week, the ultimate result will be strikingly akin to the passive choice of missing an application deadline for grad school.

Any votes, dear reader?

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* I chose the longest-ago instance of this I could find in hopes of giving the proper clever person appropriate credit.

** I needed supplies so we could glitter-bomb our #BlackLivesMatter yard sign.

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Image credits: photos taken by the author, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.