Planning for 2020

I usually never really look forward to a new year. If I have exciting things scheduled, I'll look forward to those, but the whole "I can't wait for the new year" and the "new year new me" was never for me. I never believed that you needed the date in a calendar to change in order for you to improve yourself.

However, this year I was excited for a new beginning, which is why I decided to take the first week of January (which turned out to be the whole month of January) to reset my life, my surroundings and really figure out how I want this year to be.

Having graduated last year and having no clue what I want to do with my life, I figured a good reset was overdue. So if you, like me, would just like to start this year off on a good foot, here's what I did/am doing to achieve that (and yes, January is half-way gone already but again you don't need a date in a calendar to reset yourself).

The first thing I did was write down every single thing I wanted to do to organise my space and my head. That way I could take everything off my mind so I could stop thinking about it. To make sure you remember it all just walk around the house and check every room to see if anything needs doing (even if it's just giving the room a deep clean). It's also good to leave the list somewhere you can access easily, in case you remember anything else.

I'm one of those people who cannot function unless their space is tidy, which is why I started this by changing my bedding, deep cleaning every surface of my room and decluttering/reorganising it all. There's nothing better than getting into freshly washed sheets (especially after you've been cleaning all day) or looking at your shelves and seeing everything in its place. I also took the chance to put a new scent in my diffuser - my old had ended months ago and I hadn't refilled it.

Next was organising my head. Besides all the things that I wanted/needed to do around the house, all my goals and resolutions were bubbling up inside my mind. So I just set up my 2020 Bullet Journal (inspired by AmandaRachLee's yearly spreads), wrote down all my goals and resolutions, as well as my trackers and the month of January, to make sure I didn't miss any appointments and could have all the stuff floating around my brain in only one place.

This year also came with a new goal to start this very blog and a Bookstagram account, and for that I also set up all my trackers and plans (this time digitally, using ClickUp - the closest to a free version of Monday I could find) to make sure I was ready to go whenever I had new post ideas.

Then there's my least favourite part: errands. No matter if you're organising the whole house or just a room (I'm doing a bit of both) there will be things you need to fix, call someone else to fix or buy/replace. Also, if you've decluttered like I have, you'll need to take your things to wherever you're donating them to. My tip is: if you can do it all in one day to get rid of it, just do it. Not only you'll feel so much better if you can give every room its finishing touches, but if you hate driving like I do, you'll only have to do it once.

Then I just call whoever I need to come and fix something. I also like to make sure I schedule anything I need to schedule, like doctor's appointments, haircuts, anything that you need to do at a certain time and place. Then I take the time to check on all my house plants (I have quite a few), making sure they're all healthy, without any bugs eating them away (and if there are, I get rid of them). If I need to repot them or top up their pots I do that as well.

And that's it, all I'm doing to make sure the house and myself are completely ready for a new year. Since I'm also giving my house the whole treatment, not only my room, I haven't finished yet (which is why I've given myself the whole month to do it all), but I already feel much better just knowing that I'm getting there.

This was much more about the steps I'm taking to set the foundation of the year if you will. My next post will be all about my Goals and Resolutions for the year ahead and what I plan to accomplish now that my foundation is ready. I really believe that, without doing all that I talked about on this post, these little things would keep coming up and distracting me from my actual plans.

Love,

N.

Xx