2019: What’s the Plan?
It’s January 1st, which can mean only one thing:
It’s time to open up the new diary! Fill in BOX ONE on the new tracker! Write the first journal entry! Go the first run! Read the first page of the first book! The glorious type-A collection of new beginnings in the world of life planning has well and truly kicked off!
There’s been, as usual, many many columns and ‘thought-pieces’ in various lifestyle magazines poo-pooing New Year’s Resolutions. Articles pronouncing how pointless and pressuring setting January 1st goals is. Editorials condemning those who excitedly obsess for a few days over their 2019 plans as simply those who don’t know how to chill out and ‘be present’.
Well sod them — I bloody love my yearly strategising — and I’ll be damned if anyone puts me off writing my Medium post explaining my plans, so that all my fellow planning addicts can hold their heads high with me in our glorious feelings of accomplishment at having sorted out our weekly diaries (which we WILL stick to, people!) up to June.
Now, this year I went against my usual ‘one goal-setting-system to rule them all’ approach — the universal theory of 2019, as it were — and instead have a few discrete ‘frameworks’. Like a collection of duplo and lego and play-doh which I’ve been trying to screw all together somehow over the last week, that I have now, with reluctant confidence, put them back into their respective, tidy, boxes (‘to be played with one at a time Gemma’).
Let me introduce you to:
#whatgetsmeasuredgetsmanaged
Nicked this one from my lovely pal Lisa who absolutely nailed her New Year resolution from last year (‘run 365 miles in 365 days’ — she did it in 362 she’s that much of legend). When she posted a screenshot of her excel sheet she’d been using to track her miles with this glorious hashtag underneath (and after I stopped laughing at the sheer brilliance of it), I decided to sack my complex exercise plan which had me failing on a weekly basis and go back to basics.
A health diary.
One that I have to fill in every single day, with food, exercise, sleep, mood and health notes, and fill in every single week with body measurements and weight. So that I can see right before my eyes each morning what the F I’m doing with my life. So that I can stop telling myself that I’ve had a good health week, without any real thought, to justify having pizza two nights in a row. So that I can enjoy the process of looking after my body. So that I can see benefits and progress beyond just the scales — in mood, in sleep, in morning demeanor. So that I can stop mismanaging my body and for god’s sake get it under control. So that I can stop having to make new year plans about ‘being healthy’ and just BE.
What gets measured, gets managed, after all.
WWFGD
I’m not the sort of person to idolise other people — maybe I’m too fussy about what I want — and when I’m berating myself for not being all I want to be, the thing I have in my head which I’m comparing myself too (instead of being someone online or some successful public figure) is a future version of myself.
I’ve always had a clear(ish) idea of what ‘Future Gemma’ looks like — she’s fit and healthy, she gets her work done on time, she is stoic, she is fulfilling her potential, yadda yadda — and I’ve always believed that one day I’d be her.
Well, this year, I’ve decided that there’s literally no reason for me not to just be her now. What on Earth am I waiting for? Why can’t I just decide to act as she would right this second?
I think it’s James Clear — writer of Atomic Habits — who speaks about the idea of making a habit part of your identity. When you call yourself a vegan and make that part of who you are, it’s much easier to say no to meat. I figured that if I decided Future Gemma was actually just me — now — then maybe, just maybe, I might be able to do all that stuff that she does.
So when I woke up this morning, hungover and not ready to pull myself from the warmth and comfort of the sheets, I asked myself ‘What would Future Gemma do?’
I intend to keep asking myself the same question as I go on into 2019.
(I should totally get one of those bracelets…)
The One Thing
I’m guilty of over-complicating things (had you not noticed?), and so this year I decided it might be best to have one core focus for the year — something that isn’t just the only guiding light that everything else fits into, but rather, the one thing I want to do that I know if I achieve it I’ll feel bloody fab come December 31st.
This year, it’s nailing my writing.
2019 is big for me. I have my book’s manuscript due to my publisher on June 30th. I have so many ideas for glorious features sitting in my Evernote that make sense to publish this year. I make my living through the ideas I have in my head, and I desperately want more of them to get out, now.
But I find writing quite tough. I’ve spent this year trying to work out why, and find ways around the struggle of putting pen to paper (or hand to keyboard, if you will), and all the books and blogs and podcasts and mentors I’ve consulted have told me that the only way to make writing even just that marginally bit easier is to just bloody do it. (SO UNHELPFUL)
Now, I’m easily distracted as a freelancer — there’s always other work to focus on, there’s always other clients to chase, there’s always a website to update or a social account to manage. I’ve been very guilty of not making writing the central activity that I do. I’ve prioritised (consciously and unconsciously) other things, and at times literally not left myself any space in my calendar to write.
So that’s The One Thing. Writing is my thing. I am a writer, and therefore I must write. I must make time in my diary — and prioritise above many other things— space for me to sit at my laptop and tap the keys.
It’s really quite refreshing really — feeling like there’s only one thing to truly focus on. Of course my life has many other bits and bobs going on and there’ll be many times when writing cannot be solely central. But when I’m feeling a bit lost and directionless and overwhelmed by the goals and the plans and time running away from me, I’m hoping that by having The One Thing to go back to might not only detangle my brain, but get me doing more of what I actually want to be doing.
And I’m unbelievably excited to be doing just that, right now.
The End Notes
You may read this post and consider it simple, or obvious, or trite, but for me, coming up with something that sits right with me takes time. It means having it in the back of my mind for the first 2 weeks of December, talking it through with many pals who are also planning freaks, talking it through with my boyfriend — many times — who absolutely is not a planning freak (he made a specific request that one of my resolutions be: ‘be less of a planning freak’…I digress), reading many many many blogs about planning, and having a day to myself on Dec 31st to sit in an empty coworking space and ~thinkkkkk~
(I’m not exaggerating when I say that I *love* to plan. I literally get so much out of the process. But I also am aware that for me, it does take time, and so I consciously made time for it.)
What’s right for one person isn’t necessarily right for another, so here’s a few of the things I’ve got a lot, or a little, from — which you might like too:
- I bought myself this cracking Writer’s Diary from Urban Writers Retreat and omg I have had SO MUCH FUN filling it in and making true my plan for writing to be The One Thing I’m doing this year
- This glorious visual exercise which Richard Hylerstedt makes every year, I skimmed through it once I’d already made some goals to make sure they ‘fitted in’
- A list of 162 questions to help you reflect on 2018 and plan what you want for 2019 from Kyle Kesterson(I didn’t do this whole exercise, but chose bits and bobs to help me think through plans)
- I used SMART goals to drill down my bigger plans into something real — i.e. each thing I decided I wanted to do had to fulfill the SMART criteria (everyone seems to have different words for the acronym, but I used: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based) — doing my food diary felt like the simplest, most do-able and most likely to succeed version of ‘be more healthy’, for instance.
- I used this incredible Spreadsheet from Chris Guillebeau to plan last year, and spent a good few hours going through it at the end of 2017. This year I took bits and bobs from it, and used it as a ‘what worked / what didn’t’ kind of exercise
- I recorded many many many voice memos through December (my piece on my love of voice memos here), some specifically to talk about plans for 2019 — this really helped my processing
- Yesterday, I read this article about Ryan Holiday (a writer I admire from afar) and his routines, and it totally inspired a few of the above points (if you read it you’ll spot them quite easily)
And that’s it people! Hope you found some of this useful — maybe to help plan your next planning session, or to confirm some of what you’ve already got planned, or maybe ‘showing the working’ has validated your reasoning for not making plans in the first place..!
Whatever you’ve taken from this reel of thoughts, I wish you an absolutely glorious 2019.
If you’re looking for more ramblings about the life of a freelance writer cum planning freak, I got you covered with my newsletter Brain Reel, which you can sign up to here 😉
