My 2020 Life Reset
We are officially in a new year—and a new decade! That’s pretty crazy to think about. 10 years ago I was in college, and 10 years before that I was in elementary school. A lot can—and DOES—happen in 10 years! But anyway, I wasn’t planning on waxing on about the new year/decade because everyone else pretty much has that covered (haha). Plus, I get overwhelmed/anxious if I think about time too much.
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I've decided that, in 2020, it's time for a little bit of a life reset. The big things won't be changing (I'm still with Korri, we aren't planning on moving or changing careers, etc.) but I need to get my life in order in smaller yet still impactful ways. I realized many years ago that resolutions were just not my thing. I could never stick to them, and I think it’s because my goals were too lofty…too general/vague and with not enough “bite-size” actions that I could easily check off once completed.
There are five specific areas I hope to focus this year on so that by the start of 2021, I no longer feel stressed out about them and can focus on other, more fun things like travel and enjoying our home/life together!
1. Declutter and organize one room per month
UGH, you guys. I've lived here for two and a half years now and we still have unpacked boxes and stuff scattered everywhere. Even after watching most episodes of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, it's still a mess because we still haven't done much of anything.
I'm going to get our house in order this year, and I've decided that for us, the best way to do that is to tackle one room every month. Our house doesn't have 12 rooms/large spaces, so some of the smaller rooms are grouped together into one month and I'll allow us a couple of months to tackle the garage, but it's going to happen. It won't happen without Korri's help, too, so I think (hope) this schedule will work well so we aren't tied up every weekend doing chores because that's no fun!
My plan is to first go through everything in the room and decide what we'd like to keep in that room, what needs to be moved elsewhere, and what needs to go. Then, I'll make a list of things we need to buy to get it organized if necessary and a list of things to do (such as hang photos, add a rug, etc.) to make it feel more finished. My goal is to have the room at least organized by the end of the month so that it's easy to finish the room up once we have everything we'd like! I don't want to rush into finishing the rooms if I don't have exactly what I have in mind but I want to have a list of what our plans are so we stay focused. I dream about coming home from work to a perfectly organized house, and we may never get there (we’re both naturally messy people lol) but I hope we can get close. :)
2. Use up products before buying new ones
A.K.A. what I'm calling the "use it up challenge", which I'm pretty sure is a thing that others have written about before. This mainly pertains to my skincare products but also applies to cleaning products, dry goods, etc. that we have laying around the house. When it comes to skincare specifically, I keep buying new things to try while I have a cabinet full of perfectly good products already waiting to be used. It's getting out of hand, so I need to kick that habit and start using what I have and not buy new things until I'm out of the old things. This might cost me my VIB status at Sephora but I think I can survive without it...ha. (ALSO, I can get Korri to help me use everything up before it expires.)
3. Learn how to and start investing
By the end of this year, I'll be debt free. I cannot wait! But, that means I need to start saving all the money that I've been putting towards debt so I don't spend it all. I’m planning to start with my tax refund and go from there. Korri is really into the stock market so I know he will help with most of it but I’d love to read as much as I can as long as it is easy for me to digest.
Do you have any favorite U.S.-based, attainable personal finance blogs that you follow and would recommend? Maybe someone with a regular job (like me)? I need the information to be more relatable/focused on someone like me that doesn’t really care to learn all about the specific details about how it all works, if that makes sense? I likely won’t pay attention to long books about investing, for instance. I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for good options!
I think I should also start saving more towards retirement and that’s a whole other beast. Would speaking to a financial advisor be a terrible idea? Goodness, I feel old talking about this stuff!
4. Figure out a better work/blog/life balance
Blogging is basically a part-time job for me right now even though I get paid pennies in comparison to how much work I put into it. It's fine, of course—it's a fun hobby for me and I never planned on making it my full-time job—but I need to figure out how to better spend my time so that I'm not working on a post all night long and getting nothing else done. I'd like to make time for a proper workout routine and actually get more than six hours of sleep...and of course, maintain my clean house, cook real meals, spend time with Korri, play with my cats, etc.! (BTW, I wrote about needing to fix my sleep schedule four years ago…yikes!)
I don't know how this will work yet but I'm thinking maybe more post planning ahead of time, immediate batch working on the weekends after shooting photos, and setting timers for short-ish periods of time so I stay focused. It’s a work in progress for sure.
5. Improve my mental health
Five therapy sessions per year are covered through my health insurance, and I still haven’t taken advantage of them. I’ll admit that I’m scared at the thought of trying to find the right therapist which is mostly why I haven’t done this yet. I’m hoping that this year I will work up the courage to do this for myself. I’ve been struggling a lot with anxiety lately; I worry a lot about the future and it is keeping me from fully living in the present.
I also need to be cured of my emetophobia. Basically, I cannot handle vomiting or seeing/smelling/ hearing other people vomit. (It is hard for me to even type this out…my hands are sweating just thinking about it.) This is one of the main reasons I don’t think I can handle having kids, and I have some anxiety regarding travel because if I end up on a terribly turbulent flight I will probably have a panic attack. I also can’t watch any of those scenes in Pitch Perfect (the second movie is way better!), and I avoid eating certain foods for fear of food poisoning. It’s bad enough that I’ve considered therapy JUST to deal with this fear. I’ve found some resources online and I think I’ll start with those first so I can focus on other things in therapy…but maybe this is totally related to my anxiety and we’ll kill two birds with one stone?
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Whew! That’s a lot. I didn’t want to end this post on a sour note so, do you have big lofty goals that you hope to accomplish in 2020? Or any advice for me as I try to tackle my list? Ha! I hope my goals are actionable enough for me to attain… I said at the beginning that I can’t do resolutions and now here I am listing what sounds like resolutions. Eep!
I am tentatively planning on sharing an update every month to keep myself accountable and track my progress (especially with the declutter-one-room-per-month goal). Maybe it should be every two months? Or every quarter? Let me know if you have a preference. I know posts like that aren’t always the most interesting, haha. :) Happy 2020, friends!