Friday five: things to do in 2019

January 4, 2019

Hello! How was your Christmas? Happy New Year! Are your decorations still hanging on or are you hoovering pine needles out of the deepest darkest depths of your festively over-saturation soul, still?

Colourful beach huts at Bournemouth Beach - and five new things to do this year

Either way, it’s a whole new year, and a time of fresh starts and changes and resolutions. Or is it? There seems to be a big backlash against this idea this year, and I’ve seen more people more determined to change absolutely nothing instead.

(I reckon if you want to change something that’s making you unhappy, then go ahead. Or if the New Year has given you the impetus to start something new, start it. And in a similar vein, if you’re happy as you are, or want to be, then that’s great too, as are you).

I can’t remember the last time I made – or kept – a resolution, but this year I feel like I might want to do things differently and as it’s a new day of a new month of a new year it seems a good a reason as any to outline some of these things, so here are five of them:

Scroll less: My most common complaint is that I never have any spare time. To do, well, anything. And then I looked at my iPhone Screen Time report and saw that clearly I did have spare time, I was just spending it on Instagram. And Twitter. And Pinterest. And the rest. It’s hard to strike a balance when you use social media for work, but you can’t really call the ten millionth idle-Insta Stories scroll work, can you? And clearly, it all adds up. So this year I’m going to stop the mindless scrolling and…

Do more instead: Be it actually updating my blog (I’m going to be making some changes, as well as some new regular features – like this one) or posting more on Instagram instead of watching everyone else do it.

Read books: Or, to be more accurate, read more than last year when I read a grand total of three. Which was an improvement on the year before’s total of one and a half, which is horrendous considering I used to read one a night, before children (here’s more on why I stopped reading). So this year I’m going all out and aiming to read one a month. Which is…vaguely achievable, right? Anyone read anything good recently? Send all suggestions my way…

Get outside: I’m not just talking about my old nemesis of leaving the house, more like, actually getting out and going for a run. There’s a million reasons why I hate running, which I’ll go into shortly, but I want to tip the balance slightly so I don’t hate it. Quite so much. And take the children to see more of the things right on our doorstep, either for the first time or a return visit (like the London Transport Museum).

Go to bed early, occasionally: Me every morning: I’m so tired! Me every evening: Let me just watch one more thing / look at the entire Internet, again / google that random thing I thought about at 3am six years ago / Oh wait, what time is it?

Not worry if I don’t do any of these, or all of them. Yep.

What’s the verdict, are you making any changes this year or are you resolving to absolutely not? P.S. if you’re really not feeling January already, here’s a post on how 51 ways to shake off the parenting blues

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