I love the starts of a new year, new month, new week, new anything. Beginnings are my favourite part of a project or a goal. It’s the middles and endings I struggle the most with. Even in a new year, I find myself slogging through the middle of the calendar by June.

My affection for starting has led to a neglect for follow-through and finishing. But not in 2020! This will be the year of buckling down, finishing things, and securing the end goal.

At the start of each new year, for my bullet journal, I pick a word to align my intentions and goals. I also pick out a quote each month that inspires me to look at that word a little differently and, sometimes, concretely. Just thinking of the word isn’t as useful as having it applied to something.

2020’s word is focus.

No more distractions.

No more excuses.

No more doubt.

You have to have a dream, whether big or small. Then plan well, focus, work hard, and be very determined to achieve your goals.

Henry Sy

My plans for this new year are pretty much the same as they are every year.

Write. ✏

Make art. 🎨

Be healthy. 🌸

Enjoy successes. 💰

I won’t take this space to review or reflect on 2019 and how I achieved those goals (or didn’t), since I know what the year was about, what affected me, and how I reacted.

One very specific goal for this new year is to focus on privacy by being intentional with my social media usage. As someone who grew up on Twitter (one decade this year, baby!) and spent teenage years being expressive and impulsive online with blogs, I’ve forgotten how to have a healthy and appropriate balance between my private personal life and my public social media posts.

My hiatus from June 2019 to the end of 2019 really illustrated how my social media behaviour affected my offline well-being. I won’t use the word “addiction” here, because it was more of a habit. Just a routine of sharing myself without clear intent. The new year brings new attitudes, and I’m so excited for where this strange number will take me. (2020? That’s not a real year. What is that? I proofread this post twice and found “2002” more often than “2020.”)

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Hello, 2020. 👋🏻 New planner, same plans.

A post shared by Coryl Addy (@corylwrites) on Jan 1, 2020 at 5:49pm PST

Since I mentioned my bullet journal, I figured a quick shot of the new #bujo would be appropriate. I switched from a bound notebook, my tool of choice since 2015, to a 6-ring binder. It’s pretty much a FiloFax knock-off, so now I feel like I might turn into Jane Nichols in 27 Dresses.

After I figured out spreads for my mental health that clicked perfectly with me, I spent too much time drawing them out by hand. I figured it would be better to print them out and put them in a binder. Plus, now I can move pages around at will and remove any that simply don’t work (or that I royally screw up on). I’ll be posting spreads on Instagram, so go give me a follow there.

I may also… do something else with those designs. Stay tuned. 😉

I hope we can make the new year a great one, whatever that means to us individually.