Looking ahead…
Every year instead of making a resolution of something specific I’ll inevitably forget in March then remember in November, I take on a theme. The theme year comes from a podcast about tech, productivity, and internal behavior called Cortex. The idea is simple; give yourself a word or phrase to help guide you through the year. It’s not a goal, it’s not a resolution, it’s not even something you can fail at – it’s a concept that helps guide your decisions throughout the year. My favorite part of this is that there’s no guilt if I forget the word or phrase for a few months because there’s no failure state. I’m not trying to lose 15 pounds, but I might have a Year of Health that allows me to concentrate on different physical activities, eating habits, etc. that make me feel better.
You can read about my 2023 Year of Craft in my last entry from the end of December. This year, I’m using the information I learned from Year of Craft and honing in some of the things I learned. I came upon an idea that I wanted to commit to, and unlike previous years it was a lot of fun. But I couldn’t find the right words for it that would help me encapsulate all the disparate parts of it until Minion came up with a cool phrase that I’ll get to later.
Here is the idea. This year, I want to make sure that I’m moving through things. Writing projects, books, video games, etc. There’s a completionist streak inside me that I’ve battled with for a long time. In the last four years or so, I’ve done a lot to dismantle that streak. The problem is that I link all those things together in my mind – if I’m working on a short story and I get stuck I find myself beating my head against the wall, staring it down, and making no progress for several days in a row. With Year of Craft, I started identifying that feeling within me much earlier in the process.
This year, what I’d like to do is have a live Rolodex of projects. When I get stuck on one, I’m going to happily flip to something else in my Rolodex and reignite my spark there. Then with a clear mind, jump into that project. This brain refresh is something that will help me alleviate the beating my head against the wall. That slowdown usually takes more out of me than I realize and then puts me on track to mourn the time that I lost – thus losing more time. So far, this idea has been going strong since around October of last year.
Why is it a theme? I want this idea to become a behavioral pattern for me. It’s something that I’d like to dedicate significant time to this year to make this my norm. That requires time and effort. However, I also want this to extend beyond just work projects. I want this to affect my media consumption. There are video games I get stuck on, then give up. Rather than give up I’d like to maintain an attitude of playing it but taking a break. Find another game, or a show to binge, then come back.
And there lies the key. The fundamental part of all of this. Coming back. Returning to that original work with fresh eyes, unhindered by whatever blocks were there before. I’ve already got a streak of good follow-through on projects, so this should be an easy habit to form.
Talking this theme out loud over the last month with my friends and family, I tried to come up with a clever, catchy word or phrase to encapsulate all of this. Among the options were Year of Coming Back, Year of Circles, and a few ridiculous ones so over the top I won’t say them here. None of them did the job of identifying the aspect of this that’s fun. Some of them didn’t acknowledge the physical state of the idea. Until Minion came up with Year of Carousels. It’s fun, identifies the circular pattern, and has a hop-in/hop-out nature that checks all my boxes.
So, please let me introduce you to 2024: Year of Carousels.
If you’re interested in my history with this;
2020 – Year of Agency
2021 – Year of Fulfillment
2022 – Year of Habit
2023 – Year of Craft