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Several years ago I started listening to a podcast called Happier with Gretchen Rubin. She and her sister host a weekly podcast where they share "manageable advise about happiness and good habits". One of the activities she and her sister started doing on this podcast is creating a list of items to tackle each new year. They make it fun and whimsical by having the number of items match the last two numbers of the year.
I have found this to be a creative way to tackle some nagging to do items, ensure I follow through on fun items, and work on habit building each year. The following is a list of my 23 items for 2023. Some are small and seemingly easy to do but yet still had not been done after several years. Some are trips I wanted to be sure to take. Some are gigantic projects that I wanted to tackle.
Any item that is stricken through has been completed. I have added a little bit of detail for each item in order to give it more context for my readers (and for myself as reference). Highlighted items are ones that I did not count as completed.
I'm looking forward to finalizing my 24 in 2024 list and sharing it soon! Here's to deviating from traditional New Year's Resolutions in favor of a more interesting set of personally desired action items!
- Get Tequila’s paperwork in my name.
- Sent paperwork and a check to the Arabian Horse Association in November and got updated paperwork showing me as her owner towards end of December!
- Finish making Germany photo album
- Project has been started. All photos are uploaded to Shutterfly, album template has been selected, and cover and a couple of pages have been made. I had a strategy session with my son to talk about my gigantic photo project, which consists of many many sub-projects. We discussed scope and barriers. I decided to sign up for a photo project course to help with this massive project and will be adding components of this to my 2024 goals.
- Trip to see Peyton
Rebs visit to see Peyton
- I visited my amazing daughter Peyton in her new home in Houston, Texas in March. First trip to Houston for me. We went to the Houston rodeo and a concert during our visit and spent more one on one quality time together than we had in a long time.
- Trip to see Dante
Trevor and I visited Dante in Michigan in June. First time Trevor has been in Michigan. We got to meet Dante’s girlfriend Lindsay too!
Trip to see Dante
- Mexico trip with Trevor
- We absolutely love Rocky Point and were blessed to have 2 trips there this year! One in May with just the two of us and one in December with my parents, Dante and Ruth to celebrate mom’s 75th birthday, Dante’s 26th birthday, and an early Christmas.
Trevs & Rebs in Mexico
- Publish Pediatric Resuscitation continuing education chapter
- This was a huge project for me in 2022 and early 2023. I was ecstatic to see it get published! I can now call myself a published academic author.
- Trip to see sister
I visited my darling sister in San Diego in the end of March. She and I need to have more one on on trips together!
Visit to SD to see Ruth!
- Horse camping with at least one horse at least one time
- Trevor and I camped outside of Tucson with Arya in my LQ over Mother's Day weekend in mid-May. My dad spent one overnight with us too. I got to spend a couple of days riding Arya while Trevor and my dad went mountain bike riding. My mom and dad joined us for breakfast on Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day before we headed back home.
- Sort through my stuff on the patio so Trevor can finish building
- This is another giant project that is still a work in progress. I have made some progress on it though and am excited to continue on it in 2024! I went from a married life with 2 children in a 2000+ sq ft home on the east side of town in 2016 to a single (but dating Trevor) life in a 2000+ square foot home in 2018 to a married again life in an ~800 sq ft home that my husband Trevor built. It’s taking a lot of time to sort through all of my and our belongings to drop down to the essentials we need.
- I have noticed that the projects that are hardest for me are ones that have an emotional component. A lot of my stuff is associated with wonderful memories as well as some very hard memories. Some of it is from my former life married to my ex. Some of it is from the life I created as an independent woman who bought her very own house (such as wall decor that I picked out myself and love). Some of it consists of items that I just flat out don’t know what to do with or where to store.
- Until the emotional side of this project is dealt with, progress will be slow. 2023 has been a year of massive insight and growth and I have high hopes that I’ll be able to make progress on this goal in 2024.
- Complete PedSAP continuing education in March and September
- I put this on the list just to make sure I got my biannual CE done to maintain my pediatric pharmacy board certification. It worked! Also, one section of one of the 2 books was the chapter I wrote with questions I wrote, which at least made that section easy. ;-)
Trip with mom
Staycation with mom
- My mom and I ended up having a staycation where she visited me while Trevor was gone hunting. We had so much fun painting landscapes and going to the climbing gym. My mom tackled her fear of heights and trusted me to keep her safe. Such a great weekend!
- Trip with dad
Dad camped with us one night down near Tucson when we went horse camping with Arya. He also came to visit me in December to help me during my endurance ride with Arya.
Rebs & Dad horse camping
- Update driver’s license address
- I finally went to the ADOT website to do this in the beginning of December only to discover that I had already updated my address! I guess I was too cheap whenever I did it to order a new license? So I ordered a new license so I don’t have to keep telling people that the address on it is incorrect. Ha! I can't believe I waited so long to tackle this one only to find out I had already done it. Yucky brain suck for no reason but yay me!
- Update my last name on southwest rewards account
- I’m debating whether to even bother with this one. I got a Southwest credit card this year so I can earn flight miles since both my children live out of state and I set up a new rapid rewards account at that time. I have a few points on the old account, but have not yet done this because they want a copy of my marriage certificate and then I still will have to merge the accounts. Not sure it’s worth my time but it just sits on my brain as a “to do” item. I just need to make a decision either way and move on with that decision.
- Close Wells Fargo bank accounts
- It’s official. Trevor’s and my finances have been merged for a while, and having extra accounts just created more work and didn’t make sense. This was a chore, but I got it done.
- Buy new bras
- Thanks to my daughter Peyton for shopping with me, I got this done during my trip to visit her in March! I suspect I won’t need to do this again for a very long time.
- Read 23 books in 2023
- Most of the books were audiobooks, but these count in my world. Got this done in like the 3rd week of December so yay!
- Develop system for photo organization
- This did not get done, but I committed to a photo organizing self-paced video course series and identified some big barriers to making traction on this project. Like my patio organizing project, this project had underlying emotional components that first needed to be addressed. I’m confident that I have opened up the pathway now to gain traction on this project. I also have outsourced some of the work as to HOW to actual do this to an expert in the area for a fee of under $200. ;-)
Rock climbing!!
- Rock climb to top of climbing gym 5 times
- I’m still scared of heights, but nevertheless I crushed this goal so early on in 2023!!! Yassssssss!! I now own my own harness and my sis got me a grigri for Christmas. Anyone wanna go rock climbing? Hit me up!
- Mail birthday cards to immediate family members 1 week before their birthdays
- Done! Only exceptions were my mom and dad because I was blessed to be with them both on their birthdays this year!
- Teach Sadie how to do a few obstacles in an obstacle course
- Technically, I did do this. But barely. I showed her a couple obstacles and worked with her for maybe 30 minutes. If I’m going to do this, it has to be out of the sight of the horses - her obsession. The only thing she loves more than pretend corralling the ponies (they are in a fenced in area) is going running with me or running while I ride. That said, I’m making a 2024 goal around bringing her off the property with me more.
- Find a new farrier (ours is moving)
- We miss our friends deeply, but they kindly gave us the name of an amazing farrier who has been so incredibly helpful to us and our 3 horses.
- Develop 5 personal system enhancement processes geared towards ADHD and my brain
- I have worked on this area extensively this year. The following is just a small list of things that have helped. This will be an ongoing action item for 2024.
- Time out checklist next to door. Reference this every time before I leave home to go to work.
- If a “to do” item pops in my brain and doesn’t need to be immediately done, write it down to tackle later. (I now use an app called TickTick that is a task management app with an inbox where any and all random thoughts can be added from my phone. The app icon is one of the main 4 at the bottom of my phone screen.)
- Use a body doubling system like the app Dubbi. Thank you to @ADHDlove for making this app. Set up a focus pomodoro on my TickTick app to get started on a project or activity. (Getting started is the hardest. Once I get started, I'm often able to get into a hyper focus and keep going.)
- Be willing to ask close family members for help such as by reminding me of things I’m apt to forget or body doubling me if possible.
- Be transparent and honest with myself and others about my wants and needs and what is realistic for me to do to help minimize my fear that I will disappoint myself or others.
- Put my phone on DND while working on a difficult (for me) task.
- Play music, podcast or audiobook as appropriate to the task. Mindless tasks like dishes and laundry can be done while listening to songs with lyrics or audiobooks. Focus tasks can be done while listening to Chill or Focus playlists with minimal lyrics.
- 2024 GOALS:
- Make checklist templates for things such as cleaning tasks that require multiple steps, packing lists for camping, horse endurance rides, driving vacations, air travel vacations.
- Use totescan labels on my storage boxes to be able to identify and locate the location of my belongings from my phone app.
Bonus Item:
- Figure out how to delete old phone contacts permanently from phone AND cloud.
- When I was married to my ex, his phone, my phone and the kids’ phones were all connected. I accumulated so many contacts of theirs on my phone. Previous attempts I have made in past years to clean this up haven’t worked. Maybe iPhone made some updates since then? Either I figured it and didn’t realize what I did differently or iPhone made this easier. Regardless, I have cleaned up my digital contacts quite a bit. Honestly, it doesn't really matter how it happened. Just that it happened! Yay! Finally!
