My 2025 New Year's Resolutions for a *More* Productive Year

I’m not a huge fan of new year’s resolutions as I’m a very logical person – like, I’m not all of the sudden a *brand new person* just because the calendar switched over. I’ve also always really not liked January…Christmas is over, it’s still cold as all get out (at least in Colorado) and when I was in school it meant an entirely new schedule to get used to.

BUT. In the spirit of good intentions, I want to try to set myself up for a good year because if I don’t, life continues on…same old, same old. And for my change-adverse self, it’s way too easy for me to wiggle down into a rut.

To help myself further – I’m just asking myself for five days a week. When inevitably I miss something, I immediately go into “failure who cannot be fixed and now the whole mission is futile” status. Five days has built in grace!

Listen to something Bible-related. I constantly have a podcast or audio book in, so I really have no excuse for not listening to something. I found The Bible in A Year with Dr. Melody Stevens and it’s less than 30 minutes a day. I think I get caught in the trap of “I’ve been going to church my whole life and went to Christian school and work for a ministry…so this is normal and now it feels like a box to check…” But the reality is that I feel so much better emotionally and spiritually when I’ve listened to or read the word and spent time in prayer each day. Being in the little-kid years of motherhood means I don’t have time to just sit quietly without someone crawling all over me, but I sure can listen to a podcast in the car or while emptying the dishwasher! And if her podcast turns out to not be for me? There’s a whole bunch of other options.

Teach the girls to be better about cleaning up with the goal of cleaning up my own messes as they clean up theirs. I tend to flit from thing to thing and the mess can feel like white noise until all of the sudden it is CHAOS that will certainly swallow me. As a bonus, when I start to have the girls clean up to earn something like TV time, suddenly their toys seem so much more interesting and they can play for awhile longer. Win-win.

Continue going to the gym with a goal of 3 times a week. I started going to Burn Boot Camp over the summer and having any muscles is a very new thing for me – but I like it! It also helps with anxiety and helps me to get out of the house as the included child watch gives me 45 minutes to myself.

Read or listen to 25 books this year. I got through 27 this year as some were much smaller but it was nice to have that feeling of accomplishment when I got through my goodreads challenge!!

Publish more patterns. I get into my head about needing them to be tested, perfected, and have an amazing launch and then I get stuck and rarely actually publish anything…but the reality is that if I write it, make it several times, and then just put it for a lower price point, 1. It sells better and 2. there’s less pressure for me. I also want to put out more free patterns here and have them super cheap on Etsy/Ko-Fi since that seems to be a good model for other makers (at least, the crochet ones I’ve seen on Youtube).

Be better about buying what I need and not what I want. Or at least, asking myself before I buy something.

Shop my stash of crafts before shopping at the store – yes, this goes with the one above, but I need to be better about looking in my bins before waltzing off to the LYS or Michaels…this is better for my business and my storage space!

What is on your list? Do you have any tools that have been helpful for you?