Losing the January buzz

and dropping ALL the balls but work

If you were one of the few people reading my daily(ish) ponderings, you may have noticed that they lasted all of four days. Likewise, though lasting a bit longer (but purely because I decided to start the writing bit, later in the month - probably; it might also be because drawing has definitely become the thing I can’t not do), if you were following on Instagram you would see that I stopped that after 12 days. And if you were one of the cats, you would know that I stopped my daily yoga after 11 days (that one I have picked up again a couple of times since, though). And if you were one of the sheep in the Slad Valley, you’d know that I dropped my daily walking (not entirely sure when).

Every bloody year. Seriously. The New Year has me all buzzed with that fresh new start feeling and funky words for the year and, while rejecting ‘resolutions’ I still try to make a bunch of changes of some kind, whether it’s joining in with Dry January (not this year) or Veganuary (not this year) or Yoga with Adrienne’s 30 days of Yoga (pretty much every year for a good few years now; I think I nailed the whole 30 days once), or trying to cultivate the daily habits I really want to stick to. And every year, pretty much, I drop most, if not all of them.

Last year, I didn’t technically do Veganuary, because I’d started in November/December and was nicely settled into it (and kept it up through January and a bit into February, when I let it slip in preparation for my big interrailing trip because I didn’t think I could sustain 5 weeks in Europe without eating cheese). I don’t honestly remember if I did Dry January or not, but if I did, I would lay bets that I stopped on 11 January. Because that’s Chris’s birthday. And, while obviously he doesn’t expect me to drink and would totally respect a decision not to, I want to have a drink on his birthday (and mine - which is in October, so y’know, Sober October doesn’t really happen either).

This year, we have been SOOOOOOOOOOOOO busy with work (TAG Publishing Services work, not Tasha Goddard Illustration work, and somehow almost all the projects we’re working on involve typesetting PowerPoints to some extent; it’s actually something I quite enjoy and am pretty good at, but when you are doing the same thing all day, most evenings, and most weekends for over two months, it genuinely gets harder to find that joy).

At the start of the month, I was very good at setting boundaries and making sure that, at the very least, I got my daily habits ticked off. But, after a while they were becoming harder to fit in and I was starting to resent them because there was no time to wind down at all and ALL I was doing was either working, daily habits, my share of the very basics of domestic stuff that can’t be ignored and sleeping. At the start, my daily sketchbooking was really enjoyable and I combined it with watching an episode of some TV so I got two wind-down activities in one. Then I realised it was taking too long and switched to timing it (10 minutes) and it became a chore rather than a mindful calming thing to do.

Then came a birthday (Chris’s birthday) and I did manage to fit everything in on that day, and we took the evening off and went out for a lovely meal. But the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, I just went on daily habit strike and I took the moments of time I had that weren’t taken up with work to ONLY wind down in whatever way I felt I needed. That mostly involved sitting in front of the TV, but also often drawing on the iPad and colouring this sketch…

… which I’m still working on, and doing so using raster brushes, rather than my usual vector brushes, so there’s a whole bunch of texture in there which is new and fun and a little scary. And this was actually really lovely. It wasn’t much time, maybe one 45-minute episode an evening, or occasionally two. I also went back to catching a moment to read the book I’m reading while eating lunch, instead of making sure I read the next chapter of War and Peace (I am going to catch up with that though – I am really into the idea of a year-long readalong and it’s very manageable, particularly when you’re not combining it with a tonne of other new daily habits!) And squeezing in a walk when I could, rather than making myself take a walk.

We will be done with these particularly projects and back to a normal working schedule by the end of the month. One where we don’t work evenings unless we’ve deliberately chosen to in order to do fun stuff during the day. One where we don’t work weekends (again, unless we’ve chosen to so we can take a couple of days out during the week). One where we fit in all the daily habits we want to, as well as proper free time to do whatever the hell we want to in that moment. And I am really looking forward to it. And maybe, somehow, this will be the very last time that we have too much work on at the exact same time; the last time projects slip and overlap; the last time we underestimate just quite how much work something is going to be…

I’d love to know how you’re doing with any January resolutions of challenges or new habits that you have tried to introduce. (Even if you’re nailing it – I would be happy to celebrate with you, if so!) Or if you are someone who manages to ignore the calls to renew yourself just because an arbitrary calendar year changes and if you have better ways to embed new habits. I’m keeping this free and comments open to everyone, too.

I genuinely hope that your January is going well and that you have been able to

[And now… back to the PowerPoints!]