Cabin Notes: three approaches to 2025

Jan 1, 2025. We made it!

It’s 2025, but more importantly, I am now 39. Everyone clap.

Yesterday was the best birthday I’d had in a long time, in part because my hopes were so simple. I wanted a big breakfast, to get outside, and some alone time to write. All those things happened. Ben drove W3 around while he napped, and that meant I got the house entirely to myself. I had two scenes fully fleshed out in my mind and getting them both down on paper was nothing short of magical. Over the last three days, I’ve written 3500 words, nailing my goal for the week before the week was even halfway through.

I didn’t do much reflection over “twixmas” or whatever people are calling it. I didn’t need to. What did I do in 2024? Well, it was sitting in my lap, growling. W3 loves to growl, and I growl back, and that about sums it up.

But I do have big goals for 2025: finish Draft 1 of the novel and launch a podcast. Plus, you know, make money. I don’t really care how I make money as long as it allows me enough time to do everything else at a B+ level. I learned a long time ago that As are for people who want advanced degrees, and I don’t. I just want to smile when I catch my reflection, send a manuscript to ten agents, produce a podcast I’m proud of, be present with my gremlin, and love, love, love.

The Log:

• I love the British

• Let the wound work on us

• A bit of courage for you: Training Miss Cookie

• I needed this interview

• Room makeover for $0

• This edition of the Ann Friedman Weekly

• Mom-shaming

• Monthly Medicine: January

Also, two pieces about drinking. I’m not much of a drinker anymore, but these pieces for me apply to how I use and turn to Instagram.

• How to start again from

  Holly Whitaker
  , who I love

• And another great piece on drinking and running aptly titled: A Drinking and Running Story

The Chop:

There are a lot of ways to rally yourself for a new year, whether it’s today, the Chinese New Year, the Spring Equinox, your birthday, or some wild card option. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Word or anthem for the year, plastered around.

For me, the tricky part of this avenue is getting the word to have impact all year. Post-it notes work sometimes, but eventually they fade into the background. So I have kind of a lunatic approach to this. Let’s pretend the word is Attention. Today, I would schedule six emails to myself scattered through the year that just say ATTENTION in the subject line. Then, I would add it as a full-day event six more times on my calendar, again just sort of slapdashed on there. And then, in addition to post-its in the normal places, then I hide post-its in places I don’t very often. This sounds like a lot, but it takes about an hour to get this word shoved everywhere in your life.

My anthem for this year is loosely: commit and sacrifice. (The big sacrifice here is social media and Candy Crush. I think they’ll be fine without me.)

2. Habit Tracker

I share my Habit Tracker Sheet all the time because for me, it works. It works so, so well. The important things to remember about this are:

• You don’t have to do every habit every day. This is just a way to see if it’s been two weeks since you meditated.

• It works better printed. If you don’t have a printer, you can draw this or swing by your library. I have mine

• You can change the habits every month! Right now, it just has the habits I’m focused on.

Just make a copy of the sheet, and you can customize to your liking.

3. Annoy yourself.

Listen, I’m a Capricorn. There’s no escaping the fact that my year-ahead plans often involve planning. But I have grown quite fond of this one: today, write yourself an email about what you want January to look like. What’s important to you. What do you hope you don’t do as much. How do you want to carry yourself in the world? And then schedule it to arrive on February 1.

Here’s the email I wrote to myself: