Simplify was my word of the year for 2023 and boy, did it deliver, but not in the way I thought it would.

I thought my journey with this word would carry me through declutterring the house, but it worked on so many levels (and not so much the house, given that an injury kept me from working on it.

Here are some ways simplifying helped me this year:

  1. I've simplified what I use for my art and art journaling.
  2. I've let go of so many things I thought I needed to do.
  3. I've simplified what I use on a daily basis for planning and journaling. Funnily enough that means that I use more notebooks and planners, but each has its own purpose so that's making using them so much easier.
  4. I have simplified what I use for my skincare and my health.
  5. I've simplified my note taking, going all analogue with some exceptions.
  6. I have made my food so much simpler. One option for breakfast and one for lunch takes away the need to choose all the time.
  7. I've simplified my clothes. I have a sort of uniform now with some room to play. I have a favourite pair of pants that I bought extra of so that's what I wear now and I either wear a longsleeve shirt with cardigan or a jumper. Everything goes together so I can literally grab anything and it's perfect.

I could go on and on. The core of all these changes is that my life is simpler now. Less decisions.

There is one point where I do need some work and that is with my writing. I have everything in Ulysses and even though that is at first glance a perfectly simple thing, for me it's so overwhelming.

Every time I open Ulysses it feels like I'm hit over the head with a massive to do list. So, I'm making some changes there once I've pondered on it some more.

My gut feeling is that I want to have a separate notes app for only my current stuff, so my blog drafts, the three projects I work on for the quarter and that's it. The rest lives elsewhere.

I think that might work.

Now this reflection is done, I can't wait to share my word of the year for 2024.

That will be one of my first posts of the new year!