Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a HUGE fan of the new year.
I always get a new weekly planner every September, and immediately start decorating every weekly layout and filling it in with important dates, upcoming activities, to-do lists, and other things. I also create a yearly Uberlist (inspired by Nikol Lohr back when she ran the now-defunct “Disgruntled Housewife” website, waaaaaaaay back in the day), along with a monstrously complex goal tracking spreadsheet that breaks each item on my Uberlist into actionable steps. It’s also linked to a fitness log and monthly budget so I can track whether I’m meeting my fitness goals and spending the expected amount to meet my other goals. It’s a behemoth labor of love, and will surely become a beast I cannot control if I take it much further (and I definitely could – I already have ideas for next year).
But… what does it all amount to, really?
Sure, it’s awe-inspiring (at least, to me… but I’m insufferably dull and tedious), but will it really make me a better person?
The point of the Uberlist and goal-tracking spreadsheet is not to become a better person or to make the year the best one yet.. it’s not even meant to help me fall in love with the journey. For me, it’s empowering to create a list of things I want to accomplish in the new year and design a way to track my progress. It’s an enormous, complex Excel file with conditional formatting, charts, and mind-boggling calculations, but it doesn’t really capture the small moments that make the year truly memorable.
It won’t capture the first time our dog Vivienne ate some Chex Mix that fell on the kitchen floor, had an out-of-body experience and immediately decided it was her favorite food in the whole universe.
It won’t capture the hilariously clever insults screamed by fans at the rival team of a hockey game.
It won’t even capture those nights when I’m so tired from my workout, from gardening, from hours of housework, or from just freaking existing, and then forget all about it when the small of my back hits the mattress.
That’s what makes life truly memorable and enjoyable. The rest is just numbers and what-if statements.
