Do you pick a word for the year? I started doing that a couple of years ago, and I like the idea of having one thing to focus on all year. Last year I couldn’t decide between two words, so I ended up choosing both home and simplify. I thought I’d share a few ways I focused on those words throughout the year.
{2017 word: home}
- We got furniture for our upstairs living room.
- We bought some prints and photos to put on the walls.
- We reupholstered our dining room chairs. (Thanks Gail!)
- I painted some baskets to put in our living room.
- We didn’t necessarily want to, but we replaced our HVAC and part of our sewer piping.
- We made some investments in cleaning appliances: a robot vacuum (Bob) and a powerful handheld vacuum for the stairs.
- We made space for a donation bin to get rid of items in good condition that we no longer want.
Our home is definitely still a work in progress, but I’m happy with what we got done this year. I would have liked to do more, but the major home repairs that were out of our control were very high-budget items so that limited us quite a bit.
{2017 word: simplify}
- I didn’t force myself to stick to a blogging schedule. I blogged 2-3 times a week depending on what worked for me.
- I was only active on social media I enjoy. I pretty much gave up on Twitter and toward the end of the year I spent a lot less time on Facebook as well. I put most of my time into Instagram, because, well, I love Instagram. (I’m @shealennon if you’d like to follow along!)
- While I still made to-do lists that were too long, I did do a better job of determining my priorities. I made it a point to be more present with my family.
- We still have too much stuff in our house, but we did get rid of quite a bit (thanks to the donation bin) this past year.
I definitely didn’t master the art of simplifying in 2017, but having the word in the back of my mind really did help me to think of ways to live more simply. I still need to work on letting go, especially of unrealistic expectations for myself and of others, but it’s something I’m going to continue to work on.
Soon I’ll share my word of the year for 2018 as well as my monthly goals for January.
How did you do on your goals for 2017? Did you focus on a word?
If you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas! I will be back next Wednesday to share my favorite books of 2017.
