For the last few years I’ve come up with a motto for the coming year. Last year it was “Make it Fun”. 2022’s was “Evolve and Simplify”. 2021’s was “Be Flexible”. It doesn’t look like I had one before that, though I reckon if I’d had one for 2020 it would have been “Try Out This Retirement Thing”.

Did I manage to live by my 2023 motto? Yes, but not in the way I’d intended. It was meant to be a way to motivate myself to tackle tasks I’d been putting off. Instead it became a survival strategy. A way to find calm. Mental health maintenance.

So what about 2024? What kind of motto might carry me through the next year?

Lately I’ve been considering what a healthy amount of time and space is for each of the aspects of my life. Art. Craft. Time with Dad. Time with friends. Gardening. Especially gardening.

Mum’s move into care and death, and our growing physical limitations over the last few years, have me wanting to downsize. We love our house and don’t want to move, so I’ve been simplifying the garden and making small changes to make cleaning the house easier. Whenever there’s a physically demanding task, I try to hire someone to do it, or buy a tool that can make it easier.

Our holidays were short and domestic and fuss-free. The weaving projects I did were less slow and complex. Painting on canvas sheets rather than stretched canvasses made framing simple and inexpensive. Going out with friends for lunch rather than having to cook a big dinner was less exhausting. More simplification of the garden this year made maintenance more manageable.

I really want to make sure I continue looking for an easy way to do something, so 2024’s motto is going to be “Find An Easier Way”.