A break from goal content! We are one week into 2026. How is everyone doing?
(Other than the fact that the news continues to resemble a dystopian novel. I really really really hope things calm down in the coming months.)
Some observations on my end . . .
1- It is much easier to promise yourself that you will clean out your email 2x/week than to actually DO that. Unfortunately.
2- Some days may be beyond the capacity of January Energy to fix (Wednesday was one of them! Nothing that will be terrible long term, but lots of frustration.)
3- On the flip side, I AM continuing to enjoy the 2026 List Reveals and Favorite Books Lists a great deal!
4- I feel very very lucky that we have really nice weather this month. (If it helps, we do pay for it all summer and fall.)
5- It is particularly painful when you break your 2026 Connections streak in spectacular fashion 6 days in:
I did not.
(Don’t worry I was back on the horse yesterday with another Purple First. For anyone tracking, that is 6 Purple Firsts and one Total Failure so far. Not too terrible I guess.)
6- Keeping up with Duolingo seems so easy in January!
7- Practicing piano is more appealing when no one is making me do it. (And “Ophelia” is coming along!)
8- I’m still pretty darn satisfied with my current planner stack. WILL 2026 be the year of total stability? (It would be kind of exciting!)
9- In analyzing the rhythms of my week, I have decided to mostly work on moving posts to the morning (which might mean some batching or writing the night before). Sometimes it’s fun to throw one up during lunch at clinic but other times it’s too hectic, plus I really like to use some of that time to get outside and walk around. SOOO maybe you will see more frequent early AM posts.
Don’t worry, more goals content is coming! (PLUS I did set Q1 goals! My January goals are still to come. It IS a lot of levels at one time in January. I 100% understand anyone who chooses to skip monthly goal setting in January altogether! You can always pick that rhythm up in February.)
17 Comments
Do you purposely try to get purple first? I feel like I am pretty good at connections (my solve rate is around 85%) but I almost NEVER get purple first! I am wondering if there’s a strategy to it…
yes! It’s a thing 🙂 You actually get ‘credit’ in the app for Purple First. The “advanced” version of the game is to aim for Purple / Blue / Green / Yellow as your order 🙂
If it helps, my 2026 Connections score is 3 out 8. I’ve got a two day streak going!!!
I’m finally starting to get out of my post-Christmas funk! I’m still in the midst of goal setting and figuring out how to use my new planner, but I’m seeing how your nested goal system makes a big difference.
Yes, our weather!!! We paid our dues, and now we’re the lucky ones. I’m loving it.
How do you know you’re guessing Purple first?? Am I totally missing something?
You don’t, you are just trying to find the most bizarre / nonsensical / weirdest connection possible for 4 of the words and sometimes it so happens that it’s the purple!
I write down my guesses of the 4 groups in Apple Notes. The categories are easier to hardest as yellow, green, blue, purple. So, once I’ve typed out my guesses I pick which is the most weird and submit it first. That would be a ‘purple first’!
There are so many different possible goals to work on in January with year, season, month etc. It’s also been one of those weeks over here, where it’s harder to maintain new year energy. 2 car problems involving repairs, a potty training toddler, a broken oven, the garage flooded. But, maybe the new year energy helped my attitude on a week where there were lots of annoyances!
I didn’t get that Connections either. Good to start the year humble lol! Happy New Year!
ha very good spin!!!!
You inspired me to clean out my work email 2 x this week! (Reading Best Laid Plans- still waiting for my paper version so bought the Kindle version too!). Felt good to start the year with air-task management. My personal email is next. Hopefully I can keep it up.
That connections I failed at too- got yellow and green I think but not blue or purple. I find it hard though- especially the word play categories!
I’m not great at Connections so chances are I did not get that connection if you didn’t. I almost lost my Wordle streak with Oomph. That was rather tricky. I dread when my streak will be broken (currently at 168 days which is my longest so far).
This week has been rough for us with the unexpected school closure but we are very lucky to have more flexible jobs and be able to WFH. Phil stayed home yesterday and I’m home today but I hired the teen babysitter on our block to watch the boys for 4 hours because I have 3 hours of zoom meetings w/ no break so there’s no way I could manage them/keep them out of my hair for 3 hours straight, even with screens. Another neighbor is bringing a classmate of Paul’s over. I hope it goes ok and they are on their best behavior (which is usually the case but it will be different to have an extra kid here).
lost my wordle streak today! didn’t even play that badly (no obvious mistakes just unlucky!)
I shared with someone that I said some yearly, monthly and quarterly goals, and she said she hadn’t thought of it, but was going to do that.
You inspired me to do Q goals, so thank you, and paying it forward was cool! I didn’t sent many annual goals, but I am so appreciative of the reminder that I can set them at a later time if I want to.
January energy is a serious thing, and I LOVE IT SO MUCH and am AGAIN! grateful for your reminder that I reserve the right to change, update and defer any at anytime.
Loving the book, by the way! It’s been my PM reading!
YESSS Sam! I’m so happy to hear that!
January is a lot in terms of goal setting but it’s also great to put it on paper… I personally have been enjoying all the goal content.
I feel silly to admit: I don’t know what Connections is. Enlighten me? Or I can probably google it 🙂
it’s a NYT game 🙂 you have to put words into 4 groups.