Planners: Ready
Mindset: Eager, overall positive
It’s January 1!
Without meaning to, I’ve built a bit of an annual tradition of meeting up with my good friend (a peds endo) and her kids visiting from Baltimore, plus our other local mutual friend who is a peds endo in my group in a park — with all of our kids, 10 in total, though A was home sick this year! Perusal of our Google Photos show me we’ve done this at least 4 times: 2019, 2023, 2025, and now 2026!
As it usually is this time of year, the weather was gorgeous and it was great to start the year off with something social and time outside. There was tons of chatting and catching up, plus I think this might have been the first year all of the kids were old enough to basically ignore (I mean that in a loving way, they were all playing happily).
And, celebratory bonus: I picked up Starbucks on the way (since I knew realistically the kids would want to sleep as late as possible). My egg sandwich counts as protein for breakfast . . . right? (Am trying to be better about getting in adequate protein at each meal this year — I just looked it up, and it had 21 grams – not too bad!)
The rest of the day doesn’t promise to be quiiiite so eventful. I need to balance/audit YNAB, get through some email work, and I am going to do some of my own seasonal planning! (YESSS, there is a lot of planning that happens at once when the year / season / month coincide in January. But that really only happens once a year!)
OH! AND, a NYE report:
Dinner was excellent (just went with charcuterie as main meal), and we had some fun answering reflection question together while snacking endlessly on this board:
Dessert was even better:
Aaaaaand I did not stay up until midnight. I got tired and read some of Heart the Lover (I’m into it) until I fell asleep around 11. The kids did make it, though! I did wake up somewhat to a little countdown at midnight (and a lot of neighborhood fireworks).
Onward to YNAB . . .
HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Plenty of goals-centric posts coming, don’t worry!) ((I don’t think anyone was worried.))
12 Comments
I’ll also do some YNAB-ing and planning today! Let’s do this (btw, love the playlist when you were in the car!)
Oh, and that NYE dinner looks perfect. Trader Joe’s FTW!
Happy New Year, Sarah!
ha!! The kids picked both of those! It is amazing to me that C loves Green Day when I listened to them when I was basically his age (a few years old, but super close!). They have had quite a long career. Happy new year to you too!!
I just finished Heart The Lover. I’m into it, but I also don’t understand all these other people who I’m assuming don’t have such an academic/literature/philosophy background, are they just missing out on half the references?
I thought of you while we were in Montana!!
I’m still here! Thought of you too, I loved following along on your adventure. Plus I LOVED your book, started planning with nested goals this year.
I would like to get into paper planning this year! I’m sure you’ve addressed this many times, but I’d love a rec for a newbie like me (around $20 – is that doable or laughable in the planning world?! I have no idea). I’m looking to create lists, track progress on some goals, and keep track of my calendar. Would love some space to bullet journal as well (although I need to fully learn what that means – ha!) If you have a beginners guide to planning on the blog, please let me know. And thanks so much! Happy New Year!
Paper planning can be as inexpensive as you’d like – you could so so much in a blank notebook from Target or the like, plus a pack of colored pens. I would check out some old BLP eps for inspo – there’s a good list of eps here: https://theshubox.com/2025/11/ep-277-life-updates-blp-live-takeaways-and-your-mini-diy-planning-primer-for-2026.html
ALL of the systems I talk about are not specific to any one set of tools!
A park meet up where you can barely pay attention to the kids are the best. We are getting closer to that stage but aren’t quite there with our youngest being 5. But we are getting closer and park visits are mostly more enjoyable!
I love the fresh year energy! We had a good first day of the year. We took Paul to the science museum. I have ‘go to the science museum 3 times on my 25 in ‘26 list so it was nice to make progress on that goal on day 1!
yep – after many years of meeting up with babies, the youngest of everyone was 6!! crazy!
Oooh what a yummy looking dessert! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! I am having a minor planner crisis (already). I just cracked open my 2026 planner this afternoon (I did my goals in some extra pages in my 2025 planner, and I use digital for long-term and calendar planning). I use an Erin Condren vertical weekly, and I always set up my monthly dashboard with a list of books I’ve read, “Big Bites” for the month, an LV-inspired list of “adventures”, and – on the bottom dot grid section- my “weekly totals” for about half a dozen habits/goals.
But… in my new planner the dot grid section is replaced by a short, wide ruled section and I’m… at a loss. Should I get out my ruler and make my own table? (I’m not very artsy and this seems unlikely to go well.) What do people do with this section? Why have they taken away their perfectly lovely dot grid?
YES to gridlines! YOU CAN DO IT – make little dots and measure! Maybe with a light gray highlighter!