Photo by 2H Media on Unsplash

💡 Every year I sit down and reflect on the new year with the following topics:

• IDEAS
• NEW PERSPECTIVES
• What would I like to change about myself?
• What would I like to change about my lifestyle?

I also choose a theme/topic focus for the year. And in 2025 I want to focus on simplicity and having fun. After a year of focusing on my health I feel like I want to enjoy time outdoors and travel a bit.

IDEAS

• Keep it simple!
• I want to have a central paper planner to have a nice overview of my year and weeks. This planner will integrate work and personal projects and my calendar.
• I will also use my paper planner to jot down some gratitude notes every day.
• I want to remember and reinforce concepts of simplicity and minimalism.
• I want to increase my time meditating each day.
• I want to remember to have fun and return to activities that I’ve been avoiding, like playing video games.
• I want to be able to do forward cross overs on both directions and start backward crossovers in ice skating.
• Continue running and hiking. Get more muscle mass going to the gym.
• GTD: stick with what works and keep it simple. Avoid switching apps and overthinking my system. Focus on doing.
• Start some long-term financial goals (thinking about future retirement years).
• Travel more. Travel somewhere in Canada (first idea: road trip to the Maritimes).
• Balance my reading with having fun playing video games.

NEW PERSPECTIVES

• I miss a bit of a tactile experience to plan my life. I will start using a year paper planner to integrate my life vision/plans.
• I want to have simple but effective tools. For example: Journaling in Standard Notes instead of having one more app to manage.
• I want journaling to be even more present in my daily routine.
• I will focus on having in person experiences.

What would I like to change about myself?

• I want to be more relaxed and focus more on having fun and feeling good.
• I will be braver and write more on my blog. I have so many things to say, I have ideas, and I want to put them out there, even if nobody reads it and even if it feels unfinished. I want to become a a regular writer and expose myself more.

What would I like to change about my lifestyle?

• I currently like my lifestyle. I don’t think I want to change it for this year.
• I will still be working my full-time job with clear delineation between work and personal schedules.
• My free time will be for reading, exercising, relaxing, having fun and taking care of myself.

🎮Some Games to Play (that I already own):

• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (PS4)
• Dorfromantik (Steam)
• Stardew Valley (Steam)
• Pillars of Eternity – Definitive Edition (Steam)
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker (Steam)
• Citizen Sleeper (Steam)
• Trine 4 (Steam)

I will write a separate post on my Reader Goals for 2025!

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I love using The Storygraph to track my reading! I find it easy to log how much I’ve read every day and get awesome graphs and stats about my reading life each month. And at the end of the year, we get a cool yearly wrap-up.

Here is my 2024 Wrap-up Summary:

Note: I think there is a bit of a glitch with The Storygraph summary above showing 1.57 hours of audiobooks (I didn’t listen to any audiobooks)

I read 84% fiction versus 16% non-fiction books.

44% of my reading was Romance this year. That's a shift that started happening a couple of years ago and I started exploring different authors and branching out from genre fiction romance getting more into historical romance in 2024.

I focused mostly on lighter reads; I couldn’t stand anything too dark. And I decided not to finish 12 of the books I picked up this year (because they were either too dark, graphically violent, or too slow paced).

The months I read the most were August and September, which coincided with my staycation days this year:

⭐My favorite 5 star reads in 2024:

• The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment #1) by Rebecca Ross
• A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers
• The Bride (Lairds' Fiancées #1) by Julie Garwood
• The Rogue of Fifth Avenue (Uptown Girls #1) by Joanna Shupe
• The Spymaster's Lady (Spymasters #1) by Joanna Bourne

Similar to 2023, romance novels dominated my favourites this year.

My favorite sci-fi was “A Closed and Common Orbit” by Becky Chambers and my favorite fantasy was “The Way of Kings” by Brandon Sanderson.

Other Book Posts to Read:

Some other book posts of people writing about their year in books:

• End of the Year Book Tag 2024 | alligators and aneurysms!
• Books of 2024 – Lazy Bear
• Axxuy's blog – My Year of Reading 2024
• My Books of 2024 | The Ancient Gaming Noob
• Retrospective, reading – annie's blog

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

So, 2024 is practically over! 🎉

When I sat down a year ago to think about my goals, I wanted 2024 to be the year of rest and taking care of myself.

And I’m happy to look back and realize I achieved these goals.

In 2024 I focused on Health:

• It was great to get the monoferrin infusion which raised my energy levels, and I felt much better.
• I continued regular therapy.
• I saw a naturopath to address my digestion issues and started taking probiotics and supplements for my gut health.
• I did an endoscopy and adjusted my acid reflux medication, which mitigated some of the symptoms I was having.
• I adjusted my diet and other medications.
• I kept my morning routine to the point it became automatic. It doesn’t matter if I’m on vacation or not, I will do my morning routine rigorously.
• My wellness is more important than anything else.

I’ve also worked on managing stress and workload thanks to these practices:

• Morning routine with yoga + meditation + journaling
• Time Blocking at work to manage workload
• Work Shutdown routine to manage stress
• Regular exercise

Some other wins or successful outcomes in 2024 🏆

• We installed a ceiling fan for our living room.
• Got a new daily bag for myself.
• Got a new bed mattress for our bedroom.
• Completed this Course: ADHD, Managing Time and Overcoming Distractions by David Greenwood [Udemy].
• Completed the 30-Day Yoga Journey 2024 – Yoga with Adrienne.
• Completed the Down Dog May Yoga Challenge 2024.
• Enrolled in 3 Races for 2024 (10K Races completed).
• Filled in Tax Return Fiscal Year 2023/2024.
• Fixed my ALL time reading log spreadsheet with stats for each year.
• Found a pair of figure ice skates that fits me well.
• I did some experimentation with Rocketbooks, and discovered I enjoy paper sometimes.
• I read 58 books in 2024.
• I went to Scintillation, Montreal, Kingston, a Halloween party, Hiking, ran 3 – 10K races, joined a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
• I traveled to Brazil for the end of year Holidays! 🎊

📺 Movies/Shows I watched:

1. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) Netflix

2. Knights (2015) Curiosity Stream – documentary

3. Story of Europe (2017) Curiosity Stream – documentary

4. The Grand Tour: Sand Job (S05 E03) – Amazon Prime

5. Raccoons: Survival Warriors (2022) – Curiosity Stream

6. Fallout S1 (2024) – Amazon Prime

7. Renfield (2023) – Amazon Prime

8. Oppenheimer (2023) – Amazon Prime

9. The Ascent of Woman (2015) – Curiosity Stream

10. The Grand Tour: One for the Road (S06 E01)

11. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) – on the plane

12. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) – on the plane

13. Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (2023) – on the plane

14. Barbie (2024) – on the plane

🎮 Video Games I started or played:

1. Banished

2. Dorfromantik

3. Stardew Valley

4. Islanders

5. Pillars of Eternity

6. Trine 4

Conclusion

So, I’ve achieved the focus of taking care of my health. All the health-related changes were life changing to me. And in the last quarter I started to have more mindspace to think about having fun and relaxing more.

As I step into 2025, I’m carrying forward the lessons I’ve learned and the joy I’ve cultivated, ready to build on this foundation of care, resilience, and fun. Here’s to what’s next! 🌟

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

1. The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson, 1124p: This book starts a little slow with lots of world building being the first book of a series. Kaladin and Shallan are my favorite characters, their story builds and builds, and I really connected with them. The chapters with Adolin's point of view were my least favorites overall, but his arc ends up being interesting in the end. All the character building is excellent, and it was satisfying to see how some character’s arc merged along the story. Now I know exactly what “Sanderlanche” is, and I enjoyed it! I'm excited to continue the series.

2. Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan Saga (Publication Order) #1) by Lois McMaster Bujold, 253p: I liked it. This was the second time reading this book because I want to get into this series. It is a rich universe with politics, history and conflict. The main character, Cordelia Naismith, is the captain of a survey ship from the peaceful Beta Colony. And there is Lord Aral Vorkosigan who is the leader of a secret military mission from the planet Barrayar. It starts with an attack to Cordelia's base camp that leads here into the hands of Vorkosigan, as a prisoner. There is a subtle tension between the two characters as they must team together to stay alive. The plot brings discussions about honor, xenophobia, war crimes and cultural differences. There is moderate action, lots of politics and some romance. I will read “Barrayar” next.

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• 🌞 I am still in Brazil at my mom's place in my hometown. It's hot (20°C to 32°C everyday) with occasional rain. It's definitely dryer and it took me a day or so to get used to the heat. The main difference here is that everyplace seems smaller, the streets are narrower, the cars are smaller, there is more people, it feels noisier. I spend most of my time hanging out with my mom, helping her with errands, fixing little things around the house, reading, walking, relaxing.
• I helped my mom create some Spotify playlists in her account.
• I helped my mom organize some books, get rid of some old electronics and free up some space in the apartment.
• I helped my mom solve an issue she was having with the Android Auto in her car. It was an easy fix, but she was struggling with the issue for weeks.
• 💪 I temporarily enrolled at my mom's gym to get some weight training done. It was the first time that I went to the gym with my mom, so that was fun!
• My sister arrived last week so I'm catching up with her as well.
• Me and my partner met a bunch of old friends: from childhood, from elementary school, from high school, from university. It was nice to catch up!
• I also met my brother-in-law and her wife for a nice coffee with chocolate afternoon. It was a wonderful chat; I needed this time to be with them to catch up. They live in a different city, so they were in town for a couple of days.
• 🥳 We went to my mother-in-law 80th birthday! It was a small gathering with the typical Brazilian “churrasco” (grilled meat in a barbecue).
• We had the typical “meat/chicken sfiha” (which is a triangular shaped pastry here, traditionally brought to Brazil by middle eastern immigrants). I am not sure this is the original recipe or if this is a Brazilian adaptation, but it's quite common here.
• 📖 I finished reading “The Way of Kings” and “Shards of Honor”! I didn't read as much this month, and that's okay. I thought I would read more during the flight to Brazil, but I was super tired.
• 👟 Me and my partner went for walks around Igapó lake which is the nicest place in my hometown. We had fresh coconut water from a real coconut (something that I never saw in Ottawa).

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• ✈️ I'm getting ready for the trip to Brazil! I've got my travel checklist ready and started packing. I always travel with a carry-on and a backpack, and I just need to add some toiletries and I'm ready to go!

• 📖 Because of the upcoming trip I've not been doing too much reading lately. It's been hard to sit down to read for more than 15 minutes. So, I'm still reading the same books as the week before.

• ☕ I'm actually looking forward to all the downtime at the airports to do some reading.

• ✅ I had a small crisis again this week about to-do list apps, and I was tempted to change tools again. In 24 hours, I realized that what I have (Nirvana HQ) still works well for me and that any other additional feature offered by other apps is not enough to beat Nirvana's functionality for me.

• 📔 I got a paper planner for 2025! I want to have it as a goal/intention setting tool, with focus on wellness. I want to use it to make monthly, weekly, and daily plans. So, it's more strategic, rather than tactical. I will keep my digital calendar and to-do list as my tactic’s tools if that makes sense.

Currently reading

• The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• Gentle Rogue (Malory-Anderson Families #1) by Johanna Lindsey

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

One of the things I struggle with is planning short term, especially daily and weekly. During the past 2 years I've used Cal Newport's Time-Block Planner and this daily planner. I've tried time blocking in Outlook (digitally) but I didn't stick to it. I've also tried weekly planning and time blocking with Rocketbooks, which didn't last long because I started to dread the process of wiping off the pages every week.

All those experiences with paper planners brought me to the realization that I still enjoy planning on paper.

I was talking to a colleague the other day about planners, and she introduced me to the world of Happy Planners. Initially I just liked the format and the way it's setup with dividers and the disc bound system. It's very versatile and customizable. It's also not overpriced.

So, I got myself a Happy Planner for 2025!

I'm still thinking the details of how I want to integrate it with my digital GTD system, but the main ideas are:

Digital tools:

• Calendar and to-do list management remain digital (Outlook and Nirvana)

Paper Planner:

• Track my daily to-do's => to choose 3 tasks to focus on the day
• Plan and track my monthly goals
• Plan and track my weekly goals
• Track wellness and health => exercise, meditation, gratitude journal

I'm thinking of the Happy Planner as my catch-all high-level view of my plans that will work alongside my calendar and to-do lists.

I want it to be a planning tool to give me an overview of what's coming.

My Happy Planner – Me And My Big Ideas 2025 (Classic size)

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• 🏢 The office at work will undergo some needed renovations. There will be a temporary arrangement of some people working (partially) from home, some people grouped together in offices and some people on temporary cubicles. I currently have an office all to myself and I will be moved to a tiny cubicle while the renovations are ongoing. My department is not keen on working from home at all, so we will be 6 estimators working together in small cubicles for a while. The move will happen this week, and I'm not looking forward to it.

• ☑️ I deleted all previous GTD setups that I had on Todoist and Microsoft To Do. I didn't want to be tempted to keep going back and forth between to-do apps. If I decide to change, it will be a whole lot harder because I will have to start from scratch.

• ❄️ Cold has arrived around here! It seems we will get negative temperatures all day all week long now. We had a bit of snow yesterday.

• 💪 I went to gym 4 times this week!

• ⛸️ I've advanced in ice skating a bit. I can now do the clockwise forward crossovers! I mean, it takes some concentration and it's still a bit awkward but I'm doing it!

• 💼 This week I will start getting ready for the trip to Brazil in a week or so. I plan to bring only my carry-on and a backpack, like I did last time. Some folks want me to bring maple syrup to them, I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that yet.

• 🎮 I bought two RPG games that were on sale on Steam this weekend: “Pillars of Eternity – Definitive Edition” and “Pathfinder: Kingmaker”. They were on my wishlist for a while. I started Pillars of Eternity and created a character.

• 📗I DNF’d a romance book that had lots of buzz: “Butcher & Blackbird” by Brynne Weaver. I knew it was about serial killers, but there is so much gore and vivid descriptions of torture that I couldn't get past Chapter 3.

Currently reading

• The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• Gentle Rogue (Malory-Anderson Families #1) by Johanna Lindsey

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I was surprised to see that I finished less books this month than my average. But at the same time, I’ve been reading “The Way of Kings” by Brandon Sanderson, which is like 3-books-in-one length wise, so that explains some of it. I’ve also been spending some time with Dungeons and Dragons lore and articles online. Anyway, it was an interesting month and the last book, “Children of Memory” blew my mind!

1. Five Minds by Guy Morpuss, 316p: It's a bizarre and surreal concept: five minds sharing one body. Because of Earth's overpopulation, everybody at 17 years old have to choose between 5 options: play hard and die at 42, work all your life and drop down dead at some point, have your mind transported to an android body and die at 80, or become part of a commune, 5 minds sharing one body, each mind being awake for 4 hours a day. I don't think we get a good explanation of how the world got to that point with these options being applied to everybody. In order to gain more years to live, the characters go to a Death Park, where they can play virtual reality games with other participants. So, the premise is intriguing, and there is a murder mystery that happens inside the Death Park. I thought the plot was interesting up until 40% of the book, but I missed more depth to the characters. The resolution of the murder mystery was underwhelming. The author is very obvious pointing us to a suspect along the way, while leaving the real killer somewhat hidden. We don't really get any clues of the killer's character and intentions while the plot develops, so it was a weak final plot twist. I didn't like the ending as well.

2. Again the Magic (Wallflowers #0.5) by Lisa Kleypas, 416p: A forbidden love and second chance romance with class differences struggles. Lady Aline Marsden and John McKenna, an orphan stableboy, grew up together. They eventually fall in love and start a secret and forbidden relationship. When they are discovered, McKenna is forced to leave forever. But he comes back twelve years later, as a powerful businessman who wants revenge. This book was very emotional and angsty to me. There is a lot of anger and frustration in the face of situations the characters can’t change. I loved the motherly housekeeper character, who cared about them equally, it was very sweet. There is also Aline's secret: the result of a fire accident and she needs to get over some shame and low self-esteem. It's beautifully written, both characters have suffered and carry this sadness inside of them, but they find joy together in the end. And as a bonus, there is secondary romance revolving around Lady Olivia Marsden, Aline’s younger sister, and Gideon Shaw, McKenna’s American business partner.

3. Children of Memory (Children of Time #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 576p: This book starts like the previous ones: a ship travelling the universe investigating what became of planets that were meant to be terraformed and settled by humans. At the start of the book, the focus is more on the failing human colony at Imir, describing their day-to-day struggles through the lens of a little girl, Liff, who was born in that colony. But we also jump to another planet, Rourke, where another group of human colonizers are trying to settle in and where we see the origins of uplifted intelligent corvids. The exploration ship is composed of characters of the previous books: the AI Kern, Portia, Paul, Fabian and the newcomer Miranda (from Nod). It’s hard to talk more about this book without spoilers, but the whole point of the story is discussing the question: “What is sentience?”. And it is a delicious discussion when we get to Part 12. I was a bit disappointed with the big reveal at around 80% but then it pays off beautifully in the last chapters. This is why I read sci-fi: to experience these mind-bending thoughts one in a while. Also, the corvids Gethli and Gothli are awesome, I want to be friends with them! This is my favorite of this series.

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

• 💻My work laptop was super slow and crashing a lot, especially after the company installed a zero-trust service called Zscaler on all computers. After complaining with IT, they said I was due for a laptop update anyway, because my current one was 3 years old. They issued me a new laptop, a Thinkpad with 32Gb RAM, intel i7 vPro processor latest generation with Windows 11. All I can say is that I’m not impressed. I mean, it’s not crashing anymore, but I expected it would be a faster machine looking at the specs. There is so much bloat, and everything is scanned five times in the name of cybersecurity. Very annoying.
• 🚗 Ours cars were all changed to winter tires, but we didn’t have any snow yet around here. It seems like the true Canadian cold is coming later this year.
• 🥂 Me and my partner attended the company’s Holiday Party this Friday. It’s the first year we had positive temperatures, it was +8C that night. It was weird not having to wear a full winter coat on top of my dress to get to the event.
• 📺 I watched this series on Nebula by Polyphonic “Hit Record: An Incomplete History of the Music Video” (it’s also available for free on YouTube). It a wonderful series of video essays, exploring the first attempts at making music videos, the rise and fall of MTV, VEVO, YouTube music and how we got to TikTok.
• ☑️ I had some back and forth with to-do list apps, but Nirvana is still my trusted system. I just can’t use any other app for more than a week. The issues I’m having has more to do with my habits and frequency of reviews, rather than the tool itself. Time to polish up my routines.
• 📚 We did a “Book Choose” meetup for our Book Club to choose the books we will read in 2025. We want to re-read the classic Neuromancer by William Gibson, get into the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold (maybe we will read all the books in the series as an alt-read throughout the year), The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, among others. I’m excited!
• 📥 I got a new in-tray for my work office with more tiers to store my notes and reference materials. That freed up some space on my desk space.
• 🪑 I also got a cushion my work office chair because I’ve been having some low back pain while seated. I wanted to be a bit higher while seated and my current office chair doesn’t go any higher.

Currently reading

• Children of Memory (Children of Time #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• Butcher & Blackbird (Ruinous Love #1) by Brynne Weaver

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.