What. A. Year.

I accomplished things. Learned a lesson or two.

I did some things. I didn’t do some things. I learned things. The following are the lessons and highlights of my 2018.

I don’t need all of the time

I’ve always struggled with time management. I’d do good with it for a bit and then I’d waste it. Rinse and repeat. I’m not sure what happened this year, but something finally clicked:

I need to maximize the time I have.

On weekdays after my full-time job, I have a good 2-3 hours of time to use wisely before I start to wind down for bed. I wasn’t always using this time to my advantage. In recent months, I made some adjustments.

First, I switched up the design of the Wisdom Wednesday template for 2019. Instead of creating multiple templates for those blog posts, I’ve got one template for the entire year. I can’t begin to tell you how I excited I am to not have to spend time keeping up with all of that.

Second, I write on the go. I started this blog post on the mobile WordPress app. I’m kinda ashamed that I haven’t used the WordPress app as much as I should. I can create the bones of blog posts while I’m waiting, on my lunch breaks, etc.

[tweetshare tweet=”You don’t need to block off hours to do a 30-minute task. Tighten up.” username=””]

Celebrate My Wins

Sooo…I did some peak adulthood ish this summer by becoming a homeowner!!!! I’m just getting over the shock of it all. Things happened so fast that I didn’t really get a chance to celebrate this huge accomplishment. Thankfully, there’s no time limit on celebrating wins!

I also embraced JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out). For as long as I could remember, I hated not being in the loop. It pained me to turn down an invite to dinner, an event, happy hour, etc. Now that I’m on the other end of my 30s, I love staying at home.

[tweetshare tweet=”I’ve learned to stop and celebrate my wins before I move onto the next thing. Enjoy these moments.” username=””]

Make space for the unexpected

I LOVES me a routine! I have routines for weekdays and for weekends. While there’s a bit of flexibility built into my routines, I get irritated when my routines are thrown off.

Throughout the year, I released the grip I had on my routines. I experienced so many things that were totally unexpected. Met some awesome people, had dope conversations, and even got a boost to my creativity. That’s a win-win I can get with.

[tweetshare tweet=”Although my routine was thrown off throughout the year, the memories created as a result were well worth it. ” username=””]

Be Kind to Myself

When I don’t do what I feel I should be doing, I have a tendency to beat myself up. It could be a combination of forgetting, failure to plan accordingly, or plain ol’ fatigue. To make things worse, I feel bad for beating myself up about doing what I feel I should be doing. Good grief!

After experiencing burnout several times during the year, I had enough of myself. I can’t continue to beat myself up for how I feel.

[tweetshare tweet=”Being kind to myself is a daily practice. Some days I’ll do well and some days won’t be so good. That is okay. ” username=””]

This concludes my 2018 wrap up. How was your year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments and/or social media.

See ya in 2019!

Joy