The new year is always a time for reflection and planning. The latter of the pair is one I’m not really good at. But I try, and I’ll share my thoughts on the coming year today.

Let’s take it by individual activities.

Reading

Last year, I set a goal to read 20 books, which I surpassed a bit. I’m always thinking about whether to go with 20 or 25 and, the last few years, I ended up taking the lower goal. In 2024, I had issues with deciding what to read next and ended up with more than half of my books being re-reads, so keeping my goal for 2025 at 20 books sounds like a good decision. I’ve gotten a bit better in getting some reading time in my daily life, but this might be related to the re-reads, as I’ve found myself more likely to do these during my afternoon commute than “fresh” reads.

Writing

The hardest part to judge. I’ve mentioned some aspects of this in December. So, to keep it short, I’m cautiously getting back to it, even though the busyness of adult life and the lack of time when I’m truly relaxed enough for such an activity, were major issues stopping me from making progress. I’ll need to reflect on how I’m using my free time, especially my days off, and try to find better balance to make more time for writing.

That said, with a set of major changes done during November and December, I’d like to progress with book two, as it’ll definitely need some additional polishing and typo hunting. The optimistic scenario would be to get close to a final draft by the end of the year. And possibly going for a consistency check in book three to reflect the changes made to book two.

Hiking

Despite the weather throwing a wrench into things last year, I still managed to complete my long-term goal of 1200km in a single year. But I saw that it had a hefty side effect: it took a lot of time from other hobbies and activities. While it might be hard to admit, the hard focus on hiking in the past two years has probably contributed to the fact that I lacked writing time – it’s hard to do on workdays when I need to relax after work, and with Saturday hiking, I often needed Sundays to do chores or visit my family.

Thus, the decision for this year will be tough. I still want – and need, for my own health benefits – to go hiking regularly. I think 3 times a month is a good goal, the key will be to handle it well. Of course, it’s hard to guess whether the weather will cooperate as much as it did for the first 8 months of 2024. But I’ll set my goal loosely in two ways: First is staying regular (3 times a month at least) and second is the total distance – where I’ll keep it down a bit and aim for 1000km in a year.

Other

There are other things I’ve been considering lately. I was considering going to a gym to get my body exercise that doesn’t involve only the legs as hiking does but given the inflation in the last 2-3 years, it’s hard to justify such an expense. I’ve been also thinking about going rollerblading more, but that was put on halt because I went hiking very often and my legs had more than enough exercise, so it still remains a back-up.

As for this blog, I plan to try my best with weekly posts on Sundays, so that’s no change for now.

I don’t expect any major changes in my personal life – and I’m definitely not planning any. I know the times can be messy on their own without me intentionally adding to it.

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So, that’s a rough look at what I’d like to achieve in 2025. I’ll do my best but also be prepared to adjust on the go if life demands it. I hope you’ll all have a good year – I guess we all need it.