Dysfunctional Planner

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

At the start of every year I like to sit down and plan my life. I write a letter for me to read in December. I write some objectives and focus on goals I want to complete this year.

Giving up social media wasn’t one of them, but doing the things I enjoy was.

My goals were simple:

• Focus on work and progress
• Have adventures
• My allotment and garden
• My health ( still need to go for a run)
• Cook in my new kitchen
• Read and explore reading
• A tidy organised home
• Grow old with my husband

So I can’t blame social media for failing my goal but I can blame my weak will. I was spending hours on it. Instagram faded into the background and TikTok became a rabbit hole I didn’t want to get out of. I loved it. I was writing a blog about it and during it I deleted Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

I still have Pinterest as I still need visual ideas ( although it’s filled with AI images that I hate) and I still have YouTube.

This is a positive change in my life because now when I wake up everyday I write a blog instead of scrolling on social media, I leave my phone when I leave a room but more positively I am doing more things.

I take photos for me.

I have read 12 books! Sowed lots of seeds. Gardened front and back, all those little jobs I haven’t procrastinated over. I am not seeing so many advertisements so my spending has decreased(ish). I get outside more, I engage more with my life instead of spending hours flicking my thumb up and down.

Gav lost his wallet after a very drunk lunch so I went back on Facebook to see if any locals had found it. It turned up in the washing machine, of course! I fell down a reels sink hole and wasted my whole lunch on it. Within that 24 hours I had snuck on to my gardening groups and asked a question about the window boxes I fell in love with and they answered them.

This is their flower thoughts:

• Nemesia
• Trailing lobelia
• Surfina
• Petunias
• Bacopa
• Trailing nepeta
• Trailing verbena
• Swedish ivy

Super helpful but along with the comments came the negativity, which I just don’t need. the toxicity of social media is vast. It doesn’t even affect me that much but I just don’t like it.

Social media has a place and is a wealth of knowledge I just don’t see myself going back on it. It’s been two months and I don’t miss it much any more.

I am an all or nothing person, my brain is just wired that way.

Positive change can only happen if you let it.

So tell the people you love, you love them and check your stool, it will save your life.