My 2024 theme: finding rhythm
Another two-word resolution
What is rhythm? What does it look like to have a life where we find it in our bodies, in our homes, in our day-to-day routines?
These are the questions I’ve been exploring at the start of the year, with another two-word New Year’s resolution: “find rhythm.”
First, it’s important to define what rhythm isn’t. I am not talking about a “6 things you should do before 6 a.m.”-type morning routine. Rhythm is not a perfect bullet journal or neatly filled-out planner or Trello workflow that you swear by (but if any of those things are your thing, you do you!). Rhythm is not a day that goes perfectly smoothly from start to finish. Rhythm isn’t even an ironclad bedtime, as much as I believe bedtime is as necessary for adults as we know it is for kids.
I’ve thought a lot about what I meant with and what I want from this New Year’s resolution. To me, rhythm in my everyday means that I have clear goals and tasks that I’ve loosely scheduled during times of the day where I typically have the ideal energy and am in the right frame of mind for each. Rhythm means the flexibility to switch gears earlier or later than I planned, to respond if an important interruption comes up, or give myself grace if my body is moving a little slower that day.
Rhythm means that I haven’t overscheduled myself down to the last minute, putting the whole day in danger of crumbling if one specific thing doesn’t happen.
To talk about rhythm, we first have to look at subtraction.
When was the last time you looked at your life and thought about what pieces are essential?
I’m talking about the elements of your daily routine. Your regular time commitments. Your social life. Those library books or magazines or unread online articles that are stacking up. The texts you need to answer. Your never-ending to-do list. The Netflix queue of things you probably won’t watch because by now they feel like homework you assigned yourself. The voicemails, the emails, the appointments you need to schedule, the confusing notifications you need to follow up on. All the things we tell ourselves are essential.
When was the last time you looked at what’s essential versus what’s just clutter?
Let me give you an extremely frivolous but concrete example from my own life. I used to have a morning ritual where I would listen to a podcast episode while doing my makeup for the day. Between listening to the episode and dillydallying with my eye shadow, this ritual would eat up almost an hour of my time each morning. During lockdown in spring 2020, I was one of those people who realized that makeup is extremely irritating to my eyes and skin and not something I wanted to continue. I got that hour of my life back, and I started using it to write. I was able to let go of something that had become clutter1 and use that time for something that had become essential to the core of my being.
Here are some other ways I’ve subtracted in order to embrace a life that is more full, more expansive, more interesting, more joyful:
Not looking at my phone when I first wake up in the morning
Turning off most of my notifications, leaving only the most crucial ones
Going alcohol-free
Going caffeine-free
Rarely checking social media
Letting go of “being caught up on” TV and only watching the shows I really enjoy
This is an invitation not to sacrifice things you enjoy, but to take a curious and gentle look at everything you’re doing so you can subtract anything nonessential and have more space for things you love.
To find rhythm, we have to listen.
I do and do not have a writing routine. I would love to be a writer who does a special stretching routine slash moving meditation and then lights a candle and puts on a mood playlist and writes in a delicate cloud of creativity. But I have curious cats who would endanger a candle, and for whatever reason, I have to write in complete silence.
For me, the writing routine is getting up early, ideally at 5 a.m., stumbling upstairs to my office in my bathrobe, and starting to type without thinking about it too much. Sometimes I drink hot water with lemon. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I don’t even get up at 5 a.m., because a new person is slated to join our family in the late summer and my body isn’t completely, totally firing at 100 percent every day lately. I don’t know if that even constitutes a writing routine, but I do know that it’s in keeping with the natural rhythm of my best writing time (as early as possible) while respecting that sometimes flexibility is needed.
When you’ve cleared away the clutter by subtracting what you don’t need, it starts getting easier to listen to yourself and learn what you do need. Finding rhythm, I think, means leaning into the natural expansion and contraction that you need in each area of your life as you go from day to day.
Sometimes, it’s the day to push a little harder and stay with my writing project longer because I’m so close to a specific goal. Sometimes, I need to step away so my creative well has time to refill. Some days, I can get second and third winds to knock out my to-do list. Some days, it’s about accomplishing what I can, rescheduling what I can’t, and letting go of what I don’t really need to do.
I’m learning to listen. I’m never going to be perfect at it, but I’m getting better.
How are your New Year’s goals and resolutions going so far? Reminder that you can reply to this email or to any newsletter to share what’s happening in your creative life and/or any amazing routines or lifehacks you’ve stumbled upon. Thanks as always, for reading.
For me, personally — if makeup is a happy part of your routine, by all means, keep going!