Huge Plans for Next Year, No Idea What I Did This Year

Betwixtmas: That Liminal Week between Christmas and 1 January

We were later than ever getting a Christmas tree this year, to the point where we got a bargain on the 19th. “Half-price,” said the bloke as he heaved the six-footer through that silver grinder thingy that turns them into plastic wrapped tree-sausages, “’cos it’s nearly Christmas, innit.”

It snuck up on me this year, a feeling I never like. I love Christmas almost as much as I love Samhain, or Halloween, probably because they both have such vivid childhood associations for me. The weather is also properly — read, sufficiently — cold by December but not quite as inhospitable as February, which is actually three months long, I’ve checked. December is twinkly lights, warm spicy drinks, and defined by possibility and curiosity. In years when I’ve been working in an office, Christmas is always cocooned inside a longish period off work. Ideally bookended by books and, well, more books.

The Week Between Christmas and New Year: Liminal Time

With ADHD, all time is liminal time, amirite? I have such a weird relationship with time. I often wake up and know the time, to the minute, before I check my watch. Yet weeks, months and certainly years, all of them since 2020, flow together into one huge mishmash of events and faces. I’m not entirely clear on what I did yesterday either.

This week is definitely out-of-time for most of us though. Unsure which day of the week it is because ultimately, it doesn’t really matter for most people, with workplaces shut and kids home from school. I did feel extra discombobulated last Wednesday though, when I realised it was only the 24th, not the Big Day. Totally threw me. That out-of-time sensation has persisted as I’m reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, started on the solstice, but it’s not a simple one-chapter-a-day schedule.

Don’t be silly, of course I wouldn’t have stuck to it anyway. I’ve only just finished the Christmas Day chapter but still, this is further than I’ve got when I last joined in with an official readalong. In 2017. Who else experiences that frustrating sensation of being really excited about starting a New Thing, signing up, getting prepped, and then losing all will to participate? It’s the coloured plan and the highlighters all over again.

TDiR isn’t due to finish until January, so now I’m eking it out over the days to get there and modulating the days to fit myself. Some days I read as soon as I wake up, others it’s the last thing I read at night. It’s wonderfully evocative and also features my favourite carol, the ethereal and somewhat creepy Coventry Carol, which few people seem to know. Also features in The Children of Green Knowe, so perhaps it’s mostly beloved by writers of children’s fantasy classics?

Transitioning from the Old Year into the New: Liminal Space

One benefit of being chronically late purchasers of a tree means that it still has some needles. Usually by the 28th, ours is bald, has been unceremoniously stripped of baubles and resides out by the kerb. Often part of a frantic, sometimes unconscious reset for the new year. All part of that feeling of sweeping out the last of the old year and preparing for the new, I suppose. Like we’re house-proud, or something. It can sometimes feel too compelling to come up with ambitious plans to make major changes now - to our spaces, our bodies, our futures.

I adore this time, just like September to me is New Pencil Case Time, bursting with the potential for new adventures. Much as I love the feeling of cosiness and huddling up, I’m kinda jealous of the Southern Hemisphere around now because I imagine being in the middle of summer is actually a far better time of year to start trying to make our selves and our homes over — at least you can see what you’re doing. I do not really feel like remaking myself every January, but then there’s the lure of the new planner, with its unspoilt pages.

The ADHD Paradox: Huge Plans for 2026, Fuzzy Memories of 2025

Whether you’re using this time as a catalyst for changes or not, it’s natural to look back at the previous year to take stock. Like we’re all shopkeepers checking our wares, seeing what’s sold well and what we need to replenish, which lines will be discontinued.

I guess the silver lining of ADHD shit memory is that I can gloss over the failures as easily as I forget any triumphs? Seriously, what DID I do in 2025? I started, then ghosted Substack before screeching back in at the end of the year. Apart from that…? This is the not-so-fun type of discombobulation. Less “eccentric old aunt filing bank statements in a biscuit tin,” more “lost my keys for the fourth time.”

How can you plan forward when you can’t remember backward?

Maybe that’s why I’m always excited about what’s to come. Easier to focus on the future when the rear view is cloudy. I know I worked with new clients, set up a new thing for 2026 (will share that soon). Details are fuzzy. When I read back over Substack posts - or diary entries - I often don’t remember writing them. Stand by everything I wrote, completely, but I don’t like having to run a second brain to supplement the one that seems to always be away with the fairies. However, needs must.

Commonplacing, Writer’s Diary, and Journal Ecosystem for 2026

No this isn’t just an excuse to justify stationery, how dare you. Only a little.

I Do Love a Tangent AKA The Research Abyss

So, so many notebooks. Not in a good way.

Filled with meticulous notes based on research from the British Library, or my own reading. That I will never ever find again. One thing that got me hooked on Substack this year was so many people posting about commonplacing and indexing. Fascinating stuff, I know! (It is, genuinely, for me - the woman who always wanted a library date stamp as a child: the power.) Now I know it’s about being able to lift that delicate silver chain and follow one thought to another, across different topics and mounds of information. Find out what I’m really thinking, I suppose.

When I reflect about writing, I see the same themes are important to me: home, belonging vs fitting in, loyalty, independence, self-acceptance. With some focus, I can trace those links all the way back to my childhood, and following various diagnoses in the past half decade, I’m starting to understand why those ideas resurface over and over again. They run through me. They shaped me, loomed large over me. Still they tower, like great pines in a forest of information and I can’t quite find my way home through them.

Upgrading My Starter Brain for Important Stuff

The most useful thing I’ve done for myself for the past few years is to keep a writing diary. Keeping a log, how original! I usually use the Urban Writer’s Retreats’ printed diary, and I note as much detail as I can. Where I wrote, for how long, filename, software program or notebook name (yes, they have names) and anything else pertinent. I’m prone to renaming books, setting up new Scrivener projects, going off on wild tangents and rather than fight my idiosyncratic filing conventions anymore, for the last few years I’ve tried to document it better which doesn’t necessarily get me to my destination faster, but there’s marginally less cursing and losing files.

A chronological record, all in one place, lets me at least see the train of my thoughts and follow a project as it’s developed. In lieu of a proper index it’s a start to look for something I’ve misplaced, in a logical way. I also have a filing taxonomy now, which is really helpful.

This year all that information will go into one of my A5 Hobonichi journals - I’ve been in that particular cult for years — which is dedicated to work, although for me writing fiction is probably technically a hobby. Maybe I should resolve to take it more seriously this year.

“A Place for Everything, and Everything—” Cross-referenced and Indexed

Again I’m reminded of how I view most social media as existing to be pleasing (on the eye) rather than thought-provoking, by what the algorithm feeds me for commonplacing here on Substack versus on Tiktok or Instagram. Here, it’s delightfully nerdy and precise, with shy snapshots of journals filled with minuscule handwriting, whereas on the other channels that space seems largely occupied by well-lit influencers demonstrating systems made up of more Paper Republic journals than a shop window. A methodology versus an aesthetic.

I’m actually not knocking them - I still have a beloved leather Filofax from the early 90s, and a Traveler’s Notebook on my desk. Leather accessories last, if minded. I would happily accept a PR or LC journal and I spend good money on stationery, but there’s definitely a whiff of overconsumption. Perhaps I’m bitter because I wouldn’t keep up with five or six elements of a system, with each one offering multiple applications. I simply don’t have the time, it would become so onerous so fast. Where my crone tendencies really kick in are around “How do you schlep those things around with you? Your chiropractor bill is going to be horrendous.”

In 2026 I’m intending to:

• not take the big heavy journals in my set-up out of the house. My poor back, etc etc.

• Use my scrappy little notebook to capture thoughts when I’m out and about. Take it out of my bag when I get home and put it in a dedicated place so I don’t lose it for a week and accidentally break the workflow. Again.

• Set up regular ‘review’ sessions where I move information from one notebook to another to keep it in the right place. This is something I’ve always found tricky in the past.

• Distinguish between planning and record/memory-keeping and journalling. One is forward motion and mutable, one is retrospective, one is introspective.

• Care less about whether a journal looks perfect, and more about whether it’s useful to me now and in the future.

• Make sure the little “House Love & Resets” book is getting filled in regularly - a new element of my system to cope with, or start to tackle, housework.

• Follow the glimmers, and write down what I did. Make sure it’s not “all work and no ill-judged impulsivity”, because hey, balance!

If you’re tempted by (a new notebook, lol) a fancy-pants planner but it suddenly morphs into something too big, too needful, here’s your permission slip to screw up your planner or journal. Make it less perfect and get past that intimidation. Rough up or cover up the covers. Plaster it in stickers. Start by writing something on lots of the pages, imperfectly - get in important dates or loved ones’ birthdays. Rip a page or two, if you need to. You can even order a planner from last year, usually at a steep discount. Scribble over the dates until it reflects this year - now you’ve started every page. Onwards!

Looking Ahead, While Staying Firmly in Place

In England it’s the National Year of Reading in 2026, and in the spirit of “MOAR BOOKS, MOAR” I’m excited to commit to Simon Haisell’s Slow Reads. Just need to decide which ones. Lessons learned from my current TDiR adventure include “let your neurodivergent brain roam, just keep moving in the right direction” — Simon’s Readalongs are so well scaffolded that even if I miss a few days or get captivated and skip ahead, there are tons of resources to keep me on the right route overall.

I will be writing a lot of Notes to Future Me in my planner, including “Start December festivities early” so I don’t get jumpscared again like this year.

Still nursing a shortlist of other potentials, ones that I think will be important, I’ve chosen my word of the year for 2026. It is ROOTED.

Intuitively, that feels right although I still need to unpack it fully and I’ll be writing about it soon, and figuring out how to keep it as a touchstone for the entire year - maybe writing it throughout that planner now?

I would love to know whether you choose a word for the year. And if you’re willing to share, what you picked? And what your 2026 Planner Line-Up looks like, ahem…