
Happy 2018!!! I can’t believe the New Year is here. I’m already in that post-Christmas sadness that is going to stay with me pretty much until March (or August) and it’s crazy since we also celebrate Epiphany on January 6th here in Italy, so all the decorations are still on, Christmas movies are still on TV and things like that. When I was a child, I knew there was another present to open and other treats to eat, but now that I’m older I can only hope for a good movie on TV.
December has been an incredibly good month this year. Not having University classes to attend, I just did some trips to the library to gather material for my thesis and, for once, I spent December 23rd at home helping my mom. I don’t miss school at all!
Here is a recap of my goals for the month.
1. Avoid procrastination before the Holidays. I don’t feel like I’ve been productive as much as I wanted, some days it was basically impossible to concentrate on my thesis research for me. I could do better.
2. Exercize daily. Done! *pats her shoulder*
3. Choose a word for 2018. More on that in a moment.
4. Spend less time on social media. Done!!! I still can’t believe it, but I’ve been able to take 48h completely off from Instagram. It has been my very first social media detox (I basically use only Instagram these days, LOL) and it felt so good! At first, I started constantly wanting to check it, but I had hidden the app in my app drawer (I love Android for this feature!) and it helped a lot because it wasn’t in front of me all the time. Then, I started forgetting it completely at the point that I didn’t even want to check it back on December 27th! During this break, I realized that I never felt the need to take a detox when Instagram was just, well, Instagram. But now with private messages, Stories, sponsored stuff (I’m looking at you Garden Escapes!) and the ability to follow hashtags, it’s incredibly cluttered, like Twitter. I always followed only the people I really cared to see updates from, not to be rude, but I wanted to be sure to interact with them, leave comments and be a good friend. Now, even if I still follow few people, my time spent using the app has increased because of all those features. I don’t care about the Stories of every single person I follow, but there is no way to avoid them once I start watching them, I can skip them, but they still pop up in front of me.
Articles Written in December
Since I write for other websites as well, I thought it would be nice to share my posts here in these monthly recaps as a sort of newsletter.
November Favorites – My friend Lily and I shared our favorite things from the past month on Travelling Geek Show.
How to Start a Seriously Awesome 2018 Journal – This month’s blog post for Page Flutter was all about starting a journal for 2018. I shared my tips and tricks on how and what to journal and where to start!

My goals for January
1. Watch more movies and only 1 TV series at a time. Since last November, when I finally got Netflix, I got so excited that I started watching tons and tons of TV series, doing little progress since I watched one or two episodes per week of each. I was so excited to finally be able to watch what I liked (TV doesn’t interest me at all), that I’ve lost track of what I started and I basically stopped watching movies, also because my attention span decreased a lot during the years, but I want to change that because movies are what I will remember along the years, not random short episodes. So my goal for January is to watch more movies and to pick only 1 TV series at a time, preferably with a small number of seasons and episodes (The Crown was the only TV show I watched in December and was perfect!), so I can fully appreciate it without feeling the need to binge-watch it.
2. Journal daily. I’ve always been tempted by journaling apps, but I love the feeling of pen and paper when it comes to jotting down my thoughts. However, not being able to print my photos to add to my journaling has always been a pain for me. Luckily, I discovered a beautiful (free) app called Journey and my plan is to use it as a daily recap log, it won’t replace my ramblings on paper, it will be a sort of a photo-a-day project just for myself. I was thinking about doing it on a private Instagram account, but this app is much better. It syncs with Google Drive, you can export your entries in different formats and, most importantly, it isn’t a social media.
3. Reduce my time on Instagram. I will continue with my December goal, it went so well that I’m excited to unplug more this month!
4. Wear more makeup. If you’ve read my previous blog post, you’ll already know that one of the things that I regret the most in 2017 is being too lazy for makeup. I already ordered a new mascara to replace my expired one, so I hope to be in the right direction.
5. Visit more blogs and leave more comments. This can also be translated with: being a blogger again. Instagram is cool, but I’m not an influencer, I’m a blogger and I’ve been that for more than a decade now. In 2017, I’ve been more than once close to shutting down this blog because I couldn’t find the enthusiasm anymore. Maybe I just needed a break.
One Little Word
The amazing Ali Edwards introduced me to this project and I’ve been choosing a word to guide me through the years since 2015. You can find all my previous posts about that here.
2015 – immerse
2016 – less
2017 – magic
2018 – slow
I chose slow for 2018, inspired by the slow reading movement. I want to stop scrolling and start reading this year (can we create a T-shirt with that motto??). I want to spend less time comparing myself to others and more time to be productive. I want to stop feeling like I’m in a race to read as many books as I can and I want to actually finish my TBR folder on my Kindle before getting new books (by the way, I joined the #theunreadshelfproject2018 on Bookstagram, you can follow my adventures here). I want to slow down in general and actually enjoy the moment, being more present with my eyes away from a screen.
Here is the plan, let’s hope I’ll be able to stick with it!
Do you have any goals, words, resolutions for 2018?