Looking Back on 2024: Resolutions, Realisations, and Goals for 2025

Last year I made a list of New Year’s resolutions. While you can read them all in full here, as I had shared them so openly, I wanted to tell you all how they went and what I’m planning for this year instead of resolutions.

Last Year’s Resolutions:

This one, surprisingly, went rather well. While there’s still work to do (my daily screen time hovers around three hours, and I’d love to halve that), I’ve come a long way from the 5.5 hours I was clocking up last year. And honestly, the difference is palpable. The less time I spend on my phone, the calmer, more fulfilled, and more positive I feel. Few things in life offer such a stark cause-and-effect relationship, but for me, too much phone time = stress.

I credit much of my success to an app called Freedom. I have no self-control when it comes to screens, so this app has been a godsend. Every evening, it activates automatically from 7 pm to 8 am, blocking all the usual culprits: Shopify, YouTube, Instagram, email—anything I’d waste time on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always convenient. Sometimes I’ll suddenly remember an urgent email or want to watch a YouTube video at 8:30 pm, and I’m faced with two options: fetch my laptop or wait until morning. Nine times out of ten, fetching the laptop feels like too much effort, so I just wait—and you know what? The world keeps turning.

This year, I’m upping the ante. Sundays will now be a full 24-hour phone-free zone. I’m framing Sundays as a rest day for my mind. Having Freedom set to an automated schedule means there’s no relying on my willpower to activate it. (Sidenote to show you my lack of self-control: Once in a blue moon, the app fails to sync and I catch myself scrolling Instagram at 7:10 pm knowing the app clearly isn't open. I’ll guiltily think, “I should open the app to activate the block” but inevitably, I’ll just allow 20 more minutes scrolling dog reels before I do. Everytime this happens it shows me how much I still need the app to do my self-control)

I’m also expanding my blocklist. After 7 pm, if Instagram’s unavailable, I’ll sometimes find myself mindlessly refreshing BBC News or some other site—just for something to scroll. So now, every time I catch myself doing this, I add that site to the blocklist too. Slowly but surely, I’m chipping away at my bad habits.

I fared worse with this one. At the start of the year, I got into a great rhythm, swimming several times a week. My husband could always tell when I’d been swimming—I’d come home calmer and with a clearer head.

But then life got in the way.