A Return to Routine
Last year, my New Year’s Resolution heading into 2025 was to give my body a detox from things that typically impact individuals my age.
I specifically focused on two major things:
1) I gave up drinking liquor for an undetermined length of time.
Ultimately, nine months passed until I had any form of liquor, and at that point, my body was detoxed to the point that it was disgusting. Since then, I have rarely had any liquor, and if I do, it’s on special occasions.
2) I began tracking my screen time daily on both my phone and desktop.
I remove GPS, Phone, and similar applications from the screen time values being logged.
Below is the data I gathered at the end of 2025.
As we entered 2026, about 90 days ago, my New Year's Resolution was once again to continue to track my screen time, but also to complete all of my Watchlists/Plan-to-Watch List/Plan-to-Read lists, etc. for MyAnimeList, IMDB, Letterboxd, and MyGoodReads.
I’ve often found myself adding more items to these watchlists than actually watching, so this year I want to end December by having no outstanding media in any watchlists or readlists.
Additionally, reading thirteen books or more is a big goal of mine.
I have over 100 books; however, committing to reading them has previously been a little difficult for me.
So far this year, I’ve finished The Shining and The Bell Jar, and I’m in the middle of A Game of Thrones, 1984, and All Quiet on the Western Front.
As for the watchlists, I’ve only made it through one anime and a few movies, so I do need to do some work on that front.
My last two goals of my resolution were to;
1) Set up and max out contributions to a Roth IRA, and
2) Have $15,000 or more saved in bank accounts plus Roth IRA.
I will admit, I’ve been largely slacking on all aspects of these resolutions until April began a few days ago.
Today, I’ve updated my screen time spreadsheet, and I went through every single “highlight” and “clip” I’ve hit in video games throughout the last 365 days, and I was able to mass-delete a ton of clips and stitch together the best of them into a ten-minute YouTube video, which I posted today.
Admittedly, my screen time could be substantially better for 2026. I re-enabled app timers on Instagram and YouTube last night because they’ll help kick me back into tip-top shape.
I’ve also begun contributions to my Roth IRA. Currently, only $100/week; however, I plan to up that to about $250 or $300 once I’m financially stable enough.
I’d like to believe that I’m on a great track to have a very fulfilling 2026.
Until next time…
