Is this thing on?
New year, new habits
Like many of you, I have a few New Year’s resolutions for 2025. I wrote a little about this last week: my primary goal is to find a better balance this year. I lost track of some of my priorities in the second half of 2024 and was worse for the wear because of it.
I woke up today thinking I need to refocus my energies on the newsletter and see if I can put more of my creative juices here instead of on so many social platforms. This week, I turned off notifications on my social media apps. I don’t have many vices, but that dopamine hit is undoubtedly one of them. I hope it helps keep me focused.
When you turn off notifications on your social apps, it becomes clear how much they want you to turn them back on. Whenever I open one of these apps, it prompts me to allow notifications. I wasn't aware of that before, as I had them on by default. It feels good to say no.
Baby steps, right?
I want to keep in touch with you outside the walled gardens and algorithms of Facebook, Twitter, Threads, and Instagram. And I want to use those apps less if that’s possible.
So, as we start the New Year, a bit of housekeeping.
Email algorithms are notoriously finicky, and if you haven’t opened one of my newsletters in a while, it could impact deliverability to your inbox. Also, these updates could go to your spam or promotions folder if you use Gmail.
Please let me know if you received this message. You can reply directly to this email or leave me a comment below. Responding to this note will help ensure future newsletters make it through the tubes. Thanks in advance.
I want to thank photographer Lane Coder for sharing the winter picture above with me. It’s a good fit for where my head is this morning. Stay tuned; I'll be back with a new Winter Pictures feature soon.
Okay, that’s all for now. Have a great day, friends, and take care!
Ive haven't ever had notifications on. Though online can still garner a continuous amount of our time anyway if we're not present. ( I have had to hide my phone in a pot in the kitchen, the fact that I have to enter the pot first makes me hesitate and rethink .. haha .. can't believe I shared that .. )
I love your first Substack of the year. It feels light, and a good direction, the social media apps feel so fleeting, I like the fact that here in Substack we may not always respond, though when we do it feels like we have given each other a little more thought and time. ..
Happy New Year : )
Got the newsletter thank you!