Resolution of Redirection

Your brain is under immense pressure. That needs to change. (A Dear Me entry/sequel)

Dear Me,

         It’s impressive how you both adhered to last year’s resolutions and broke them in spectacular fashion. I mean, agreeing to chair the advisory committee you sit on when you said that no action was needed? There’s no way on Earth you could have gone against your own plans any harder than that. Point is, you did a lot and really only lost your cool in November. That’s an achievement! Still, the whole experience known as 2025 is not something you can do all the time, and you know it. A more manageable path needs to be forged. For 2026, the resolutions you set should fall into one of two buckets: delegate or diversify. These themes will be the best way to deal with all the ideas bouncing around in your head.

         You delegating things is similar to last year’s outsourcing resolution. That is one you sort of adhered to on the whole. However, it needs some tweaks this time around. In particular, you need to be much clearer on what you’re outsourcing/delegating. You also need to entice people to help. Clarifying what you want to delegate is easy. So far you have decided to delegate books to read and research topics to investigate. Encouraging other people to look into books sounds strange, but let’s face facts. When your idea of a good book is something like Little Bosses Everywhere, you’re not going to have one of those huge year-end reading lists that you see others share. Compiling a list of 12 books to encourage others to read is a reasonable number. Including a few fiction options can help entice people to assist (even though your brain is enamored with nonfiction). Then there are research ideas. When I say research topics, I’m talking about things like better understanding the typical news diets of people living in the suburbs. This will require more work to delegate, as you will need to include robust questions to help people figure out what and how to tackle the research. There is also the possibility of overwhelming a potential audience with research queries. I know you have six ideas mapped out on your oversized dry erase board. That’s a good number to use for a pilot program. These should be posted to Substack (a point I’ll elaborate on shortly). For future ideas, I recommend jotting them in a small notebook so you can use up part of your extensive stationery collection. Speaking of research, don’t forget to keep up with "52 Questions"  [ASR]. You posted a new question each week last year and got a decent amount of attention. Let’s make sure to continue updating this item to spur more introspection that can get people interested in research.

         That last notion touches on the subject of enticing people to help. With reading, you can set up a product review activity and tie your Library Joy merit badge to it. Product reviews are an underrated item type on the site. Why not show them some love and also determine if the books you list are worth putting in Little Free Libraries? The research topics one is a trickier puzzle to solve. Getting help here is where you may need to cast a wider net. Substack can help here. No, your Substack isn’t the most happening place. Making posts there, though, can provide useful links to promote your queries. More people are familiar with Substack and can bookmark your posts. Still, the biggest enticement here may be providing super clear questions to help people structure their work. That bit of hand holding may make all the difference.

         Now what about diversifying? Where are you going to make this type of change in your life? Well, let’s start with reading again. Since you’ve been stocking Little Free Libraries for over a year now, you’ve developed a solid list of books to share with others. However, a few months ago you noticed that your selections skewed toward certain age groups and types of characters. Your selections also tended to be more for girls and women. You have set goals to read more books focused on boys and men. Including a broader variety of ethnicities in characters/subjects is also a top priority. There is also the goal of reading more science-related books. All of these tactics will help expand your Little Free Library wishlist   in ways that go beyond the quantity of books.

         YouTube is another area where you can diversify. While adding entries to "Watch This Space!"  [18+] is still very much worth your time, there is more to the story. Supposedly you watched almost 500 unique YouTube channels last year. That falls between what your husband and your dad watched. Your habits likely differ from theirs, though, because the channels you watch don’t always stick to a small number of topics. Anything from international English language news media to artistic techniques are fair game. Keep up the diversity here! To support this, make sure you get around to watching at least 20 videos from your Watch Later playlist. This action will ensure you continue to broaden your scope and give you new things to consider for your blog. In addition to watching videos, it’s time to start pointing out examples of YouTube thumbnails that can cause unnecessary stress or even panic. Writing.com doesn’t have the graphic storage and sharing tools to host these kinds of discussions. This looks like a job for Discord! While you have set up the needed channel for these discussions, getting people to the server is another story. How to accomplish this will need to be mulled over as the year goes by.

         With the themes and actions written out, it’s worth remembering why we’re focusing on this. The delegation theme is about setting some of your ideas free. You tend to get restless because there are so many things you want to investigate. Last year showed there will never be enough time for you to do all that research. Getting these things out of your head can reduce the chances of you getting stuck in analysis paralysis. You did manage to avoid that trap in 2025. However, the demands on your time are what kept you from falling into indecision. You can’t count on that strategy working as well for you in 2026. Offloading some of your research ideas can also free up some space in your head to focus on the things you must do yourself and cannot hand off to someone else. These tasks include deciding how to handle your advisory responsibilities and determine your long term plans for community involvement.

         Diversifying, meanwhile, provides a framework for finding balance in ways unrelated to time management. Having balance in your media consumption is critical. After all, it’s easy to fall into a rut. Ruts are bad. They can cause you to lose sight of the bigger picture. Diverse media consumption also brings new perspectives to your attention. New information may help you find novel ways to solve problems (such as your persistent case of runner’s block). This refreshing of your media routine could even boost your energy levels so you can finish more things. That might sound contradictory, but let’s think about it. If you do this, you’ll likely find that you’ll want to get things done so there’s more room in the queue for all your ideas.

         Many of your previous resolutions have focused on what to do with how to get things done being a secondary concern. This approach has worked up to a point. Fatigue and frustration with a buildup of ideas are signs to reverse the order of priorities. It’s time to make your resolutions be more focused on how you do things so that what you do accomplish is done more effectively. Let’s see your work keep pace with your ever evolving mind! May 2026 be the year that those sides of yourself work together at the same pace.

Sincerely,
Me

Word count: 1318