2016 was a year of saying yes to everything and working out how to do it later; you know, that piece of advice often bandied about by successful business types. Working in the careers industry, I put a lot of stock in the benefits of just giving things a go. Experience is everything and if you’re learning, you’re still doing well. Right? Right.

Well, last year I felt like I was in a little bit of a rut, and decided I’d live this advice in earnest. I started this blog, finished my graduate diploma, volunteered in two different organisations in three different roles, committed solid time to my knee rehab, threw myself into extra work projects and trips away and did a whole lot of stuff just because people asked me to. By September, I was exhausted.

The ‘say yes and work it out later’ philosophy is a valuable one, but the devil is in the delivery detail (see? Still learning). Here are the two guidelines I’ve now set for myself:

Firstly, choose wisely. I’m not going to do crap that I think I should do, for that reason alone. Do I want to do it? Does it feel like a good trade-off for my spare time?  If it doesn’t, it’s history. Now, this second guideline is an important one – calm your farm (if you’re reading from overseas, that’s Australian for ‘take it slowly’). I get a bit too enthusiastic sometimes and last year I committed to a whole range of new things at the same time. Duh. I mean, that one really isn’t a newsflash, but it’s easy to get carried away when you’re on a ‘yes’ roll (I’m not the only one who does this, surely?). Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that I really can’t pass up will still get a yes because I’m not stupid. I don’t want to stretch myself so much that I have no time for the fun things in life, though. Which leads me to the point of this post…

2017 is my year of saying no. Not to everything, but definitely to the things I’ve found aren’t adding to life. I’ve reeled things back in mostly and will focus on doing what I had to stop when the world spun out of control because of my ‘yes’ frenzy. Writing is highest on my priority list, along with more time in the bush. I’ve already been camping this year and now I’ve written a post. Well done me. And… repeat.