Happy New Year + Eight Intentions for 2013

Happy New Year everyone -- I hope you enjoyed a wonderful holiday! I apologize for not giving proper warning about my radio silence here...I had a post queued up to let you know about my holiday plans for the site, but ended up falling off the social media map in the most delightful way. Taking work into low gear + truly living the minimalist holidays mantra afforded me the most relaxed and restorative holiday season ever! Anyway, during this window of down time, like many folks, I spent a lot of time reflecting on 2012 and thinking about the year to come. Today, I wanted to share eight intentions I'm setting for 2013. I would love to hear yours as well!

1. Work less. The past year was amazing in the sense that I accomplished many things through my various work streams. However, there were many, many moments where I felt over capacity. This year I want to shift the balance to work less and really prioritize the projects that bring joy and excitement.

2. Make more time for hands-on creativity. The inverse of #1 is partially related to my desire to do less brain work and have more time for creativity. This is something I put on my life list in 2012 and I'm excited to bring more hands-on creativity to my life in 2013.

3. Create fixed one on one time with Laurel. This one is related to both #1 and #2: 2012 represented our first full year as a family of four and along with the joys came the realization that Laurel often gets the short end of the stick due to Violet's toddler needs. One thing I'd like to do in 2013 is create fixed one on one time with Laurel each week (meaning, formally put it on the calendar). Given our aligned interests, I suspect that a lot of hands-on creativity would be involved!

4. Take an adventure with Jon. This past year I engaged in a lot of solo travel for work. We also took a couple of trips as a family and Jon took a couple of solo trips. All of this was great, but there was one woefully missing piece: taking a trip with Jon. I want to take an adventure with him in 2013.

5. Embrace slow. I've recently been thinking a lot about slow. Slow cooking. Slow running. Slow blogging. Slow everything! The nature of my work and personality means that I can't simply be slow all the time, but when I do embrace slow, wonderful things happen.

6. Run a half marathon. Related to #5, over the winter break I realized that I run best when I embrace slow. If I don't worry about what other people are doing or obsess about being speedier, I can run a greater distance, enjoy the scenery, be quiet with my thoughts, and not get injured. After a couple of longer runs this winter break, I'm feeling inspired to tackle the two running goals on my life list: run a 10K and run a half marathon. I'm still a little skeptical about my ability to run a half marathon but I trust that my team at Eat. Blog. Run. will hold me accountable on this one!

7. Start a movement. As you may know, my book with Asha Dornfest -- Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More By Doing Less comes out in March. I'll have more to share about the book soon, but let me say plainly here that this book means so much more to me than sales. I want to start a movement to help parents remove burden and guilt from their lives and instead do things that make them feel joyful and fulfilled. I truly believe this book will help parents do just that, which is just the best feeling ever. (Also, in this vein, it was a wonderful honor to be included in this roundup of movement-starting authors about New Year's resolutions for happier families. So much wisdom and passion for living better!)

8. Be more generous. I consider myself a pretty generous person but I'd like to continue that mindset in the traditional ways and also find new, creative ways to be generous.

Have you set intentions or resolutions for 2013? I'd love to hear what you're thinking of!

Image credit: custom chopsticks by Clarke Wood Works via Etsy