What makes a year?

What I read, shifted, and stuck to in 2025.

Some of the books I read in 2025; the rest were returned to the library.

What makes a year? When I was younger, I would’ve told you it was all the big stuff: trips taken, countries visited, impressive people I met, goals achieved. Now, in the back half of my thirties, my aspirations are much, much lower.

Let’s be honest: There are a lot of elements of adulthood that are profoundly disappointing. But one of the truths about being a grown-up that I have been happy to learn is that consistency and repetition is at least 90% of the game. I’m thoroughly convinced this is life’s best-kept secret, probably because it’s too boring to be compelling. You can forget every piece of performance or productivity advice you’ve ever read — all you have to do is quietly show up on most days and do a little bit of what matters to you. This is true about so many things, but in my opinion, it is the only piece of writing advice that counts for anything.

Oliver Burkeman put it well, as usual: “The central moment-to-moment challenge isn’t one of building habits, modifying your personality, or realizing your potential. Instead it’s a matter of coming back and back and back to the question of what you could do right now that would constitute living the way you aspire to live.”

When it comes to this newsletter, I published 21 posts this year. Just like last year, I did not achieve my goal of 24 posts, or two per month. Perhaps next year I’ll go for a three-year streak of underachieving. However, I did send a fair amount of words I’m proud of, a few of which I’ve revisited below; announced a book deal which this audience played a huge role in; and became more sure of what I want to achieve here versus what I definitely do not.

As 2025 winds down, I’m going to log out of Substack for a month-long break. Before I do that, I wanted to sign off with a list of things that added up for me this year. As you will see, none of these are high stakes. But in aggregate, they shaped my year.

Books

In January, I wrote about rebuilding the habit of reading in my life. More than any number, my goal was to make reading feel easy and natural again, for it to be the thing I reach for when I have an unexpected pocket of free time. On on that count, I succeeded. I rediscovered the unparalleled joy of ten pages of a novel before bed. I took my book with me to the pub for a cheeky half-pint on the walk to pick up my son on Thursdays — a routine that’s impossible to say no to! I engaged in the creative hunt of reserving my next book at the library, and trying to finish the book before it was due. (Thank you to various readers who offered up this tip — you understand my psyche well.)

Below are the 24 books I managed to read for pleasure this year. I didn’t include audiobooks, and I excluded a lot of the books I’ve read while researching my own book, because I have the distinct luxury of reading those during childcare/working hours. By the standards of people who track the books they read (which I guess now includes me) this list isn’t impressive. But by the standards of a working mom with a toddler who is exhausted by 9pm every single day and has very little free time? I’ll take it.

Creating containers

One of my more popular posts this year was a formula for getting more low-effort, repeating social events in your life. How to “keep coming back,” as I put it. (Don’t miss the comments section on that one!) At the onset on spring and summer, I wanted to create something like the low-key pizza and wine nights that were suggested in the piece. While I did this a couple of times, I found that hosting on a regular schedule proved too much for me.

However, what wasn’t too much for me was moving the social container elsewhere. So in the warmer months, the local sports club (which I wrote about here) became the place. Most Sunday afternoons over late spring and summer were spent here with fellow toddler parents, and all it took from me was a small amount of effort to make the suggestion. In the past, I would have seen this kind of admin — sending a text to the group chat: “Sports club at 4pm?” — as another thing on the long list of things taking up my mental real estate. But now that I see the importance of it, and how much can build from that small act of initiation, I don’t mind being the organizer at all. In fact, I’m counting down the days until spring when I can start doing it again.

A Sunday ritual

My husband trained for and finished two marathons this year. (Side note, he writes rather beautifully about running here.) Though he makes a concerted effort to ensure his very long runs aren’t too disruptive to the family routine, the fact remains he leaves the house for several hours on Saturday mornings. About halfway through the year, I realized perhaps I too needed a non-negotiable weekend routine to break up the early morning toddler shift.

In the past, I didn’t do this because I convinced myself that I could make my workouts more efficient, or I didn’t love the class offered at the right time. (A tip for my fellow moms: Stop making your hobbies and workouts efficient.) But I finally committed to a hot vinyasa class every Sunday at 8:45am. It’s actually not really my taste — lots of fancy transitions and intense postures — but the very athletic instructor says he doesn’t care if you spend the whole practice lying down, and I actually believe him.

In fact, the thing I love most about this class isn’t the sequence he offers, it’s the way I decide to respond to it. Depending on how I’m feeling, I make it easier and adapt it to my mood or energy that day. It’s a good reminder I can do that in life, too. I don’t have to do everything on my to-do list, I can shave 10 or 15% off to make it feel better and more nourishing. The whole thing has become a ritual I look forward to every week.

Watching time

I started wearing a watch again this year, after largely giving up on it during the pandemic. That, combined with charging my phone outside of my bedroom, and having analog clocks throughout our house, means that I drastically reduce the amount of time I have to look at my phone to figure out what time it is. This is such a small change, but it makes a huge difference. Each time I look at my watch is one time I avoid being pulled into a Whatsapp notification or other interruption I didn’t ask for. Plus, my husband bought me a tangerine orange Casio watch as a gift that is a jolt of dopamine when worn with my usual uniform of black/white/grey etc.

When your watch matches your garden.

The £40 house project

One thing I observe on Instagram that I’m always mystified by is people who move into a brand new house and then start renovating it to their exact liking. Like, didn’t you just buy a goddamn house?! Where is all this money coming from? Because house projects have been largely out of the budget for us this year, every couple months we do what my husband calls “quality of life upgrades,” or small house projects that cost less £40 (or are free) and just require an hour or two on a weekend.

Changing the too-bright kitchen lights to warm dimmable bulbs. Getting a cabinet to organize all the detritus that collects by the back door. Putting WD-40 on the squeaky doors that always threaten to wake up our kid. Power washing our patio. Taking down the eyesore of a baby gate we don’t even need anymore. Putting some wood chips down around the bare patch of soil in our back patio that doesn’t get enough sunlight. And wow, the way these small things can improve your entire life. Sure, it’s not a kitchen remodel, but if you make a list of these things and cross one off each time you have a free Sunday, it makes a big difference.

Creative generosity

We went through a rough patch in late spring this year. My husband suddenly lost his job, then had to have surgery right before starting a new job. Freelance work was slow for me, and my book contract was still but a dream. It all started to feel very scarce. Around the time I was working on my popular essay — Everyone I know is worried about work — I felt like I needed to replace the feeling of scarcity with something else. So I decided to actively look for ways to be creatively generous again.

That meant saying yes to calls, even if they didn’t have a clear purpose. Going out of my way to send people positive feedback. Introducing people who might benefit from knowing one another. Offering feedback or advice for free if someone asked. In my twenties, when I was furiously building my career, I was great at this. I met people for coffees all over town, started unpaid creative projects with friends, and met contacts of contacts for no apparent reason. But I knew it did have a reason.

Creativity loves it when you’re open and receptive in this way — to other people, ideas, and possibilities — even when the return on investment isn’t immediately clear. By doing this, you are taking part in an energetic exchange that doesn’t have a ledger of transactions, but always pays dividends in some way. You start to embody a posture of receptivity that is essential to new ideas, mindset shifts, and, yes, very often paid work. Restarting this over the last year felt like receiving a piece of career advice from my younger self, and I’m so glad I listened.

Getting rid of the gimmies

Around the same time when money felt scarce, we also started getting rid of things, clearing out the garage, giving things to neighbors, selling things on Vinted, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace — just creating literal and metaphysical space. It not only shifted the energy, but helped us cover some unexpected bills. I find this also works if I get a case of what the children’s book series Berenstain Bears memorably called the “gimmees,” or a time where I am obsessed with buying lots of new, shiny stuff. The antidote? Go through your old shit instead! Give it away to your neighbors! Sell it! Fix it! Make space in your life! It’s just as satisfying and is a lot better for you, your bank account, and the collective.

Embodied pleasure

Sometimes I like to do things that aren’t good for me. Like, say, an afternoon can of Diet Coke straight from the fridge. (“Fridge cigarette” is undoubtedly my favorite phrase of 2025.) At a drinks party last week in London, I was reminded that the smoking section — the one with real cigarettes — is reliably where the best chat of any social gathering is, especially when you don’t know many people there. The fact that these things aren’t great for me is part of the appeal. I hadn’t really clocked this until this delightfully subversive essay reframed these moments of embodied pleasure as “a celebration of being alive by way of chipping away at it, treating the body casually in service of a life fully enjoyed.”

One such moment on summer holiday.

And it’s true, these embodied moments do hit differently in a time when everything is so fucking flat, denuded, and optimized all the damn time. They’re a contained physical experience in an era where the algorithmic expanse never ends, a recognition that our time is finite and therefore pleasure in this physical form is, by definition, worthwhile. Look, I’m not suggesting we all take up smoking, but this year, whenever I’ve found myself in such a rare moment — enjoying something that, by definition, can’t exist anywhere else but right now — I try to dwell in it, and let the sensation stretch out a little longer. Because why else are we all here, right?

In the comments, I know we’d all love to hear what small thing(s) you did this year that added up to a lot.

Whether you’re new here, or have been around for a while, thank you so much for reading and supporting my work in 2025. This newsletter is also the ultimate practice in little and often, and my relationship with readers here is a genuine source of meaning in my life. All my writing here is offered free to all readers, but if you want to support my work, you can upgrade to an annual paid subscription here. I’ll see you all next year.