2017: Looking Forward

I blogged the other day looking back at the first half of 2017; I said at the time I was going to try and plan for things for the rest of the year, so this is my attempt to do that.

1. Keep drinking water! I am also trying to limit the amount of Coke I drink. This seems to have had a decent impact on my health recently, so I should definitely carry on with that.

2. Do better at sticking to my budget. I have never been great with money (to put it mildly) but have done reasonably well over the past year or two by sticking to a certain amount of money a day. I spent more than I should've done over the last few weeks of June due to stress-buying, and am trying to get things back on track now!

3. Keep track of books I get. I'm blatantly not catching up with book haul posts at this point and I feel bad about that, but I AM aiming to do them each month from here onwards!

4. Keep track of books I read (which I've actually been pretty much on top of, but I'm going to try and do an actual spreadsheet rather than just using 'notes' on my phone, and tick off when I've blogged/posted them on Litsy/Amazon/GR.)

5. Get to the cinema more. I was doing so well at the start of the year and then have seen comparatively little stuff recently; I definitely want to check out more in the next few months.

6. Blog more often. Yes, I neglected this a lot from March onwards for various reasons, but blogging a couple of times a week should be doable.

7. Read the news less. This is a weird one because earlier this year I wanted to read the news more to be more informed, but with my usual lack of moderation I've ended up doing really badly from a self-care perspective by reading so much - especially reading alarmist stuff. I need to be more careful about what I engage with, and more selective about picking sources that are going to give me a clearer perspective of what's going on.

8. Hit double figures on my 40 before 40 list. After going to a folk festival a few weeks ago and FINALLY being added to the list of a publisher I've been trying to get onto for years, I'm now on 8. I want to renew my passport (at last!) and do at least one of the other remaining things.

9. Watch more YouTube. I subscribed to a bunch of the people involved in Ashley Mardell's amazing The ABCs of LGBT+, along with some book bloggers, and will be trying to keep up with their videos.

10. RELAX. This is probably (apart from the water/Coke one) the most important thing on the list!!