1. Get off of YouTube
That's it. I'm done. YouTube has totally lost it's shine to me. It's now as bad as every other social media. Many may say this was obvious years ago but I still always felt like I was spending my time with some value there. That's no longer true. Many will also say that I just don't curate my experience right and to that I say that actually I have, but even channels that I like only wear me out now. Quitting cold turkey will be impossible but I also don't want to get sucked into the same old pattern of watching/listening to the same video essays, reviews, playthroughs, drama bullshit, reaction videos etc. Even when I am being 'productive' and working on something, half my attention is stretched into a flimsy mess because I have a video playing in the background. A lot of it also makes me depressed, seeing that I just put like 40 minutes into a video I didn't even like seriously stresses me out.
Obviously there's a lot of really good videos on YouTube. But there's also a lot of videos, specifically research-based videos, that I would rather consume via written article. A lot of YouTubers just aren't as good at research or writing as, well... writers. Also I don't need every opinion validated immediately by searching a piece of media I just consumed on YouTube in the hopes of that someone talked about it. But I do it! And it makes me sick!
So, what's the solution? I think I might make a list on this blog of videos I actually liked and often come back to. My own little library if I get an aching for a specific video as I often do. I'll limit myself to an hour of YouTube a day at first, I already successfully did this in 2023. Hopefully by the end of 2026, thanks to the combo of disengaging with it long enough and the visceral gross-out emotions it sometimes causes in me, I will have learnt to use YouTube much less (in the worst case) and quit using it altogether (best case). I don't think I can totally quit it forever, tutorials and shit, you know? But I don't want to use it everyday and/or all day (even if it's just on in the background), that will be my main mission.
2. Finish more games
I have started, half-finished, and nearly finished so many games. Deathloop, KOTOR, DMC, Mass Effect, The Low Road, FE: Awakening, Eternal Sonata. The list never ends! I can't re-play Watch Dogs 2 and Titanfall 2 forever and ever... I need to actually finish some other games.
3. Blog ahead
My biggest crux with every blogging event this year was that I thought I was the kind of guy who could just wing it, who could just write every day. Well, I learnt the hard way... that ain't me. The only times I wrote something that didn't read like a drug-addled breakdown is when I wrote it and let it sit. Then I'd even give it an edit or something. If I know I'm gonna enter a challenge like A-Z blogging or Blaugust, I'll start a few weeks ahead. So, to more of that next year!
4. Re-create my music collection, this time in FLAC
I got a music player for Christmas/New Year's! I wanted the Hi-Fi Walker for a while but since that was way out of my budget, I decided on the next best thing and it did not disappoint: the Snowsky Fiio Echo Mini. Any MP3 players I had before played only...well, MP3s. However, I'm ready to move into the world of lossless audio.
I'll do this by ripping my CD collection and ...er, through other means. My library is enormous right now but it's also a total mess and it's time to deal with it.
5. Listen to more CDs
I have found some great deals this year when it comes to CDs. Also lots of stuff that isn't exactly within my domain. I bought pop albums this year! However I've been kind of bad, only having like 15 or 20 discs from my collection in rotation. It's time to try stuff I don't usually reach for in my collection.
6. Use only one commonplace notebook
I guess the trendy word for it is a 'commonplace' book but I used to call this a project or draft notebook. Essentially, as the notebook hoarder that I am, I kept a couple of draft notebooks for different areas of my life. This has not been working for me at all in 2025. So this year I'm gonna have only one dusty, musty notebook for ANY note-taking and my weekly planner for schedule keeping and the like.
7. Get a job (that I like)
I'm still in the process of looking for work and I'm kind of in the place where I'll take literally anything. However, now that I've got some mandatory meetings out of the way I want to ask for something that will actually work for me long-term: I'm gonna need a job where fluent French will not be expected of me and isn't especially demanding technicality-wise, as the only certification I have is a BA in animation (useless...). So what I'm hoping for is something labour-intensive but with as little contact with clients as possible. Night shift would be ideal.
8. Stop being so scared all the time
Yeah, I feel like anyone that kept up with my blogging this year has been so sick of reading about how anxious I am all the time. It literally stops me from doing anything. I'm too scared to go get an appointment at the dentist's, I'm too scared to go to the part-time work office, I'm too scared to speak French to people. I'm literally living in the fear of my own making. I mean, I've had bad experiences with all of that... somewhere during the pandemic I lost my social skills and I've yet to even get a fraction of them back. I doubt I can just 'solve' this, but I guess I'm gonna have to mentally motivate myself to step up some or nothing will ever change...
These are my main goals for the year, I've also got some specifically to do with fashion and my projects, so if you'd like to read some more, check those out. Good luck to all of us out there. It seems like things are only getting harder, so lets at least take it easy on ourselves and are fellow web friends and comrades when we can.
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