Another year has begun, and it’s time for the annual mental whiplash of, “Where did that last year go?” For me, it seemed that 2025 went as quickly as it came. But when I stop and look at photos or take it month by month, it’s clear that a lot fit into those 365 days — it just went by in a flash.

I have no doubt 2026 will be the same, and 2027 after that. This is something I think about every year, and I always resolve to be more present. I’m never quite good with that resolution.

I’ve posited that part of the reason the years have been flying by is because of our phones and the internet and the constant inundation of information that’s coming our way. And when the shelf life of said information is a week at most, it feels like we’re in a zeitgeist blender.

This is why my only resolution this year is to do less. I’m taking on less and refraining from loading my calendar under the illusion that Future Taylor will have more energy and time than Present Taylor.

Doing less is an umbrella resolution with several things below it. I anticipate these things will expand, but for now I’m focusing on posting less on social media, making page-long to-do lists every week, and saying “yes” to everything that’s asked of me.

It took a long time to get to a place where I could even consider doing those things. At the risk of sounding like a “new year, new me” cliché, recently reading the book “How to Keep House While Drowning” helped shift my perspective from being hard on myself if I said “no” or couldn’t do all things to treating myself with more grace and learning how to prioritize what really needs to be done.

For example, the last three years I’ve set and exceeded reading goals (number of books read in that year). My 2025 goal was 25 books, and I only got to 22. I think if that had happened before reading that book, I would’ve been much harder on myself. But now, I can take that and think “there must have been other things I needed to prioritize over reading…and that’s OK.”

I’ll instead focus this year more on things I know are important versus things that don’t do much to serve me (i.e. posting on social media or hitting some arbitrary number of books read).

So if you’re looking for a sign that it’s OK to slow down and do less, consider this it.

· Taylor Leddin-McMaster can be contacted at taylorleddin@gmail.com.