18 things you can do to prep for 2025

• The end of the year is a time for reflection and resetting.
• 18 ways to reset for the new year are discussed.
• Visual reminders can be useful for achieving goals.
• Intentional rest is essential for personal productivity.
• Choosing an accountability partner can enhance goal-setting.

If there is one thing the productivity and wellness girlies love, it is the end of the year and the start of a new one. This is really the time when I thrive! The months or the week between Christmas and like the third week of January is really when I feel like I can accomplish anything in the world. Unfortunately, I do crash after that, and then I have to like kind of pull myself up, give myself a reality check, and we keep moving forward. But this is the time of year when I thrive.

Today we're doing a little rapid fire: 18 things that you can do to reset for the new year. This list is going to range from some things that are small to some things that are bigger—things that take 5 minutes and then things that take a couple of hours. I just want to give you some inspiration! In next week's episode, that will be our big episode where we do a big life reset for the new year. This is just the start to give you some ideas and sprinkle some ideas in your head.

I know that it's still December. I'm wearing my Christmas shirt still; we’re still in the midst of the holiday season. I just want to let you know that if you feel a little overwhelmed seeing this video and you're like "whoo, whoa, whoa, it is still Christmas," I'm here with you! I'm still in the midst of celebrating Christmas as well. But I just want to have this out there and available because I do also know there have been years when I am just so ready to get all my planning and to start resetting for the new year.

So whether you are watching this and it is still December, you are watching this live and know we’re halfway through December here, or if you’re watching this and it’s already the new year—welcome here! Let’s chat.

Hello and welcome back to Hot Mess Habits. My name is Victoria Harder. I am your host! I am a podcast host, content creator, mom, wife, business owner, and a typy girl with ADHD who makes videos all about productivity and real life and how to blend productivity wanting to achieve with actual real-life responsibilities.

First things first, we are going to check in with our 2024 goals—duh! Of course, like I feel like you could have guessed this one. But yeah, let’s take some time. We’re going to check in with our 2024 goals. We’re going to look back at the year before us and say, "Okay, what happened this year? What was good? What was bad? How are we doing?"

The second thing is we’re going to write an actual reflection on how the last year went. I feel like it's very easy to just think about things and just be like, "Oh yeah, look over." But there’s so much more power in actually taking the time to write it down. Two ways you could do this: the first one is just literally sitting down, whether with a piece of paper or on the computer, and just writing down literally like a little summary of the last year.

A nice little prompt that you could do is "What went well? What didn’t go well? What were some main events or things that happened in the year?" Something that I like to do is sprinkle in some pop culture things to just remember the year by because I feel like, for example, this year I'll write down like Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, even though I unfortunately did not get to go. I'm so sad that I was not able to make it to the Vancouver show. Just her touring this year I feel like was very notable for the year. So even just writing down little celebrity moments or little pop culture things, I feel like that's always fun to sprinkle into your reflection.

The third thing, and this is a question that I want all girlies, especially those that are type B and have ADHD, to ask themselves: Do you really need to buy a paper planner? Honestly, I'm probably too late in asking you this because you probably already impulse bought one. But if you haven’t yet, I know that you're going to see them at the store, you're going to see them advertised—they're going to be linked on influencer stories. I just want to ask you if you're actually going to use it. Because what I do with a paper planner is I will get one; it is so beautiful! I love writing in it; it feels so satisfying for about 2 weeks, 3 weeks.

Then what happens is I close the paper planner, I forget everything that I wrote down in it, I end up leaving it somewhere in a drawer, and then I forget that it's in there. And then in two months I open that drawer and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, my paper planner!" I pull it out and I then feel guilty that I've wasted the pages that are unusable now because it's like been 2 months. So for myself personally, it's a personal choice to just say that it’s a hard rule in my life that I do not buy a paper planner because it does not help me; it, in fact, makes my life harder.

So ask yourself that question this week: Do I need a paper planner? My alternatives that I use are Google Calendar and Notion. Those are the two things that keep my life together—highly recommend! A little check-in if you really must buy a paper planner: also recommend getting an undated one because then you don’t feel guilty when you stop using it inevitably for 2 weeks or 2 months.

Number four: Take the time to learn how to use Notion. Often during this time of year, you have more free available time, especially in the time between like New Year and or between Christmas and New Year. So sitting down and actually setting up Notion, if you already use Notion, sitting down and refreshing Notion, learning how to use some of the new features. Notion really does keep my life together, and I love being able to have so many different lists—so many different things going on—all within one app. It’s very "organized disorganized" because it’s me, so there are definitely some areas in there that are just disorganized. But I can have it all together, so it feels more organized, and it’s definitely more organized than me having 20 notebooks. Notion has really taken me from having 20 notebooks to having everything all in one spot.

Number five is to spend so much time on Pinterest. Reset your life by going on Pinterest and making different boards for different areas of your life. I like to just make one; I'll make one board for 2025. Then I'll have different sections. I'll have like Mom life, I'll have business, I'll have the podcast—all the different things—all in one, and I will just spend hours pinning to each of those sections. There’s just something so satisfying about doing this.

I like to do this honestly before I do my goals because I feel like seeing the visual images and stuff can help me determine what wording I want to put to the goals.

Number six: Going right along with this is having a vision board night. Set this in the calendar with some friends and do this together! I do think that it’s very— for me, I very much like to be very intentional about the photos that I put on my vision board. I like to use Pinterest and I also like to use my own photos. That’s a little hot tip for you: using your own photos on your vision board because I feel like being able to see that there are already aspects of our life that are like our dream life is really important.

So if you have cute aesthetic photos that you've taken over the last year, I highly recommend adding those into your vision board. I feel like it helps with feeling grateful for the things that you already have, for knowing that you are already living aspects of your dream life in the day-to-day, everyday simple life that you’re living right now. So because of that, I suggest just planning ahead, picking that date, and then making sure that if people want to source their own photos and stuff, that you're able to do that in advance. Sometimes with magazines, I feel like it's harder to find the exact photos that represent what you want. It's definitely still fun; I like to still have a couple magazines to like do titles with or cut words out of or whatever—it’s still very fun. But I also like to be able to print my own photos from Pinterest, so make sure you plan that in advance.

Number seven is looking forward to 2025 and actually setting some goals. One way that I like to do this is by making myself a giant list of all of the things that I want to be my goals. I’m someone who doesn’t really have a realistic view of the things that I can accomplish in a certain amount of time, so I will make lists and goals for myself that are quite unrealistic sometimes.

So what I like to do is I like to sit down, I like to write out literally every single thing that I want to do. Sometimes I'll have like 50 goals of things that I want to work on. Obviously, not all of them are massive, but like 50 things that I would love to do in the next year. From that list, then I will break it down into either different categories or, like, "Okay, I want to do all these things, but this is my main goal."

I want you to make sure that you are writing those out somewhere, whether that's in your journal or on Notion or something. Then I really, really encourage you to print them out so that you can see them—whether that is on a pegboard, on your vision board, or whether that is just printing out a piece of paper and putting it in a frame. Print them out so you can see it, so you can reference them throughout the year.

Number eight: Something I’ve been seeing people do and I just kind of started experimenting with a couple days ago is putting your goals and, like, what you want in your life into ChatGPT, and then letting it write a dream day for you. I feel like this is such a cool concept! Also, something that I feel is very cool to print out or have saved somewhere you can see it often and be like, “Okay, this is what I’m working towards. This is what I want my dream life to be like.”

Again, look to see like are there aspects of my life that are already like this? Just focus on that. But definitely experiment with the ChatGPT prompts. I will try to maybe link one of the TikToks or the other YouTube videos that talk about it. I don't have any videos on it yet, but I will see if I can link one of those. I feel like that’s a cool way to look ahead to the next year.

Number nine is investing in visual reminders. If you are like me and you are type B, ADHD—a little bit of a hot mess—I strongly encourage you to have some type of visual reminders in your life. For me, some examples of visual reminders that I've invested in: I have calendar whiteboards; I have 12 of them, one for each month of the year for our business so I can see a year at a glance. I have a whiteboard in our kitchen that shows our calendar for the upcoming year. I have my vision board and my goals all printed out physically. I have my morning routines printed out physically.

So think about ways that you can incorporate visual reminders into your life for 2025, and maybe try experimenting with that. Maybe that's ordering a whiteboard for your kitchen so you have a go-to space to write down your grocery list or what’s happening in the week. But think about, "Is there any way I can incorporate better visual reminders for myself so that I can stay on track and keep pressing forward with my goals?"

Number ten: Go off social media for at least 2-7 days. Okay, I should have started with this one, but I do think that this is such a unique time of year where a lot of people are resting, relaxing. I feel like the temptation to just scroll way more than you normally do is really strong because you're like, "I’m off work, I'm at home, I'm chilling. Everyone’s relaxing; we’re still eating Christmas cookies and chilling."

What has been so powerful for me is the years when I'm able to fully delete Instagram, TikTok—like actually delete the app off of my phone—and go at least 48 hours without social media. What will happen is this: the first 24 hours, I kind of feel like I’m missing out; I feel like I’m not going to see people's stories, the stories are going to expire before I see them. I will go on my phone and I’ll ghost-click on Instagram or TikTok because they’re not there. I’ll open it, and that will be the first thing my thumb goes to.

So for the first 24 hours, it feels kind of like, "Oh my gosh, I feel like I’m missing out." Once you hit the like 36-hour mark or the 2 days, then I'm like, "This is so peaceful!" I feel like I can feel my thoughts; hear my own thoughts again. I usually end up going to the seven days without social media. I definitely encourage that! I feel like it’s also because you're working on resetting and focusing for the new year, and trying to reflect on the next year. It’s a really cool time to have some extra headspace and to be thinking about the goals and the dreams that you actually want—not just copying and pasting what other people are doing on social media.

So that’s my little plug for doing a little social media-free day or two.

Number eleven is going through your digital life, and so this is a huge category. I feel like this is honestly something that doesn’t get talked about enough on the internet because this is something that keeps me up at night and makes me feel freaked out—just like the digital world and how many things I have in the digital world because it's like real but not real.

Because I’m a wedding photographer and have just so many photos—ones that aren’t even mine—and then I obviously take so many photos and stuff. So thinking about that and how I need to be a lot better at organizing things because I don’t want to spend— the thought that I'm probably going to have millions of photos one day to go through kind of terrifies me. So I want to be better at going through, picking out my favorite photos, and putting them into folders.

The three or four different areas that I thought that you could go through for your digital space to reset are:

1. Your computer—organizing going through your desktop, going through your downloads, removing any apps that you don’t need.
2. Your actual physical computer—obviously your phone, going through your camera roll, going through your contacts, deleting old contacts, deleting old notes, and making sure that you don’t have a bunch of apps on there that you're not using.
3. Your email and your social media—I highly recommend the platform Unroll Me for your email subscriptions; it helps you unsubscribe and shows you how many different people you're subscribed to.

Definitely recommend that for your email. Lastly, the fourth one would be like your social media accounts: go through who you're following. If you're following a bunch of influencers but you don't actually follow any of them and you never see their posts—if you don’t really like following them, unfollow them. Go through your highlights or like things that you have posted and just do a little cleanup on there.

Number twelve of things you can reset is going through and updating your budget. Do a little check-in with like, "Okay, where are you at financially? Where do you want to be? What's going on with your finances and how can we make them better for 2025?"

Number thirteen is taking the time to create your ideal day. So what do your ideal mornings and evenings look like? For me, I focus on morning routines and evening routines. I use the concept of a morning menu—I’ve talked about that in a previous video—but basically, it is giving yourself many different ideas and things that you can do in the morning based on your energy level.

So rather than having a very rigid morning routine that you copy every single day—which inevitably you probably will not be able to follow every single day—having open options for different things that you can do in the morning. Same thing for the evening! So taking the time doing that, writing down some routines, printing them out—it’s all about those visual reminders—and deciding what you want that to look like for you in the upcoming year.

Number fourteen is deciding when you want to check in with yourself. What can happen, as we know, is people set these big dreams, goals, and aspirations for the upcoming year, and then they just forget about them and give up on them. They're like, "Oh whatever, that was a good concept, I liked the planning of it, but I don't actually..." They kind of forget about it.

I feel like two ways that we can avoid this are: first of all, having visual reminders so you can see our goals regularly, and the second thing is having intentional check-in points. I think this is going to look different for everyone depending on your stage of life, how much free time you have, and also just how your brain functions.

Some natural check-in points are as the seasons are changing. So for me, doing like one check-in in the spring, one check-in as the spring's kind of turning to summer, and then one check-in in the fall, and then obviously the New Year's check-in. So that's technically like once a quarter—not like the proper business quarters—but that's four times a year checking in to see how things are going. Obviously, if you have the time and freedom to ramp that up, maybe you want to check in monthly on your goals. That’s great if you have the capacity for that.

Just whatever you want that to be, I highly encourage you to actually write that down somewhere. For me, as we’ve talked about, I’m a Google Calendar girl and I want to put that in my calendar to remind me like, "You know, probably in March I’m going to want to have a check-in. It’s going to start to like winter is going to fade; it's going to start to be spring." So I’m going to want to have a check-in in March, I’m going to want to have a check-in in May, and I’m going to want to have a check-in at the end of August. Those are my baseline check-ins; that’s going to send me a reminder, and I’m going to set it to remind me like two weeks before, a couple of days before, so it’s continually reminding me: "Okay, we got to have a check-in."

Number fifteen goes out to my chronic workaholic girls who have very high expectations for themselves. I feel like every single thing they need to do has to be productive. I really want to encourage you to schedule intentional rest into your 2025. I think that it’s very important; I strongly believe that we are not created to just work at all times and to be productive at all times!

I know that it goes against my natural tendency because my natural tendency is to feel like every single thing I’m doing should be productive. But I know that when I get in that mindset and when I feel like I need to be working all the time and hustling all the time, it only leads to burnout. I believe we were created that way because we are supposed to rest, and we need rest in order to show up for ourselves, for our family, for just the world. I think that if we don’t— in our current world—if we do not schedule rest, if we don’t intentionally carve it out, it will get taken from us and we will just allow other things to kind of overtake it.

This can look different for everyone. I try to have one day a week where I am intentionally resting and not working. I also like to try to do some type of retreat or rest break like once or maybe twice a year—doing some type of vacation holiday where I’m unplugged, not working, truly resting, hopefully being outside, being in nature, like actually resting. So I want you to think about that as you're making your goals and try to map out your dream schedule and stuff like that—how can you incorporate rest into your life?

Maybe that looks like just having one day a week where you’re like, "I’m unplugging, I’m not going to be on social media or on my phone this night, and it’s just going to be..." I’m going to be at home; I’m going to rest, I’m going to relax. But I definitely encourage you to try to incorporate some type of rest and not just focus on hustling all the time.

Number sixteen is asking a friend to be your accountability partner. I think it’s so powerful when we are able to do life together—in community—and especially with goals and dreams and aspirations being able to bring people together and have someone that's holding you accountable and checking in with you can be so helpful.

If you have a friend who’s also into productivity and wellness and likes to set goals and be intentional about things, you can even send them this video and be like, "Hey, let’s do this together! Let’s reset for the new year together, and let’s check in with one another as the year goes on." Maybe that looks like meeting up for coffee once a week or once a month and just checking in with how you guys are doing with your goals.

Number seventeen is downloading a time tracking app. When I first discovered that you could have a time-tracking app on your computer or on your phone, it helped me so much because I’m definitely someone who is a little bit time-blinded. Being able to have a visual reminder of how time is passing and to see how much time I’m spending on certain things is very helpful.

When I was navigating figuring out childcare and running my business, I was using a time tracking app, and that was really helpful for me to determine, like, "Okay, how many hours a week do I actually need to work in order to sustain my business and still be a good mom and still be able to show up for my family?" Being able to see those numbers and actually figure out, like, "Okay, this is how much time I’m spending on certain tasks" can give you a lot of insight on how you’re spending your time and what little adjustments you need to make.

Lastly, number eighteen is going through your physical space and finding one box of stuff that you can take to the thrift store. So maybe this is your clothes, maybe this is your baking stuff, maybe this is your toiletries. Find one box of stuff, declutter your space, and make your home a little haven for yourself.

This is definitely one of the areas that I struggle the most with because I love hobbies and crafty things, and I love thrifting, so this is my biggest struggle area—keeping my space clean. But I’m also working on resetting my space and making sure that my home is clean and a space that I really want to be and feel good in.

I hope this episode inspired you to start your 2025 really, really well! We will see you back on the podcast next week. Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead. Love you guys so much, bye!