Resolution, Shmesolution

How we *all* looked by Jan. 31st.

To those who made it through January's hellscape, welcome back to Frontal Lobe! This is my first missive of the year because January did not count in any way, so February will be the actual start of my year. Since I am *slightly* obsessed with productive (but sustainable) schedules and systems, I will discuss how I’ve established a few of my routines while also de-influencing resolutions.

I hate to be cliché and use a SATC meme, but my New Year’s superstitions border on neurosis.

I honestly place too much emphasis on the new year. When any chance or opportunity for change presents itself, I kick my superstitions and rituals into high gear in preparation for what is sure to become my year of metamorphosis. If a tradition slips by unperformed, I obsess, thinking it’s an omen of the coming year. I didn’t clean my apartment last year (a byproduct of my yet-to-be-diagnosed major depressive disorder) and had, to date, the worst year of my life! I couldn’t take that chance in 2025. Last year was full of too many lessons for my liking and was a continuation of the immense shedding I went through the year prior. 2024 also proved that I was still, unfortunately, subscribed to God’s Platinum Soldier plan despite requesting multiple cancellations. It was a year full of grief, difficult decisions, and restoration. Here’s what I learned last year and how I’m applying it to the year ahead.

Lessons:

1. Rebuilding ≠ failure

I was signed to an agency in 2020, at the height of the racial uprisings. Looking back, the timing was suspicious. (Was I meeting a quota?) Nevertheless, at the time, it was a godsend. I was afforded consistent work and financial stability during the pandemic, which was a very insecure time. Over time, though, I found myself feeling stagnant, simply going through the motions of monotonous and uninspiring brand campaigns and lacking creative control. But I was scared to leave. How could I? I had spent the last four years people-pleasing and entrusting a significant portion of my career to other people, and to an entity that I did not own. I was loyal to everyone except myself so I figured I’d rather be stagnant than unstable, and I let the fear of being disliked and finacially insecure hold me back. Until the end of the year when I finally asked myself some hard questions about whether I was following a trajectory to accomplish my goals and why the comfort of others was my priority instead of my career. I ended the business relationship and it felt unreal for the first month, being on my own again, but I was ready.

I can’t lie, the thought of rebuilding filled me with distress (and rage). I’m in my early 30s and want to feel settled, but when I took a step back, I remembered that my life up until this point has never been linear, and I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. Yes, I’m upset that I had to make a difficult decision to strike out on my own because I no longer felt comfortable with the direction my business was going and the ways I had to contort and silence myself in order to be tolerated. Now, I welcome the challenge: the challenge to grow, the challenge to revamp, the challenge to pivot, and believe in myself, to be myself. Does the thought of building new work relationships and schmoozing at parties unnerve me? Hell yeah! It makes me feel clingy and desperate. Nevertheless, I know that to stand on my own two feet in this industry, I am going to have to be audacious, persistent, and…annoying. (At least for a little while.) However, as strong as my nerves are, what’s even stronger is my determination to see what I can accomplish by the year’s end, betting on myself just as I did ten years ago when I moved to New York.

How I imagine I'll feel in a year's time fully taking a(nother) chance on myself

2. Healing is indeed a lonely process.

   This February will make one year since starting Lexapro, and March will make a year since beginning Wellbutrin (for ADHD). I’ve tried to be open about my journey from the start to destigmatize Black people seeking out psychiatric assistance. Still, I’ve omitted how isolating the task of rebuilding and reclaiming everything that depression takes from you can be and how it feels to take five giant steps forward and seven larger steps back. When the symptoms are manifesting (my depression presented as anger *surprise, surprise*), you’re isolating; when you’re on the mend and feeling social, you don’t know who to reach out to because you’ve just spent the past five weeks ignoring calls and texts.

It’s taken well over a year to just begin to feel normal-ish, to feel safe around all of my friends, and to be a good friend sans martyrdom. Though I’m still working on vulnerability and creating intimacy within my friendships by communicating what’s going on, good and bad– I’m learning it is okay to let people know when I’m low energy or would rather sit on the couch and watch Murder, She Wrote. The girls who get it, get it, and those who don’t are persona non-grata.

Left: Me, in my isolation phase / Right: How my friendships are feeling a year into treatment

3. Unplug whenever you can.

   I’ve spent the past year unplugging to some degree every weekend. It’s nice to shut the fuck up after a week spent performing(?) online. At the close of 2024, I’ve begun to take it a step further to unplug unless I have something to say or share. I don’t want to spend all my time throwing digital spaghetti at the wall, exhausting myself creatively, hoping it sparks a conversation or engagement. What prompted this change was not a philosophical awareness that social media is the modern root of all evil. Rather, I was bored and disappointed that my page had devolved to only reposting TikToks and commenting on them. What the actual fuck? Yes, they’re fun. Yes, they can be informative, but what do I think? What was I creating? If nothing, why did I have to be online at all? So I stopped. Kinda. This year, I’m keeping in mind that social media is not a real place but rather a tool to elevate the things I’m trying to say and create. I will utilize it as such.

…especially after that stunt of a TikTok ban. (Confession: I did scream and cry when they unplugged the app at 10:30 p.m. I acknowledge that addiction is real.)

Resolutions. Schmesolutions.

I always emphasize jotting my resolutions down in the back of my 3 x 5 chartreuse yellow Moleskine notebook. I even go as far as turning the notebook upside down so my quotidian notes and my aspirations never intermingle. I write them down every single year.

…and then I forget.

After five years, I cannot name the countless times I have accidentally opened my notebook on the wrong end and been met with all the goals I have let fall by the wayside. Let me tell ya, it does nothing for one’s self-esteem or morale.

Me, after stumbling on all of my forgotten resolutions, only to forget them again.

The lack of follow-through subconsciously made me apprehensive about writing my hopes for 2025 in ink. I shuddered at the permanence! I intended to jot them down by midnight on New Year's Eve. That didn’t happen. Then, the stroke of midnight turned into January 3rd, which turned into January 7th. Once the first week snuck by without acknowledging my resolutions, I decided to forgo them. Not only was I skittish about my follow-through, but my intentions for 2025 lacked the specificity and clarity to be goals. (Aspirations would be a more appropriate classification.) For example, "financial stability” lacks the accountability and horology that “open a savings account by February 1st” offers.

Instead of listing the first ten ideas that I would like to have happen, I’m giving myself three monthly objectives. This system forces me to take a more active role in my life and career versus waiting for my goals to be bestowed upon me. I’m more compelled to take accountability for my aspirations and cease viewing my fate as out of my control. Can I control everything? No. I can, however, do my best steering from the driver’s seat as opposed to being a backseat driver. The overall objective is to find some audacity in the overwhelming passivity.

I don’t know what this year holds, and it’s too early to tell if the monthly objectives will work, but I have re-opened my savings account.

(I had one but didn’t keep any money in it, so…the bank took it away. lol)

Tools that are helping me stay accountable:

Discipline is hard. The noun is very sexy. The verb is not. It’s particularly challenging to stay disciplined and focused with a gnat’s capacity for concentration. I swear I’m not trying to make neurodiversity my entire personality, but…it’s a significant part. It greatly informs how I view the world and interact with my immediate surroundings, work being a part of that environment. When writing this newsletter, I need certain safeguards to start and, more importantly, finish. Here are tools that have helped me stay on track thus far.

Reminders App:

Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, I was the absolute worst at responding to emails promptly. I would look at it, reply in my head, and go about my life, none the wiser that I was ruining potential business opportunities and relationships before they began. Once I got fed up enough, I went to my (free) Reminders app and began plugging in all the essential things that needed to get done daily and the time by which they needed to be completed. Reminders at 10:30a, 2:30p, and 4:45p are to check emails, 2p to eat lunch, and close all apps at 10p. Once I was diagnosed, I added medication reminders so I wouldn’t forget. (It still happens but occurs way less than it would without the app). I even have a reminder to sit down and write Monday through Friday. Does it always happen? Of course not, but it keeps the task front of mind. I don’t use the Reminders app to keep a rigid schedule; I use it as a guardrail to guide me through the day and maintain some sanity (and self-assurance) by staying on top of fundamental tasks like emails, medication, and, hell, eating.

Timer:

A timer is great for multiple reasons. It's great for multitasking and putting tasks in context. For example, I now know that it takes 15 minutes to make breakfast every morning and between 7-10 minutes (7 minutes if my eyebrows cooperate that day) to do my makeup. Even when I sit down to write, opting to put pen to paper for four thirty-minute blocks a day, I reach for my timer. In the process, I’m breaking my most taxing task into bite-sized, digestible pieces. I essentially follow a ghetto Pomodoro method, and I am never sure whether or not I will return after my 10-minute break. (Yesterday, I made lunch during my break and fell asleep from the Itis.) I also use my timer for chores. I set one of my three timers to 30 minutes and clean a selected room for that block of time. Most days, I’m done before the timer goes off, once again putting the length of tasks into context for the next time I decide, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Undated Calendar:

Telling someone with ADHD to get a calendar is as helpful as telling someone poor to be financially literate. It’s not practical. We will put the planner down and forget it, rendering it utterly useless, wasting both time and money in the process. We need something that isn’t too rigid but can keep tasks sorted and organized. Enter: Undated calendars. I prefer undated weekly calendars because they show my week at a glance while allowing me to tackle daily tasks and short-term goals. I brain-dump every conceivable task concerning work and home every week and then organize my week accordingly. I’m permitted four tasks a day, so the undertaking feels feasible, and there’s some flexibility should any fires or diversions arise. I then hang the schedule on my most visible kitchen cabinet so that I'm face-to-face with my calendar as I make my daily morning matcha.

Notebook:

A notebook or journal is pretty self-explanatory– a vessel to jot down and record thoughts, ideations, inspirations, and aspirations. That’s how I’ve always used my notebooks and I’m positive that’s how you’ve used yours. Recently, however, I’ve returned to my elementary school roots and initiated brainstorming and drafting into my pre-production routine. If I’m recording Articles of Amnesia, I break my ensemble down to the accessories and note if I’m missing anything. For Frontal Lobe, I write a preliminary title and the points I want to make, sometimes going as far as drafting the post. As I’ve said, with every item mentioned above, it makes writing and creating feel practicable. I like the tactile nature of putting [Micron] pen to page. Paper helps me remember things better than digital platforms like Notion or Google Calendar. It feels less constricting. Additionally, seeing an executed task disappear under red ink is genuinely its own distinct ecstasy!

Post-Its:

If you are like me, you have a million thoughts zipping through your mind at any given time. Sometimes, you can shoo them away and keep your focus, but there are other times when the need to stop everything you’re doing and investigate the origins of Boston’s Great Molasses Flood is too great to ignore. Next thing you know, an hour has escaped your grasp. That was my reality until I started using Post-it notes to jot down unconstrained thoughts, saving the scrutinies for after-hours, when I could dedicate the time.

Beyond Post-its, I’ve enjoyed Idlewild Co. jumbo desk pads. I found them in the office section at The Container Store—aka Neurodivergent Mecca—and decided to purchase one to determine whether it was up to par for my jotting needs. The jumbo desk pad has the perfect basis weight, a gorgeous but simple design, and 200 sheets, ample for scribbling my incessant thoughts.

On days when I have so much to do but can’t figure out where to start, I jot a quick itinerary, oscillating between uncomplicated and more herculean tasks. As Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn once said, “Sensational!”