5 Quick Things #349 💪

less scrolling, more training, ask questions, & declutter

Jan 03, 2025

Hey there,

Happy New Year! I’m still very much in holiday mode — today is, after all, the tenth day of Christmas — so Merry Christmas as well! I love this time of year and I’m so grateful for the work break (even though, alas, classes start back up this Tuesday), so I have zero complaints. Plus, Tate is in town for a few more days until she heads off to her semester studying abroad, so I’m soaking up as much time with her as I can! These days are fleeting, not unlike those in the toddler stage — but, gratefully, with a lot less poop and a lot more coherent conversations. (Still a lot of drama sometimes, though.)

*Village Street in Winter*, by Gustave Courbet (1865) #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. It’s definitely not too late to debrief from 2024 or to reflect on 2025. Fifteen-plus years in of annual publication, these sets of questions are tried and true.
2. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we’re rewatching episodes of The Chosen, and I’m struck, once again, by how human and normal the Apostles were. Here are twelve men, literally called to be the first bishops of the brand-new universal Church, given sacramental power never before seen on earth — and they were argumentative brothers, fishermen and other sorts of manual laborers, former tax collectors, full of egos and vices and tempers, and almost all quite poor. God wrote the most unexpected plot in that first season of The Church — I think there’s something there that we need to remember in the start of this new two-thousand twenty-sixth season.
3. If one of your goals this year is to spend less time scrolling, this is a simple story of one woman’s experience breaking her addiction to her phone. Her ideas might be in the category of yeah-I-know-that, but it’s the implementation that counts, and she’s done it well: “Small habits begat other small habits. …It required active, constant refusal to participate in a culture that wanted to pervert my desires for friendship, community, beauty, and fulfillment into a desire for stuff and ease and looking good in social-media photos.”
4. I’ve had so much fun watching my three big kids interact with each other this holiday season. They have a language and humor their own, they genuinely enjoy each other’s company (still not without occasional sibling bickery, of course), and the depth of which our family conversations can go astounds me these days. In one dinner, we went from discussing forms of the liturgy, to the priesthood, to various interpretations of the Bible, to chemistry, to politics, to the World War II, to nineties pop culture, and of course, memes. So much memespeak. …Parents of littles: know that, with your ongoing cultivation of your home’s atmosphere, discipline, and life, it will eventually become quite the treat to engage with your kids.
5. And finally, this short podcast episode is a few years old, but it’s a great one to listen to this time of year. I love Fr. Mike’s definition of “training” versus simply “working out.” It changed my perspective on strengthening my body and why it’s good to do it.

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, followed by Everyone on This Train is a Suspect, both by Benjamin Stevenson (fantastic lighthearted, dark-humored reads!)

Uncluttered 🗑️

It’s the time of year for that itching to throw everything out. Hold on to that Christmas tree for just a few more days — but all that clutter? All those things you know you don’t need? I’m right there with you.

My old pal Joshua Becker has opened his much-beloved course, Uncluttered, for the final time right now. It’s my go-to recommendation for anyone who wants accountability and a step-by-step encouraging process for eliminating clutter in their home. Yes, ages ago I wrote a book on creating a simple, minimalist home — but Joshua’s course is what I point people to for using an action-oriented, doable, comprehensive plan to simply get rid of too much stuff.

He’s closing the course on January 12 and it’ll never be open again, so truly, this is literally the last time to get it if you’re interested. Head here.

Check out Uncluttered

Quotable 💬

“You’re alive. Living things grow. Growing things change.”

― Fr. Mike Schmitz

New Year's Resolutions: yea or nay? 💪

I’m with the majority on this one, though my customization has changed over the years into something that finally works for me. Like I mention in my Rule of Life workshop, I create 90-day goals all year long and focus on no more than three at a time. I’ve also discovered the importance of goals related to what I can control — namely, my habits — and not the outcome. So, no goal of “lose X pounds” (because I’m not in charge of that) but something like “eat carnivore” or “train three days a week.”

Ever since I shifted my focus to processes and not outcomes, both my commitment to sticking with goals and my disposition in pursuit of them has been much, much healthier.

Yea - but some other version of “resolutions”: 53%
Nay: 35%
Yea: 11.8%