December 2024 - Social Overwhelm: Managing Social Events
💫 It’s the end of the year, a time where life seems to pick up speed, with year-end projects, gatherings, and countless to-dos filling our days.
This season, while often bustling, also offers a meaningful opportunity to pause and reflect on the past year—to recognize the milestones, growth, and challenges you’ve experienced.
This month can be hectic so I want to help you manage it as best I can. We’ll be talking about:
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Preventing and dealing with social overwhelm
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Romanticizing your life with music
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Making time for yourself
Something by me
A little while back I got a question about managing "social clutter," the question touched on a bunch of things including interactions, events, as well as social media. I love this question because even though I talk a lot about physical/digital items, social expectations can cause a lot of overwhelm as well. Social overwhelm is a broad topic, so in this post I want to focus on one specific aspect: social events.
In my life, the holidays often bring a complex web of social obligations that can leave me feeling overwhelmed and drained. While holiday celebrations (at any time of year really) are meant to bring joy and connection, many people find themselves struggling to maintain a healthy balance between social commitments and personal time.
Something by someone else
Title: Jazz for Study - Spotify Playlist
Description: “Find your study focus with calm instrumental Jazz.”
Why I like it: I have a very specific memory from when I was around 14 or 15 years old. My parents had just hosted a party, it was well past midnight and all the guests had left. We were cleaning up glasses and plates and soft jazz was playing in the background. I remember feeling the overwhelm of having a social gathering, with well over 15 people, melt away. I don’t actually remember if playing jazz after get togethers was a regular occurrence, but this scene sparked my love for the genre.
Now, whenever it’s dark outside, be it at night after a party or just a gloomy autumn day, I love playing soft jazz and lighting some candles. I love this “study” playlist because it’s calm, through and through. It’s one of those things that helps me both regulate my nervous system as well as romanticize my life. In the spirit of giving, I hope this playlist will give you space to unwind after the events you might be invited to over the coming months, or if you’re in the northern hemisphere, give you some coziness for those gloomy days.
Something by you
It’s so important to take care of yourself. Unfortunately, and I experience this personally, the busier we are the less likely we are to give ourselves that time and care. So this month I want you to take a moment and do two things:
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Make a list of about 10 things that recharge you and can be done in an hour or less. These can include physical activities, creative pursuits, and mindful practices, such as going for a walk, dancing, drawing, playing an instrument, playing a game, cooking something new, meditating, reading, journaling, taking a bath, or even drinking a cup of tea in silence.
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Block off at least an hour a week (preferably every two days) on your calendar to do one of the things on your list.
Making time for yourself is extra important when you’re busy, and having a go-to list helps with decision fatigue when you are already making a million decisions a day. And remember, none of the things on your list should be “I should,” they should all feel like a treat.
Refine updates: Behind the scenes
🎉 I’ve been sending this newsletter for exactly a year now! Time for a little reflection and revision of my own:
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I’ve loved writing the monthly blog posts. Sitting down to do research and put my thoughts about simplification and luxury into words genuinely makes me happy. I’m slowly building out a body of knowledge/work and part of me is wondering whether, in the not so distant future, I might do a) more blog posts b) create audio to go with the blog posts, or c) all of the above.
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I’m not in love with the format of the newsletter. I’ve noticed that I only look forward to writing the blog post each month. There’s a lot of time that goes into drafting the newsletter that I’d rather spend on the quality of the content. This means I’m going to change the newsletter to simply being the blog post only.
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The place I am hosting my blog and newsletter hasn’t been that user friendly. Too much time goes into formatting and stuff like that. So, I’ll be moving the blog and newsletter to Substack come January. Also, Substack has a comment section so we can keep the conversation going.I found a better solution, that also has comments yay!
In short, nothing to do on your end, except for sitting back and waiting for the new and improved posts to land directly in your inbox!
