What I learned this week (or is it this year?)

Happy New Year, everyone! I think 2012's going to be a terrific year for all of us - so I'm getting ready for it by thinking about what I've learned this year that I can take forward into 2012, not resolutions exactly, but lessons.

The number one thing I've learned? My life is NEVER going to be organized in a way that stays the same from week to week (sometimes from day to day) so I have to roll with the changes. What I am going to do, and have already started, is to fit in my writing life wherever I can, kind of like jamming that final piece of clothing into a suitcase when I'm traveling. Fifteen minutes here, an hour there? They're priceless. No more waiting for that big four hour stretch - for me, those are few and far between.

In conjunction with that I've learned that I'm going to have to get WAY better at working ahead. By that I mean if I have a whole bunch of things that are due at the end of the month, I can't leave them until the last week - I get them done then, but it's stressful especially if (see Lesson #1 above) my schedule changes drastically and the time I thought I'd have disappears.

I've learned that everyone has complicated lives no matter how perfect they appear from the outside. (You think I'd know this, I'm a writer and I write about those lives all the time. Duh.) So I've learned to stop envying friends whose lives appear so simple compared to mine - they're just different, not easier.

The second most important thing I've learned? I've had a tough year in terms of exercise. I had almost six months off any serious exercise due to one thing or another (all of which - health and work related - I couldn't avoid). And now that it's December 30, I realize how detrimental that's been to my health (ironic? no kidding) and, like writing, I'm going to squeeze it in wherever I can. I feel better when I do it, I get more done, so the time it takes to do it isn't wasted time, it's good time.

I've learned - thanks Dr. Oz - that coffee is good, good, good for you, so I'm drinking more coffee, which in my case, seeing as I gave it up almost 20 years ago, means starting up with a cup a day. I'm not sure I can handle too much more caffeine than that to start with.

I've probably learned a million other things this year - but the one thing I didn't have to learn? Gratitude. I'm always grateful for the life I have, for the friends and family I enjoy, for the beautiful world around me.

So thanks, 2011, I learned a lot this year. And I'm hoping 2012 is just as educational. And fun!

Kate