2026: the year I give things up, say no and be happier!

[SandwichMakerHater]

I've done things like habit-stacking in the past which has worked well to embed lots of positive habits, like teeth flossing, exercise, eating extra fruit, etc.

But life is a bit too manic so I'd like to try and concentrate on having a lot less going on. I'm peri-meno with challenges coming at me from kids and parents that are likely to increase, so I need to make changes that will help me cope AND still have time to enjoy my life.

Would love to have people join me, but if not then this will keep me accountable anyway. 🤣

I'm starting now as I feel motivated and want to hit 1st Jan already feeling more positive! My first thoughts are:

Cancelling gym membership: I did this last week as I'm not finding the time to go. I started a Caroline Girvan course on youtube and it's so much harder than anything I was doing at the gym and saves me time, petrol and money.

Cutting down UPF's: already doing this (I have another thread on acid reflux) so will try hard to maintain.

No more exciting meal planning! Planning, searching for interesting recipes and then cooking has been taking up far too much time.
We came up with a list of 8 meals yesterday; along with a 'something and chips/jackets' night, that covers two weeks of Mon-Fri. These can all be slow-cooked and frozen so aside from cooking a batch once a week, weekdays will just be reheat + extra veg or salad.

Cutting down screen time: I use my phone far too much, late at night and early morning. I am going to aim for a ban from 9pm-8am.

Cull emails: I have too many emails, I get overwhemed, I then miss deadlines or appointments because I give up reading them.
Boxing Day task is to unsubscribe to everything. If I do need to sign up to something, eg for a discount, I'll use my old hotmail so my main one is only for friends and essential things.

Would love to hear from others who want to have a slightly less frantic life.🙂

They sound like great plans and goals. I especially like the screen time ban and the meal plans.
Any ideas for replacing your screen time? Reading, puzzles ( though mine are on my phone) music, Snoozeband ( Bluetooth to phone allowed?)

I’d really like to reduce time spent scrolling etc and cut down on the cost of the food shop by making more soups, slow cooker meals and freezing more leftovers etc.
Good luck and thanks for the inspiration.

Definitely going into 2026 more positive!

saving! I’d like to get on track for a mortgage

less screen time & a more present parent!

making more of my time , i can get very sidetracked and need to manage my time better.

I think overall I’d be a lot happier if I was even part way to achieving these things.
helps and tips hugely appreciated.

@24Dogcuddler most of my screen time has been after 10pm in bed because it's felt like the only time i get to myself, so my plan is to read or listen to some relaxing music to fall asleep to.

I'm hoping that I can also cut food bills and waate too. If most of the weekday meal is already portioned, then it's only veg to keep an eye on. Soup is a good idea to make suee there's no wastage there too.

@Farmwifefarmlife one thing I found helpful re screen time was to set sleep mode. It made the screen go black and white, I didn't get notifications and the internet wasn't accessible.
You could unlock it but the idea was that seeing the black and white screen would make you stop and think.

I have a situation with an elderly relative that means my phone is glued to me now, so my use has shot up. So I've now set a 'Relax' mode at night: screen still loses colour to prompt me to stop looking, but I'll get notifications in case of problems with relative.

Re savings, we sit down at the end of the month and work out our outgoings for the next month. We have a spreadsheet from Martin Lewis's site which also takes account of less frequent spending like Christmas, car tax, etc.
The day we get paid - anything needed as a pro rata for future bulk bills gets put into a separate account; anything for the next month is put into joint account; we leave a set amount in our own account for pocket money, then the rest is saved.
It got us out the mentality of saving 'leftovers' and into saving being part of the budget.

I would like to do more batch cooking for the freezer - takes away the stress if I can’t be bothered/haven’t had time to cook from scratch and means we don’t divert to junk food! Looking for recommendations for books, instagram etc for inspiration!
Continuing with setting my Goodreads annual target. Really keeps me off the screen and reading a book instead.
Upping knitting as a mindful activity. Hoping to treat myself to some lovely yarn. Really find it soothing so hoping to find more time /opportunities to do it!

Hoping for a more relaxed year in 2026.
Anything that makes my life simpler, less stressful and, dare I say it, fun would be wonderful.
Following this thread with interest. I am hoping to make the most of my free time to enjoy seeing my friends and family and going to art/ cultural/ music events and enjoying some healthy delicious food.

Thank you for the tips! I like the mode on the phone definitely going to try that! Also goi to look up the spreadsheet as I like too see things visually put down.

I'll be picking up my yoga and cold water dipping again. Planning,seriously, to go alcohol free. Reduced massively in the latter parts of 2025 so feel ready to just stop. Feel so much better when its not in my system.
Starting a bee keeping course and a new French course to keep the brain active.

Over the last few years I have accumulated too many online subscriptions for craft courses. Thankfully they are monthly payments so I’m going to cancel them and just focus on two courses that I really want to complete in 2026.

I’m spending today decluttering so I can see all the stuff junk that I already have and so I don’t buy duplicates of things, like I’ve done this year.

I like the easy meal planning idea and unsubscribing to emails, I will add those to my list as well!

Amazing OP

Sounds very positive

I plan on spending less money on ungrateful people

Less gifts for people who don't bother to say thank you

Less time worrying about idiots

Less time on my phone

Clear each and every set by April

Saving plan for April to next dec

Keep walking
Stay active
Keep working as hard as I can as my work may not continue in 2027
So next year make the most of it !!!!!

Some lovely ideas here! I would love to add yoga but I will concentrate first on Caroline Girvan's workouts for January then see if I have space to add yoga. It would be good to do something that is for the mind too.

The email cull went well, I cut my inbox from 1900 to 27, so only emails that need action are left. I also unsubscribed from everything. It took over an hour but it should make it much easier to deal with what's important: now I need to do the same for my relative's emails as I deal with those. I'll need a strong head for that as they subscribed to everything and haven't checked their email for about a year.😭

Tomorrow I'll do some batch cooking. I was running the freezer down, so I'll do a lasagne mix and a curry. Plus two batches of muffins. There are allergies in the house, so having a load of cakes, flapjacks and biscuits in the freezer means there's lots on hand without the temptation of it all being out and needing eating quickly!

Feeling positive for the start of the new year.

Can't believe the difference just unsubscribing to emails has made, only 2 emails in 5 days. I am already changing my phone habits: there is less need to check it so it stays in the hall and I just make sure the ring volume is high so I am contactable.

I have a new anti-action to add:

Stop filling my time! My default is to be busy, so if my son is out or having screen time, I'll cook or do admin. Filling all these spare periods never seems to result in me being less busy at other times, so where's the benefit?!
From now on, if I find myself with an hour spare, I'll try to prioritise sitting and reading.

One week in, it's been a good start and I'm feeling benefits already. I feel like I have a bit of space to breathe after an intense few months of either sleeping or doing 3 things at once!

Home workouts instead of gym: completed the 5 Epic Beginner workouts. I never found time to get to the gym more than twice a week, but this has been easy to fit in, I do it at 6am and I'm showered in time to do school run or get to work by 8. It's shown me that I can finally commit to an intense fitness regime and I've loved it!
Tomorrow I'll start the Epic programme which is 10 weeks, 5 workouts a week.

Cutting down UPF's and using rota of meal plans: this has definitely made me feel less stressed in the evenings. I know what dinners are planned for the next two weeks and all I've had to do on weeknights is reheat the freezer portions and cook veg and carbs.
I now have batches of curry, pulled pork and casserole in the freezer. This weekend I'll do bolognaise/lasagne sauce and fajita ingredients portions.

Screen time and emails: culling the emails has been great, I managed to notice and reply to a library email which will be the first time in years that I've avoided a fine! I had around 5 or 6 marketing emails this week: all unsubscribed now.
General screen time...hmmm, needs work!

Not filling my time: this is a hard mindset to shift but I'm trying to not be flying around every waking minute. I sat and read a magazine the other day, whereas normally I'll just skim read. There was an article about culling emails, photos, etc and keeping on top of pensions, lost accounts. I deleted all my whatsapp photos and videos, and 100's of duplicate photos, so I'm going to do the pensions and accounts check this weekend.

Oh OP - I'm a bit late to the party but would love to join. I haven't had the best week, and haven't met the targets I set myself, but today's another day. Everything you've said is relevant to me. Your ideas are quite inspirational.

Can I ask wherr the magazine article was, please?

Would you mind sharing your list of batch cooking meals that lasts two weeks? I do chicken teriyaki in the slow cooker which is really nice but have forgotten some of the others we used to do.

@PhaseFour Morning! Always happy to not just be posting to myself.
What sort of targets do you have? Maybe it would make you feel better to focus on one that takes pressure off, that might allow space later on for a target that requires more time or effort.

For me, spending the hour unsubscribing to emails has been brilliant as it's taken the panic out of my inbox. I'm not constantly worrying about what deadlines I'm missing. That plus the boring meal plans have definitely freed me up to commit to the exercise so I'm trying to see things as stepping stones: one small change makes the next one easier.

The article was in Feb's edition of Red.

@Plinketyplonks so my list for two weeks is:

Weeknights:
Lasagne. Bolognaise from freezer, make white sauce then layer up and cook. With salad.
Bolognaise. From freezer, cook spaghetti.
Fajitas. Chop and freeze the marinated chicken and veg. While that fries, chop unpeeled potatoes into 2cm cubes, cover with cumin and roast. With salad and 'salsa' made from mango and cucumber.
Chicken and bacon bake. From freezer (Taming Twins recipe). 1st week I will boil potatoes and cook with a mash topping, 2nd week I'll cook as a pie in pastry. With steamed veg.
https://www.tamingtwins.com/slow-cooker-chicken-casserole-recipe/. We
Vegan Macaroni Cheese. From Isa Does It cookbook. With salad.

Chicken curry. Loosely based on BBC Good Food's slow cooker korma but I add blended cauliflower and squash plus 2 tins of chickpeas and a scoop of red lentils. I make spinach and potatoes to go with it and freeze that in portions too so just the rice to cook. We will have this both weeks.
Something and chips!
Fish and prawn curry. Loosely based on this recipe: https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/one-pots/brazilian-moqueca/

Weekends will now be something different on one of the days to add a bit of variety, then a roast on the other.

My bolognaise is made from approx 7 different veg as I can't eat tomato and onion now! So it's usually celery, leek, squash, sweet potato, beetroot, courgette and aubergine, cooked and blended then added to the frying mince.

Oh I also use a pack each of beef, turkey and pork mince to vary the flavour and nutrients.

I forgot about Pulled Pork! That's from the Taming Twins site. That's frozen in portions to have with the same sides as the fajitas.

So only the chicken curry or chicken pie need to be repeated within the 2 weeks...still getting used to it.😂

@SandwichMakerHater all sounds amazing, thanks

Home workouts instead of gym: 1st week of Epic 1 completed. I'm loving the variety of the workouts and the tips she gives, eg I was attempting push ups with my knees on the floor until my arms get stronger, but she advises to do them in proper push up position from the start, even if you can only manage 1 because then you are building strength in the position that you'll use every time.

Cutting down UPF's and using rota of meal plans: this works well. I don't have any days where I bury my head in the sand about dinner until it's too late to do anything apart from processed crap. I'm seeing less food waste too: because everything has been bought for a purpose. Last week, all the salad, cucumber, carrots, potatoes, celery and leeks were finished with no manky bits left to make me feel guilty every time I opened the fridge.

Screen time and emails: still hardly any emails coming through, which is so freeing as it's led to me not checking the phone so often (and 'checking' would always lead to scrolling on something!). But screen time at bedtime needs to be worked on. Sometimes it's the only time I get to myself so it's hard to go straight to sleep.

Not filling my time: work in progress. I'm not enjoying the book I'm reading so it's difficult to make myself sit down with it.

Less noise! This is a new one I'm adding. Notifications on phone are now turned off/set to a silent pop-up. I'm also going to turn off the washing machine alarm as that drives me bonkers.

Love these ideas

Things are going well in some areas but I'm still finding myself busy and stressed when I try to do too much at the same time.

Home workouts: the most positive aspect of my life right now! Just finished week 5 of CG's Epic, I can't believe I've stuck to it and I'm getting stronger and seeing muscles. BUT I need to look at my food intake and sleep as I am worn out all day every day. It wasn't until a week ago that I put 2+2 together so I'll see what I need to change to get a bit of my energy back.

That's my main focus for the 2nd half of the exercise programme to make sure I don't give up on it.