No, I am not resolving to spend 1,000 hours outside this year.
I am not really doing resolutions for 2024.
Per usual, I have lots of aspirations for the year, but I am not setting any specific, concrete, inflexible goals. Instead, my only “resolution” is to keep a bullet journal. Not to fill it in every day, necessarily, but most days. This way I can keep track of my many shifting, changing, evolving hopes and dreams. I don’t know when or how it happened but apparently I’ve committed to being a Quantified Woman.
Anyway, it doesn’t feel like much of a resolution, because I have kept a dailyish planner more or less for the past few years. I’m just switching my system up a bit. It was an impulsive decision I made while home for the holidays, primarily because my dad had thrifted a beautiful cloth-bound, 500-page notebook that I decided to take off his hands. I figured it would be a good way to save $40.
A “Bullet Journal” or “Bujo” can mean something very specific, and I’m not steeped enough in the official lore/marketing to accurately describe it, beyond quoting the description “a mindfulness practice designed as a productivity system”—whatever that means.
On TikTok, where I was definitely bujo-pilled, it is brightly colored, covered in stickers, and highly feminized (the Girl aesthetic is still ascendant here).
I am trying to pick and choose the things I like about bujoing, and to discard the things I don’t, but most importantly, to build in flexibility. So I’ve included annual trackers for things that I am pretty sure I want to keep tabs on all year, but only monthly trackers for habits like morning pages, yoga, and running, so I can pick and choose each month which trackers are working and which aren’t. I am also trying very hard not to hate some of the design choices I’ve made (checks notes) just five days into the year. I have never in my life had nice handwriting and I’m trying to Do This without being overwhelmed by self-loathing, as I have with so many previous journaling endeavors, and to avoid ripping it all out and starting again.
For Pinch of Dirt readers, perhaps the most relevant tracker I was inspired to add is the 1,000 hours outside challenge. Now, as I have already made clear, I am not aiming to spend 1,000 hours outside. I’m not even committing (as I have in years past) to a certain amount of time outdoors each day, although I would ideally like to get outside every day (that’s one of the habits I’m tracking). But I will keep a running total of minutes and hours spent outside and when I get to 25 hours, I’ll fill in one of forty boxes on a page with the heading “Time Outside.” Maybe I’ll get to 1,000, maybe not.
(An extremely important question for the group: Do we think time in a tent counts? I think it does.)
The challenge seems to have its roots in a crunchy child-rearing and homeschooling practice, but I haven’t done enough digging to find out if it’s crunchy in a hippie, back-to-nature, countercultural way, or a Christian, trad-wife, Ballerina Farm kind of way. (Krista Langlois reported for Outside that the inspiration lay with turn-of-the-century British educator and reformer Charlotte Mason, but that honestly doesn’t clear much up for me.)
But, it seems pretty innocuous:
Here you’ll find inspiration and information to help you set aside screens and get outside. Nature play aids children is every area of development. If you want your child to thrive academically, socially, emotionally, and physically you have to build time into your life to spend outdoors.
1000 Hours Outside is a global movement designed for any age child (or adult) and any environment. Join the journey and watch your life transform before your eyes. Nature holds tremendous power for each and every one of us at any age or stage.
Anywho, that’s what I’m doing this year! If you’re in the mood, drop your 2024 resolutions (or non-resolutions), if you have them, in the comments.
Reading list
Bad news for skiers, and everyone else: The snow situation out West is really, really bad: “At Palisades Tahoe in California, crews have so far recorded 38 inches of snow on a mountain that typically averages about 400 inches per season.” The consequences of this warmer, drier winter could mean extensive water shortages this summer. [Mike Baker for The New York Times.] “The Great Lakes had the smallest amount of ice cover this New Year’s Day in at least the past 50 years and are on track to see less than the seasonal average this winter, according to government data. The decline comes during a five-decade drop in ice cover that experts say is due in part to human-caused climate change.” [Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff for The Washington Post] It’s been almost 700 days since Central Park has been blanketed by an inch or more of snow. [Judson Jones and Claire Fahy for The New York Times]
ICYMI: I wrote a roundup of the best climate stories we published over at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last year.
I spend at least 4 hours a day outside mostly walking, hiking, biking. And until recently I was embarrassed to admit it thinking I’d be judged for not “accomplishing anything” I run my own business but have built in time for lots of outdoor activity.
Yes, I agree and I’m no longer embarrassed. Would be a mess without my outdoor time. It makes everything else better as I’m sure you know! And I definitely agree that camping in a tent is outdoor time!