I LOVE a good seasonal shift. I love living by the seasons, both as sections of the calendar year AND in terms of living through whatever weird/different thing life is throwing at us right now. I LOVE the New Years energy I have on January 1st that continues through a good part of January. And I feel that energy shift, in a smaller amount, at the start of each month.
I have slowly added many different small changes into the first of each month. I want to feel the passage of time, to notice and acknowledge that we are in a different part of the year now. Sometimes this even shows up as changing decor for a new season or holiday. Some months it's just changing my iphone background. But a new month is a new start and each year gives us TWELVE of them. I also break many of my annual goals into smaller monthly goals, such as books to read or number of miles to run. Here's how I make them feel at least a little bit different:
I have been doing this for over 6 years, since 2018 in my bullet journal. I've written about this before and the process hasn't changed much. I go through my 23 in 2023 (or whatever year it is) list and pull out some action steps on the open items. I put down our monthly dining local. There's the number of miles I plan to run that month, the movies per my movie schedule, to-dos around the start or end of the school year, trips, holidays to celebrate, and photo projects I want to work on. I check the list for the same month the previous year and the past few months to see what's outstanding. Then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have a recurring task to check in on these, so I stay on top of what I hope to work on.
Every month I pick 10 books I plan to read. I actually start this sometime in the previous month, so I can try to have all my picks in hand by the 1st. I base this off what is next on my TBR, what is being released in a month (although that doesn't mean that's when the library will put it in circulation...), what is seasonal, and what my book club is reading. I keep this on a list in my library app on my phone as well as in my bullet journal. It helps me be a big more intentional about my reading as well as make most of the decisions about what I'll be reading at once! (Although I also always try to read more than 10 books a month.) I wrote a post about this and the process hasn't changed much!
3) Change iPhone and desktop computer backgrounds
Sometimes it's a change to something seasonal. Sometimes I match them between my phone and computer. But it's nice to just have something new to mark a new month. And by new, I probably mean something that I used the previous year. I'm not searching for new ones of these every ~30 days.
Been a big fan of Shining Light for a few years now and every month we have sitting out the Saints who have a feast day in that month. I track this on a spreadsheet, naturally. Divine Mercy Jesus and Mary get to stay out every month. I switch both the classic dolls and the magnets on the tv stand. We do a litany of saints (an idea I flat out stole from my sister) at the end of our family prayers every night where we go in a circle and each say 2 saints. And you know what...we pull heavily from the ones we can see...
I've been following the same January buying procedure for my cards for many, many years. Here's the post on that. Then on the 1st of each month I pull out the cards I need to mail that month, adding a stamp, and writing it as a to-do list in my planner for the day before we need to mail it (so I have time to get Matt & the boys all to sign it). Since I have these in date order in a basket in my office (with the date noted where the stamp will go), this is easy to do. I don't actually write in the cards until I get them out to mail them.
This isn't on the first of each month but I DO have a mug schedule for which of my 5 mugs I use at which times of the year. This has been very handy in keeping me from buying anymore mugs because I don't want to mess up my schedule! Yes, 5 is probably 4 more than I need but it is nice to use different ones at different times. These switches don't always happen on the 1st of the month (I have a flamingo one I use all through the boys' summer break from school) but most of them do. (That's my October Office Ladies podcast mug for pictured above and my March/April spring peach mug up top with my bullet journal.)
7) Mark a new season or holiday (sometimes)
Again, this isn't every month, in fact, only 3. March 1st is the start of spring for me. I do my big spring switch that day. October 1st is the first day it is acceptable to decorate for Halloween and anyone who does it earlier is wrong. And November 1st is the kick-off of the HOLIDAY season although that is more a mental adjustment rather than decorating because I don't decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving (I start Black Friday and continue through the weekend. Anyone who decorates before Thanksgiving is doing it wrong and I will not change my mind on this.).
8) Back up my computer
This has nothing to do with the seasons but I do this on the first of every month (or very close to it, depending on holidays and/or travel). My cloud backup is constant but this is my external hard drive back-up. And I have so many pictures that it takes most of the day...
These are all fairly small things but together they help mark a new month or a new season, helping to acknowledge the constant passage of time!
If you do anything like this, I'd love to hear about it!
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