Well, happy new year! 2026 is here. And so’s Friday, meaning it’s check-in time, and time to make my seventh Beeminder journal thread. (Time flies!)
What’s this?
Each week, I post a summary/reflection on my beeminding from the previous week (derailments, new goals, changes to my goals, and any other musings). I usually post on Friday, though sometimes I’ll post a couple of days earlier or later.
Previous threads:
[Pre-2021] | [2021] | [2022] | [2023] | [2024] | [2025]
Ground Rules:
Feel free to join in and ask questions, poke me and give me accountability, and chip in with your experiences. I’m game. If something’s out of bounds (e.g. because it’s too personal), I won’t be offended, I’ll just say so.
I’m usually very frank about my physical and mental health, particularly the latter. That means I’m usually happy to answer questions that others might consider impertinent or TMI… but I’ll let you know if it crosses the boundary and I don’t want to answer.
Useful things to know:
Opening thoughts:
Welp, without further ado, let’s get down to it! Obviously this post features the sunsetting of my 2025 goals, and the opening of my 2026 goals, so it’ll be a little busy.
New goals:
- /it-takes-two - The Steam integration has soft-launched, and I’m testing it out with this goal to play 15 minutes of It Takes Two, a co-op game that I’m playing with my wife. I checked out how long the game takes to 100% beat, and set an end total for roughly that amount.
- /2026reading - 2026’s main reading goal, for reading 400 books this year. I reserve the right to adjust this up or down, but it seems like a fair start since I’ve read 400 books two years in a row now.
- /2026backlog - This goal is for finishing 100 books bought before January 1st 2026. I thought about not including books from 2025 (since I already have a goal for starting those), but that would’ve added a bunch of admin. I’ll keep it simple.
- /2026pages - Based on last year’s successful goal, this one is set for 100,000 pages read in 2026.
- /2026books - Finally for reading goals (for now), this caps the number of books I can buy without starting them in 2026. Same rules as the 2025 goal: books enter the list when I catalogue them on Storygraph, and leave it when I start reading them. The cap is 20 at a time bought this year and unstarted. Last year’s goal really helped, while being flexible enough for my usual book sprees, so I’m actually excited for this! It’s my “No Excuses” and “No Derailing” goal for New Year’s Resolutions: Lock in for 2026.
- /checkmail - Some of my best goals in the last year have been goals that take a household chore and break it down even smaller. This one’s for checking the mail and actually sorting it, rather than leaving it lying in the hallway. I’ll need to do it a few times a week to be safe from derailing, and hopefully it’ll inspire us to return to sender the debt letters for the previous tenant already… It’s my first New Month’s Resolution for 2026.
Changes to existing goals:
- /newmonthresolution - This goal ended and immediately got restarted and set up for 2026, same as before. More on New Month’s Resolutions in the relevant thread!
- /2025backlog - This goal is retiring with honour: I successfully read 100 books from my backlog in 2025!
- /2025pages - I can’t remember what the original goal was for this, but I kept on upping it, eventually reading over 100,000 pages in 2025. Nice! The goal’s ended now, of course.
- /2025reading - I set a goal of reading 400 books in 2025, lowered it when times were tough, and ended up gradually raising it again over the last three months. In the end, I hit 400 books after all!
Closing thoughts:
That was a lot! And I’ve probably forgotten something. But for now I feel pretty well set up for 2026!
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