Dust if you must

Checklist to help you end the year right.

Danny Fox, To Turn Rotten In The Mind Of A Lover, 2019

1. Let’s start off easy. Clean up your desktop of unnecessary files, shortcuts, and all those random screenshots. 

   1. Don’t think too much about it, just create a few satisfyingly-named folders and dump everything in there. Or throw it all in the trash—I dare you.

   2. Delete unnecessary apps from your phone.

2. Turn down all party invitations for the rest of the year. Maybe make an exception for Christmas or New Years Eve, but only if everyone tests negative ahead of time. This new wave is no joke, I just experienced my first superspreader this past weekend.

3. Cancel unnecessary subscriptions & text your friends to ask if they need logins to your accounts so they can cancel theirs. I share my Netflix with an ex, someone I hooked up with once, my teenage brother, and a friend. Something something about queer family.

   1. This isn’t just for tv. LastPass and Spotify also have family plans.

4. Change your passwords and set up two-factor authentication, preferably with a service that has a browser extension and multi-device capabilities. I just switched to 2FAS because it’s open source, and I can have it on both my phone and tablet in case one is stolen or lost.

5. Reach out to that friend you’ve been meaning to apologize to… and just do it.

6. Buy your favorite little treat in bulk to start the new year on the right foot. Sadly being single doesn’t lend itself to a Costco membership, but I have started to buy my favorite latte-in-a-can for my morning ritual in bulk. (No coffee snobs in the replies please.)

7. Wash your bedding; I bet you don’t do it enough.

8. Take a moment to add big events to your calendar for next year. Vacations, weddings, work trips. Don’t be that friend who accidentally schedules a trip to Mexico the same weekend as a camping trip (*you know who you are*). Add your friends’ birthdays and mark them as “recurring annually” with a reminder notification one week out.

   1. As we get older, the years feel shorter and go by quicker.

   2. Birthday texts make your friends feel valued and seen. Birthday cards sent via snail mail are even better.

9. Look through the photos on your phone from this year. 

   1. No pressure to organize, delete, or otherwise do anything with them. Just scroll through and remember how much joy and beauty you experienced over the last twelve months. Every day is a blessing.

   2. If you stumble upon a silly photo you forgot about, send it to a friend and ask “lol remember this?”

10. Binge some quick novels to meet your reading goal for the year, lest your friends on Goodreads shame you.

    1. Hint: You can listen to audiobooks at an increased speed.

    2. Hint: You can mark books “read” even if you’ve only read 50% or 75% or however much through. Bookstagram might come at me for this, but the truth is that you make the rules.

    3. Hint: You can set your goal to a lower number next year.

12. Take a bath. As someone who has spent three years in an apartment without a bathtub, I beg you to take advantage of yours! Light a candle, play some soft music, eat some chocolate.

13. Unsubscribe from as many newsletters as humanly possible. Get your inbox to below 50 unread emails.

    1. If you are itching to unsubscribe from that one friend’s newsletter but worry that they might be offended, here’s your blessing to unsubscribe 👀

14. Throw out the expired condiments and opened jars in your fridge. This is your only cleaning task; everything else can wait until spring.

    1. Thought to be clear expiration dates are just suggestions, so do a smell test before tossing that jar of pickles.

15. Move your group chats and text threads containing any shenanigans you want to shield from prying eyes to Signal. Especially if you’re an organizer, activist, or otherwise any kind of rabble-rousser.

    1. Set your messages to disappear after four weeks. Again this is a “you’ll be happy you did this before you needed it,” kind of task.

16. Make an end-of-year donation to an organization whose work and values resonate with you.

    1. Might I suggest IfNotNow for ceasefire organizing, Dissenters a youth-led anti-war movement, or Get Free a new effort to repair past harms (they just had a major victory to establish a reparations commission in New York!).

17. Send a voice note to two friends who you haven’t talked to in a while.

    1. Don’t be offended if they don’t answer.

18. Scrub your personal information from the internet. Please please please trust me and do this before you really need to because by then it’ll be too late.

18. Before you buy a 2024 planner ask yourself did you use one this year? If you didn’t, you likely won’t next year.

19. Check if your health insurance plan covers acupuncture (many of them do!) and schedule a session for January.

20. Close your tabs. All of them.