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Welcome to my January 2025 productivity report! To backtrack, check out where I started in October 2023. You’ll find November 2023 here, and December 2023 here. For 2024, January is here, February is here, March is here, April is here, May is here, June is here, July is here, August is here, September is here, October is here, and November is here, and December is here.

🌱 How I Felt About January 2025

Every year, I set a new intention, and for 2025, the word is “Connection.” Last year, it was “Expression” and I feel like I nailed it. This year, I want to connect better with my friends, collaborators, clients, and the world at large – in all types of ways – but through expression. I feel really good about that choice, and I’m excited to see where it leads. January started off the year well.

With that said, here’s this month’s message:

An intention is not the same as a vision statement, and a vision statement is not the same as a resolution. So what is a resolution really? And how do you make a good one? Let’s talk about it.

🌻 A Resolution is Only One Step Towards Meeting Your Goals

We often make resolutions for ourselves, but not in the right way. You see, when most people talk about New Year’s resolutions, they conflate a few things. They say things like: “I want to become fluent in another language, lose 50 pounds, and make a million dollars.” Sound familiar? If you say that, you’re listing the totality of your dreams. In other words, you’re answering the question: “What do I want in order for me to live my ideal life?” That’s not a resolution. That’s a vision statement, i.e. a massive life overhaul.

A resolution – in my opinion – is not synonymous with a goal; it’s merely a promise to yourself to fulfill a goal. So for the above vision statement, one goal could actually be to lose 50 pounds. But there’s more to it, and it involves specificity. We can’t just say that we have a goal. We have to take action to move towards that goal. That’s where your resolution comes into play, but in order for it to actually mean something, the two have to be connected. They go hand in hand.

So how do you approach all this? Let me show you:

Step 1: Turns Your Dreams into Tangible Goals

The first thing to do is to take your vision statement and break it down into the different goals that it contains, so that you can actually follow through on them later on. There’s likely a whole bunch of projects compiled into one, and without separating them, it’ll all be too overwhelming. When you understand that, getting things done become a whole lot easier.

Step 2: Break Each Goal Down

Once you have separated the different goals, you have to break each of them down further and focus in. For each of them, understand whether or not we’re looking at a short-term or long-term goal. A lot of the time, we accidentally create long-term goals for ourselves (i.e. the ones that lean more towards dreams). If you wanted to “become fluent in another language,” for example, that’s a good example of a big, long-term goal. Could you achieve it in a year? Sure, but it would require full immersion. A hour of practice a week wouldn’t get you there. We have to match up the timeline with our current reality, so any long-term goal you have will have to be converted into a short-term goal. What are the steps to get there, and what could you realistically achieve in a year? That’s your timeline.

Step 3: Focus In Even More

Can you attack multiple goals at the same time? Yes, assuming you have the available resources. That’s what this part is all about. In many cases, however, you’ll have goals that’ll compete with each other for resources. By resources, I mean your time, energy, money, and so on. We never have unlimited resources, so we have to be mindful of how they are spent. For the most part, you’re better off focusing on one at a time. Start one and finish it before you start another, unless you have the resources and project management experience to pull them all off in tandem.

Step 3: Allocate Your Resources

One you have a focused, short-term goal nailed down (that fits within the span of a year), you can progress to the next step, which is to allocate your resources. For the resource of time, when are you going to work on this? Get specific. For your energy, does the time slots match your energy cycles? Yes or no? If you’re gonna work on something after work when you’re exhausted, it’s gonna take longer. You have to decide on the ideal days and times to make it as easy as possible. For your money, do you need to make an investment? Do you need lessons? Can you afford those? In order to achieve our goals, we need to understand the resources that they require, and actually allocate them (taking into account opportunity costs, of course). Planning is key.

Step 4: Decide on Milestones & Progress-Tracking

When you have allocated the available resources and gotten specific, decide how you will measure your progress. Like I stated in the December 2024 report, you have to check in with yourself throughout your project. Doing it at the start and at the finish isn’t enough. At the start, you haven’t gotten any momentum yet. At the end, it’s too late. It’s over. You need to have regular milestones, so you can adjust course throughout – just like when you’re driving to an appointment in a part of town you don’t know. Turn on Waze, and figure out where to turn. And if you take a wrong turn, adjust – immediately.

Step 5: Take Action

If you’re serious about your goal, you have to commit. This is where your resolution fits. Now, you’re actually ready to make that promise to yourself. You have a plan and the available resources, so that you can get to the finish line. Be sure to craft your words carefully when making your resolution. Words are powerful, and the stories we tell ourselves have meaning and energy. If you do that, and then you follow through, you’ll be looking at the goal in the rear view mirror by year’s end without regrets. Easy peasy.

🤔 How do you feel about New Year’s resolutions?

Do you make New Years resolutions? How do you approach them? I’d love to know, so let me know in the comments!

🏆 How Productive I was in January 2025

January was another productive month, but I definitely felt the repercussions from overworking in December. There’s was less energy and I definitely felt the fatigue. I knew that would happen, so I intentionally took it a little easier for the last two weeks.

The beginning of the month was a bit more intense than the last two weeks. During the first few days, we implemented a lot of changes in the Academy, in our Community, as well launched the updated version of DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass. January is also GO (“Get Organized“) Month in the Productivity industry, so there’s always a lot of buzz for the new year. For that reason, I went hard during the first two month and slowed down quite a bit during the final days of the month.

📁 Projects Completed 

In January, I completed five projects. For all of 2025, I will stick to my goal of completing three projects per month, so we’re off to a good start. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I’d rather have a flexible and stable number to consistency make hit my goal rather than double it and miss often. The overarching idea is to create stable consistency with it, but still maintain enough flexibility to take on smaller or bigger projects as a mix. Three is the number of projects that I was to hit complete on as a minimum. If I can do more, I will, but at least I know that three moves me forward at a decent pace.

🚀 My Favorite Project in January 2025

My favorite project this month was launching a new membership for my mini-course The Organizing Formula. The course itself is free both in my Academy and on YouTube, but I decided to have a community feature added to the course where students can ask questions of my team of organizers.

I didn’t do a big launch of it officially, but I announced it during our Q1 Welcome & Onboarding Call (replay on YouTube) and I added it to our sales page. It’s up and running, so we’re excited about where that can go. It’s only $19 per month to join, so it’s extremely affordable for professional help on home organizing projects.

It’s been a big season for re-launches. Last month, I wrapped the update of my course DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass, and that went well too. I also made updates to Creative Systems Architect, so 2025 is off to a great start!

⏳ Hours Worked in January 2025

In January, I worked just over 87 hours, which breaks down to about 21 hours and change per week. I’ve decided to stick to between 24-26 hours per week (or about 100 hours per month) for this coming year, so with that in mind, I was a little bit under. That was ok because I overworked like crazy in December, and I was feeling the fatigue.

Flexibility is key with these types of long-term trends. You just have to keep an eye on them, and adjust accordingly when you feel the need to so do. The idea is to not have a rollercoaster graph, but to keep it as balanced as possible. Let’s see how 2025 goes.

⌨️ Digital Images Organized in January 2025 

I captured a total of 579 photos and videos this month (not including Zoom recording, of course), and I kept 550 of them. That’s probably the lowest amount ever in a month, so it was a bit of a dud when it came to memories. Why was that? Well, I was head down working in front my computer during most of the month. It was one of those rare month when I didn’t really go out and network or market anything in particular. I did some online marketing, sure, but that didn’t warrant any pictures.

My favorite memory came from taking my daughter and her friend Snow-Tubing at Mt. Wilmot in Wisconsin.

In 2025, I will be traveling a lot, so I’m looking at potentially moving systems. I have used Adobe Lightroom for my photos for about 20 years now, and it’s worked well. On the go, I’ve used smart previews. However, that’s just not good enough anymore. My digital nomad lifestyle combined with so many business commitments has made it too inconvenient to stay with that approach. I need access to a lot on the go nowadays; therefore, I’ve made the decision to use Apple Photos going forward. I won’t move my previous archive (pre-2025) right now, but eventually I’ll integrate both. Let’s see how that goes.

If you’re not sure how to manage your photos, be sure to join us in DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass. We cover how to choose your programs, how to organize your phots, and we have tutorials on the entire process in Photo Mechanic, Apple Photos, and Adobe Lightroom Classic.

👟 Steps Walked in January 2025 

At the turn of the month, I decided to keep my step goal for 2025 intact because it’s still a bit hit or miss. I’m gonna try to complete 5000 steps per day on average every month. Usually, I have no problems with this goal when I’m out and about traveling; however, when I’m home in Chicago, it’s a problem.

In January, I walked 115,603 steps, which breaks down to about 3729 steps per day. That’s would have been a good result two years ago, but considering where I am today, it’s atrocious. Last year, I created a small home gym in my basement to see if that would make a difference, and it did – just not a big enough difference. I still prefer to walk outside, and it’s mainly the weather and location that affects me.

This issue illustrates exactly what I was talking about in last month’s report. If you don’t check in more than once or so, you’re gonna be off. If I actually want to make this happen, I’m gonna have to do at least weekly checkins on it. Noted.

📣 Language Progress in January 2025

Drumroll, please: 🥁 My new goal for 2025 is a language progress goal! 🎉

Over the past two years, I’ve worked on reducing the number of meals we eat outside of our home, including convenience meals. Proudly, I could let that goal go in December because I felt that I had successfully changed that habit for the better. When we started, we were in the 30th percentile, and now we’re consistently between 80 and 90% on this. My goal was to hit 75% consistently, and keep that trend going over time. Check and check. As such, I could open January to a new goal.

The new goal I chose is “Language Progress.” I bet you’re wondering what that means… Well, languages have always been important to me. I love communicating with people from all over the world, and I love collaborating with my international friend. I myself am an international, dual-citizen, human. This is why this goal is appropriate.

I am fluent in several languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and English. I can also hold a decent conversation in Spanish, French, and German. I can also handle a tiny bit of Portuguese, Hindi, and Italian. So there’s plenty to work with. I’m fairly strong in grammar, but I need a bigger vocabulary across the board. If I know the word, I can conjugate it fine, but I can’t always find the right word. That’s something I’d like to change.

My new goal is to learn at least 15 new words per month in the language of my choice. That’s about one word every two days, which is a slow enough progress to let it sink in, but fast enough to keep me moving forward. For this first quarter, I have chosen French since I have enough friends and collaborators now who have that as their first language. If we are all together in a group, they shouldn’t have to switch in order to accomodate me. I’m proud to say that I learned 26 new words in French in January, and I intend to use them.

🎧 Books & Learning in January 2025

This month, I listened to the audio version of Contagious (Why Things Catch On) by Jonah Berger. It’s not the first time I’ve picked it up, so I highly recommend it. Berger talks about why some products and ideas catch on fast while others don’t, and it’s a really interesting read if you’re interested in marketing on any level. My own interest in marketing is very strong, so I enjoy any read that gives me a different angle or perspective on selling. As you already know, it’s incredibly important for any entrepreneur to understand. Pick it up in pretty much any US-based bookstore, or on Audible.

☕️ Meaningful Conversations in January 2025

I didn’t do any FIKA with Caroline rounds because of the intensity of the launches and GO month, plus the fact that I was in a launch period, so that’s that. Before I bring back FIKA with Caroline, I want to make sure that I have consolidated my mailing list. Overall, the response has been great, but there is also a fair bit of people on my list who don’t belong there. It needs to be culled – again. Until I have the time to take that project on, FIKA with Caroline is on hold.

What I can say though is that I had some amazing conversations with friends who shall remain unnamed for their privacy. What I can say is that I finally feel like I have the people I need in my life, and that’s big.

If you’re not on there yet though, subscribe to get notifications when slots open up. 👊🏻

⭐️ Success Celebrated in January 2025 

This month, I want to celebrate the fact that I have successfully pivoted by business back to offering coaching and courses on all types of organizing, including residential. When I started out, I was a generalist and did quite a bit of organizing in homes for people. I did love it, but it just didn’t fit my lifestyle to commit to one location. For that reason, I pivoted my business to only offer digital and remote organizing services and I stuck with that for year. That option fit my lifestyle well, but the problem was that I niched too aggressively, and that left me a bit unfulfilled. Now that I have courses and coaching available, I’ve been able to fold everything back in, and it feels great. It has come full circle, and that’s worth highlighting.

If you haven’t already checked out my free course The Organizing Formula, it’s a great place to start learning more about how residential organizing projects work in terms of systems. 😊

😍 This Month’s Favorite Hubs, Tools, Services, & Products

What hubs, tools, products, and services do I use to be more productive? Ah, lots. In an effort to be really transparent, I have some of my recommendations below. Some links are affiliates links, others are not, but either way, I’d recommend them. Feel free to reach out if you have questions on any of them.

Here’s my list of things I loved this month:

• Notion → Where would I be without Notion? Not anywhere close to where I am now, that’s for sure. I run my entire life and business in Notion, so I wholeheartedly recommend this platform. We hosted a Building in Notion (for Beginners) event some time ago, and the replay is available for purchase.
• Airtable → We have used Airtable for many years now – as our main hub before Notion, and now for student-facing databases, external editorial calendars, and intake forms. Love it!
• Forever → This is good platform for storing photo archives. I invested in this company when they were a startup a decade ago, and it has only gotten better since then. Great for memory-keeping!
• ShowIt → Love ShowIt! It’s the most flexible and best website platform out there, IMO. Plus, it’s run by nice people, which is a plus. I just renewed my own subscription not too long ago.
• Convertkit → Convertkit is now simply Kit, and I’m not really used to that change yet. I’ll come around, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be calling it Convertkit for a while still. Change is hard. 🤣
• Lightroom Classic → This is a program I’ve been using for two decades. I teach it and several other solutions in my course DPO PRO. Join us to learn how to use it!
• Teachable → I’ve been a loyal customer with Teachable since back in the early Fedora days, which says a lot about how much I like their platform. It’s a great place to host your courses.
• Circle → Circle is easy to use for everyone – from students to coaches to guests. We love it as our community hub. It stands well on its own, but also integrates nicely with Teachable (see above).
• Trackabi → My new time-tracking platform, which is working out wonderfully so far.
• Audible → I love my Audible subscription for when I’m getting my steps in, and I recommend trying it out if you want to get your learning on. Sign up for a free 30-day trial through my link to get a free book (or 2 free credits if you’re an Amazon prime member!) – cancel anytime!
• Secret → This is a wonderful place for finding deals on software hubs and tools. Who doesn’t love to save some $$$? Invest a little, save a lot! I’ve saved thousands. Great deals for the new year too!
• Grove Collaborative → Love my Grove subscription! It saves me so much time because I can restock all my household needs easily. They write sweet messages on each box too! So cute. Get a free gift set by signing up through my affiliate link!
• Almond Cow → In 3 minutes, you can have fresh nut milk. What’s not to love? I miss it so much when I travel. It’s the best thing I’ve ever bought for my kitchen, hands down.
• Nuuly → This is so much fun. I just love renting new stuff each month. It’s a creative way to try thing you never would have picked up otherwise. 🙌🏻 Use my link to save $ on your first order.
• Taja → I really like this AI-driven platform for optimizing YouTube videos. It’s a great starting point for coming up with attention-grabbing headlines, descriptions, keywords, and more.
• Wise → Banking as a digital nomad and international service provider can be a bit tricky, but lately, I’ve enjoyed using Wise to make things easier. If you’re a nomad or course creator, take note.
• Harney & Sons → My favorite tea supplier in the US. They have outstanding quality teas for all tastes and budgets, and they’ve worth trying out! Save $10 on your order using this link.

🫖 Tea of the Month

For this month, I’m highlighting Paloma Tea House’s White Symphony Tea. This is one of my favorite white teas because it’s light and floral, but still very flavorful. A lot of white teas are bland in the taste, but not this one. I love the combination of strawberries and rhubarb. If you’re also a fan of those types of blends, Paloma also has a green (more “summery”) version of it that’s amazing.

I pick this one up every time I visit Sweden, either in Malmö or in Stockholm, but you can also find them online and in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Paloma Tea House White Symphony Tea

Yield: 1 Cup

Prep Time: 1 minute

Cook Time: 2 minutes

Total Time: 2 minutes

A white floral ans fruity team with notes of rhubarb and strawberries.

Purchase it from Paloma Tea House.

Print

Ingredients

• 1 Tsp White Symphony Loose Tea
• 1 Cup Water

Instructions

1. Heat water to 175 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Pour over tea and let steep for 2-3 minutes
3. Enjoy

📐 Measure What Matters

Thanks for reading this report til the end! I hope you enjoyed it. Please remember that productivity is very personal, and you DO NOT have to track the same metrics that I do. Your goals and metrics could be quite different from mine, and that’s OK.

If you’d like to understand where you should be focusing your attention, join us in an upcoming Quarterly Planning Workshop to identify your own goals.

🎬 Prefer to Watch This Report?

• About the Author
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Caroline Guntur Organizing & Productivity Coach

Hi there! I’m Caroline, and I’m here to help you get organized and be more productive, so that you can live better and have time for what matters.

www.theswedishorganizer.com

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