Depth Year - January

Brian Hicks, January 7, 2025

David Cain wrote in 2017 about a depth year:

what if, for a whole year, you stopped acquiring new things or taking on new pursuits. Instead, you return to abandoned projects, stalled hobbies, unread books and other neglected intentions, and go deeper with them than you ever have before.

That really resonates with me! I have a terrible habit of making wishful acquisitions: things that I think will make my life better, then never actually doing them. Books are the main culprit here, but courses and projects in my task list are also frequent offenders.

I think I'd like to give this a go! But I also feel cautious about new year's resolutions because it's hard to know how a whole year will go. I think quarterly or monthly resolutions are better: having 30 or 90 days creates fewer opportunities for procrastination than 365.

Within that theme, here are some things I'd like to go "in depth" on:

• mental health (especially around mindfulness)
• physical health (especially around calisthenics and mobility)
• book writing
• relationships (especially in the vein of deepening existing relationships)
• ukulele

I'm having to stop myself here. There are a bajillion different things I could go on depth on, but focusing on all of them feels like it defeats the point.

For January, I think I'd like to focus on three (with success criteria stated up front):

1. Physical health: one calisthenics workout per day for the month of January.
2. Book writing: material for the first beta reading session done by the end of January.
3. Ukulele: learn one complete song that I can play "fluently" (from memory, without pausing for chord changes, with good tone quality.)

I'll try to post a write-up of how it went in early February!