Eliminate
Step One to your Vision (Board)
12/26/2025
Today is a pajama day.
It’s 1:07 in the afternoon and I’m lying belly-down on my freshly made bed, four tabs open on my laptop. I’m sipping ginger-lemon honey tea from my new hot-pink Yeti. The house is quiet in that mid-afternoon way where no one is quite sure what day it is.
My youngest had his wisdom teeth out a few days ago. Our holiday menu shifted from lasagna to polenta.
I could tell you how I was ultra-organized, but here’s the confession: I didn’t journal the last few days. I knew it would help. I still didn’t do it.
Everything was. Just. Too. Much.
I was rotating ice packs and watching the swelling, trying not to let my anxiety swell along with it. So I dropped one thing and let that be enough.
Have you ever felt that—like one small must would tilt your balance enough to send everything off-kilter?
Permission slip for a pajama day: granted.
A Word I’m Carrying
This morning, when I finally opened my notebook, one word showed up.
ELIMINATE.
Before vision boards, fresh pages and a new calendar, I always feel the urge to clear space first.
The desk.
The rooms.
The places inside me that feel crowded.
We’re practiced at adding. Adding intentions. Adding plans.
Carrying everything forward because we’re not sure what we’re allowed to set down.
You need me to hold onto this? No problem.
Let me just tuck it into my carryall and drag that with me.
Today’s word asked what feels like the real question of 2025:
What am I still carrying that is clearly finished?
What didn’t work?
Not dramatic things. Ordinary ones.
Old projects that never quite fit.
Roles I took on out of habit.
Routines that looked good on paper but drained my energy.
It’s okay to say what didn’t work. It’s okay to admit when the words you’ve been using no longer fit. Some things were useful once. Some things were never ours to begin with.
Do you feel that?
If you’re here with me, name one thing you’re ready to eliminate.
Write it anywhere.
A margin.
A scrap of paper.
The back of an envelope.
Write it here:
I’ll keep your words safe.
Now close the loop:
This is no longer mine to carry.
I’ll be clearing space this week.
One word at a time. Until tomorrow.
XO
K
A little science for those who want it:
There's a reason "eliminate" comes before "envision." Psychologists call it the Zeigarnik effect — unfinished tasks stay mentally open, quietly draining attention like tabs you forgot to close. Carrying too much forward isn't just exhausting. It's cognitively expensive.
Minimalism research backs this up: people who deliberately own and do less report higher well-being because it frees bandwidth for what actually matters.
Deadlines, some projects take longer than expected. Let go of the control of finishing a project on time. Focus on the joy of creativity, instead of the final outcome.