I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. Most of them are wishful thinking dressed up as commitment. But this year I’m trying something different—I’m not adding new habits, I’m recovering old ones. Not setting goals, just simple routines.
These are habits I’ve had before. Habits I know work for me. Habits I let slip during a busy year and need to bring back.
The Foundation: Sleep
Everything starts with sleep. When I sleep well, everything else gets easier. When I don’t, willpower becomes the only thing holding my day together—and willpower is a finite resource.
The habits I’m rebuilding aren’t complicated. They’re foundational. The kind of boring, unsexy practices that don’t make for good social media content but actually move the needle on quality of life.
Here’s the thing: I’m not trying to optimize my sleep with gadgets and sleep scores. I’m trying to remove the friction that prevents good sleep from happening naturally.
Phone Out of the Bedroom
This is the single biggest change I’ve made to my sleep quality in years. And I keep forgetting it.
When my phone is on my nightstand, I check it before sleep. I scroll when I should be winding down. Then in the morning, I lie in bed catching up on notifications instead of getting up.
The fix is absurdly simple: the phone stays on the charger in my office. If I’m in bed, I’m either sleeping or I’m bored enough to get up. There’s no third option where I’m doom-scrolling at midnight or hitting snooze until I’ve wasted half the morning.
The 10-Minute Walk
I’m adding a morning walk to the routine. Just 10 minutes outside before I start work.
I’ll be honest—I’m skeptical I’ll stick to this one. It’s January in Canada. The appeal of stepping outside into -15°C weather is… limited.
But the evidence is hard to ignore. Morning sunlight resets your circadian rhythm. Movement wakes up your body. Cold air (unfortunately) wakes up your brain. Everyone I know who does this swears by it.
So I’m committing to the experiment. If I can build the habit during the hardest months, it should be easy to maintain when spring arrives.
Morning Ketones
Here’s where things get a bit more experimental.
I don’t eat a big breakfast. Never have. My brain needs to work in the morning, but my body doesn’t need a carb-heavy meal.
I need fuel for the challenging cognitive work I do early in the day. The solution I’m testing: ketones.
Ketones are an alternative fuel source for your brain. When you’re in ketosis—either from fasting or a low-carb diet—your body produces them naturally. But you can also supplement them directly.
I’m starting with powdered MCT oil, which is a precursor to ketones. Your liver converts medium-chain triglycerides into ketones relatively quickly. The powdered form mixes easily into coffee and doesn’t cause the digestive… adventures… that liquid MCT oil is famous for.
If that doesn’t give me the mental clarity I’m looking for, I’ll try ketone salt powders next. And if those don’t work, there are direct ketone ester shots—expensive and allegedly terrible-tasting, but effective.
The goal isn’t ketosis for weight loss or any of the other popular reasons people try it. The goal is giving my brain high-octane fuel first thing in the morning without spiking my blood sugar.
Why Recovery, Not Optimization
I’ve noticed a pattern in my life. I discover habits that work. I practice them consistently. Things improve. Then life gets busy, the habits slip, and I spend months wondering why I feel worse.
The answer is usually obvious in retrospect: I stopped doing the things that were working.
This year’s resolution isn’t about finding new hacks or optimizing my stack. It’s about acknowledging that I already know what works for me—I just need to do it again.
Phone out of the bedroom. Walk in the morning. Fuel the brain without crashing the blood sugar. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Nothing revolutionary. Just the basics, rebuilt.
Here’s to a year of doing the boring stuff that actually works.