15 Simple Preparations for the Year Ahead

For those short on time, but big on ideas

This time of year is a pause rather than a beginning. The year has started, but it hasn’t yet asked very much of us. The garden is quiet, the house still turned inward, and there is just enough space to put a few things gently in order.

This is not about getting ahead or doing more. It’s about small, preparatory acts that make the months ahead feel easier to move through. Things that can be done slowly, in short windows of time, and without any sense of urgency.

In the garden (or on the windowsill)

1. Start slow-growing seeds indoors

Late January suits plants that take their time. Sweet peas, Snapdragons and Chillies  nothing that needs instant warmth or fast results. There is something grounding about beginning when nothing much appears to be happening. A few pots on a windowsill are enough. The act itself matters more than scale.

2. Make a simple sowing plan

This doesn’t need to be detailed or ambitious. A loose list of what you’d like to grow, roughly when it might be sown, and where it could go. Writing it down now means you don’t have to hold it all in your head later, when spring starts moving quickly.

3. Order seeds with intention

Before the season gathers pace, it’s worth pausing. Look at what you already have. Choose varieties you genuinely want to grow and live with, rather than chasing novelty. Fewer seeds, better tended, usually lead to more satisfaction in the garden.

4. Tend to and repot house plants

House plants are often the first things to respond to late winter attention. Clearing old growth, refreshing compost, and giving them space to breathe feels like a quiet rehearsal for the work that will follow outdoors. It’s also a way of working with living things when the garden itself is still resting.

5. Walk your garden or local area and take photos

Take photographs not for sharing, but as a record. Bare branches, swelling buds, winter light. These small observations are easy to forget later on. Looking back helps you understand how slowly change actually happens.

In the home

6. Declutter one small area

Resist the urge to do everything. Choose a drawer, a shelf, a single cupboard. Stop while it still feels manageable. The aim is not transformation, but relief, a little more ease in daily use.

7. Make a scrapbook from what you’re discarding

Before magazines or books leave the house, take what still speaks to you. Images, articles, colour palettes, fragments of writing. A scrapbook allows ideas to be kept without keeping everything. It becomes a personal reference rather than background clutter.

8. Plan a refresh in one place

Choose one room or even one corner. Planning counts as progress. Consider light, colour, texture, or layout. When decisions are made ahead of time, acting on them later feels far less demanding.

9. Wash throws, cushion covers, or curtains

This is one of the simplest ways to reset a space. Clean fabrics change how a room feels without changing what it is. It’s practical, achievable, and quietly effective.

10. Sketch or mood-board ideas

On paper, in a notebook, or loosely gathered. This is not about final outcomes. It’s about noticing patterns in what you’re drawn to, colours, shapes, materials, atmospheres and letting ideas sit together for a while.

11. Clear a little digital clutter

Saved links, old notes, duplicate photos. Even ten minutes reduces background noise. It’s easier to think clearly when fewer things are competing for attention.

12. Mend or repair something

A small repair changes how you relate to your belongings. It shifts attention from replacement to care. Mending also slows the pace of consumption, even in a small way.

In mindset and creative life

13. Make a shorter, more realistic list for the year

This is a good moment to reduce rather than expand. Fewer intentions, chosen carefully, are more likely to be lived with. The aim is alignment with the life you actually have, not the one you imagine having later.

14. Plan creative, mindful tasks that don’t need a screen

Pressing flowers, drawing, writing by hand, organising, baking, mending. These activities absorb attention without fragmenting it. Planning for them now makes it easier to return to them when time feels scarce.

15. Set aside time for noticing rather than producing

Not everything needs an outcome. Looking, recording, paying attention, these acts often feed creativity and clarity later on, even if nothing tangible comes from them immediately.

None of these preparations are dramatic or demanding. That’s the point. This time of year is not asking for reinvention, only a little quiet readiness. Small, considered actions now often support the year far more than grand plans made too early.

If time is limited, choose one or two. That is more than enough to begin.