A New Year, a New Direction, a New Set of Intentions

Oh hi 2023, I've been expecting you

Photo by Maxim Berg on Unsplash

I hear 2023 is now upon us.

I’m not entirely sure it arrived because I slept through the whole thing with the flu - if you’re not up at midnight, does the New Year even really happen?!

This is a famously reflective time of year and I am no exception to that. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in between bouts of fever about the direction of Simple and Straightforward. How can this publication help you - and keep you entertained - in 2023?

First, a bit of good news.

I was honored to find out that my guest post at Becoming Minimalist was one of their most popular last year. I’m even more honored that it led to plenty of new Simple and Straightforward subscribers - welcome all.

With the influx of new faces, it seems as good a time as any to unveil some changes around here. They’re not that big - the publication isn’t turning into a maximalist’s dream or anything - but they hopefully will give me some much-needed focus and you some information on what you get for signing up.

First, as most of you know, S+S offers both paid and free content. This is the Substack model - keep some work free but offer subscriptions for extra content. It’s these subscriptions that keep me from having to resort to advertisements or sponsorships, neither of which I feel works within a simple living publication.

I think people have become deeply disillusioned with SEO-driven content that may be free but can be pretty soul-sucking. Think of those long-winded recipes designed to keep you on the page as long as possible in order to serve you those pokey little advertisements for whatever you last looked for on Amazon.

In 2023 I truly believe that people want deeper, more meaningful content that isn’t only designed to hit the top spot on Google. They want to connect with the people who are writing the content they consume.

They’re tired of the BS.

Substack knows this and gives writers like me the opportunity to write honestly and with integrity and without the need to go viral in order to make an impact. It’s why I love hosting a publication here. And it’s why I’m immensely grateful for everyone who has paid hard-earned cash for my work.

So here’s how 2023 is going to work.

I will continue to write at least three times a week.

Friday is reserved for the “Friday Dispatches” newsletter which is free for everyone - and always will be.

As for topics, last year I spent a lot of time focusing on living simply, minimalism, decluttering and all that jazz. And whilst that will always remain the basis of Simple and Straightforward, it’s time to widen the net this year. As well as simple living and minimalism content, I’ll also be writing about:

• Culture and society, especially their influence on our lives

• Travel, specifically how travel can shape our perception of what is normal

• Digital life, questioning our all-encompassing relationship with the online world

All, of course, with a streak of simple living running through it all.

Twice a week, I send out behind-the-paywall content. This has previously been on a Tuesday and Wednesday and I intend to stick to that schedule.

I’ll admit that Tuesday has been a difficult one for me to get right. Those of you who have been paying for content since I turned on the paywall in August 2022 will have seen me trial both practical written courses and essay series around different topics. I liked doing both but felt they were quite rigid in their scope and didn’t allow much room for flexibility or creativity on my part.

For now, I want to keep Tuesday flexible in order to keep it fresh. It might be a topical essay. It might be content around a theme for a few weeks. As paid subscribers to S+S increase, it might be a discussion thread. Once I build up the courage to do so, it could be a podcast episode.

And finally, Recipe Wednesday.

I’ve ummed and ahhed about whether to move Recipe Wednesday - highly flexible recipes designed to reduce waste and fit into what you already have in your fridge and pantry - to a completely separate Substack. Food and simple living isn’t an obvious fit.

In the end. I decided to keep it under the S+S umbrella, but as a separate newsletter now called The Capsule Pantry that, as a paying subscriber, you can opt in and out of as you please.

Think of it as this publication’s food supplement.

Much like a capsule wardrobe, The Capsule Pantry invites you to live with a small number of ingredients - 51 of them in fact. I will teach out how to use those ingredients as the basis of endless recipes and dishes. These highly flexible and variable recipes will be sent to your inbox every Wednesday.

And that’s Simple and Straightforward 2023 in a slightly long-winded nutshell. Like most of you, I’m just trying to find a way through the complexities of our modern world.

This week, I’ll send both the Tuesday and Wednesday content that would normally be paywalled to everyone on the list so you can all get a good idea about how we roll around here before it’s back to business as usual next week.

I’m so happy you’re with me on this wild ride we call simplifying life.

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Setting your 2023 intentions

I’m not one for resolutions. I don’t know many people who are these days - enough of us have tried and failed to keep new year's resolutions to be done with them entirely.

Some years ago, I started to set intentions instead. Things like:

• Improving my communication skills.

• Investing in myself with things like therapy or business tools that make my life easier - and most importantly not feeling guilty about it.

• An improvement-less year - knowing that if I am at the same point at the end of the year as I was at the beginning, that’s no bad place to be (granted this only works if you are in a good place right now, but you could be in a better place than you realize).

This year, my intention is to go with the flow.

Last year I tried so hard to control everything, perhaps as a response to the Covid era where we all felt none of us had any semblance of control at all.

But control isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Life is too nuanced, too unpredictable. The people I see trying to control everything are miserable if anything goes even slightly outside their rigid boxes.

Intentions are a way to go with the flow. They don’t set hard and fast rules, they allow for flexibility. Which is why I love them so much.

I’d love to hear if you’ve set any intentions for 2023 - my inbox and the comments section are both open.

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