Since the dawn of my Type-B existence, I have been a strong proponent of taking it easy around the new year. The population gets hyper come January, frantically trying to become leaner, cleaner, clearer, richer and smarter atop a firm December base of caramel brittle and honey ham.

Meanwhile, all the corporations are peering out from behind ominous pine trees in the woods waiting to sell us every membership and herb and tracking app and sneaker and sober wind-down drink with adaptogens on the face of this orbiting boulder. Please, I will not buy your powdered greens, now leave my dressing chambers!

After a particularly stressful winter, I am extra eager to avoid all perky people in January. Then again, it can feel life-affirming to do something fresh after two months of holiday chaos, to reestablish a presence as unbothered, moisturized and in one's lane. I see both sides, which is why today I present you micro-resolutions for consideration. Sure, start life over in 2024 if you must... but not too much.

For instance:

Eat one new vegetable or fruit per week. Only because I say so, this includes french fries, mashed potatoes, cornbread, broccoli-cheese soup, ketchup, strawberries dipped in chocolate and apples slathered in candy-style peanut butter, not the natural stuff. Please respect my wishes; do not approach with any literature about grains, tubers or glucose.

Try Dry January 1. I joke, kind of! Dry January can be a really useful tool for those trying to cut back on the hooch, so I'm not making light of it. I'm just saying, every day of clarity and resolve you can claim after a month of swimming to the bottom of disastrous sparkling punchbowls is a good day. Even if you don't have 30 of them in a row.

Remember one new detail about someone each week. At times, I will suddenly realize I have been talking for too long about something that absolutely does not matter, such as the fact that my Pomeranian has shunned his tiny Milk-Bones lately because I guess he would prefer we serve him four-star crispy hog jowl cassoulet with dots of bacon foam on an artisanal sliced wooden log after he does his filthy business. Anyway, at this wretched moment of social awareness, I will look up and think, "It's time to ask this person a question. That is the contract." It would be helpful going forward to know that Susan attended the dentist this week or is trying to get out of her timeshare in Orlando or wore Crocs for the first time.

Hang one piece of clothing per day. I speak often of my laundry rat king, and that's because I find laundry to be the most overwhelming chore of all the chores. Like, I just want to go to sleep??? And the clothes are on the bed??? We have sent billionaires to space, and yet we do not have a robot named Rosie to do this task for us. Unacceptable. Look, I am talking a lot of nonsense here, but in the new year, I really think I might try hanging up just one garment per day, which I know will lead to two, which I know will annoyingly lead to three, and before I know it, I will have a clear sightline to bedroom surfaces again, and I will have self-actualized. This is practical, useful and I'm already tired just thinking about it.

Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

Photo credit: Jamie Fenn at Unsplash