Year-End Learnings, Great Books, and Saying Good Bye

A little late to your inbox, but this is the last 5 Things newsletter of 2023. Anyone else a little emotional? I spent December 31st cleaning and planning for the next week, month, quarter, and year.

Instead of just sharing my typical 5 things I loved in December, this is a special edition with some extra favourites of the year.

With the year now over, here are some important lessons I learned:

1. The best way to start cancelling out negative self talk is by building trust with yourself. Keep promises you make to yourself, validate your own feelings, and make time to take care of your self.
2. Success and achievement is great but the balance comes from also enjoying what you do and the journey.
3. Gone are the times of keeping a "perfect image" on social media. People are craving realness.
4. Your environment is often times a reflection of your mind.
5. Getting enough rest is critical to your creativity and productivity

I read 43 books in 2023, surpassing my 40 book goal! In 2024 we're aiming for 50, so wish me luck! Here are my 5 top favourite books of the year.

1. ​Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir​
2. ​Mercury - Amy Jo Burns​
3. ​Cleopatra and Frankenstein - Coco Mellors ​
4. ​Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi​
5. ​Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin​

Now for the 5 things I loved from December

My new favourite foundation. Not often do I share beauty products here but it's usually because I stick with my holy grail products. But in December, I decided reevaluate all of the products that I was using to make I was avoiding any pore-clogging ingredients. So I switched over to the Nars Light Reflecting foundation and it quickly became a must-have item. It's a medium-coverage foundation with the best glowy natural finish.

The best water bottle I've ever tried. I gave in to the hype and finally bought the Owala bottle. As someone who loves the convenience of a bottle but prefers to drink from a sippy cup, this feels like it was made for me. The ergonomics of the mouse piece feels so natural and it also comes in 3 sizes and tons of colour options. For once I went with a bright colour instead of my typical all-black or all-white scheme for bottles. I got a 32 oz which is perfect for home water-drinking but I'm considering purchasing the 24oz as well so it's easier to carry around.

A game-changing calendar app. I used to wonder why people paid for calendar apps when there are free ones. Now I understand. I tested out Vimcal in December and now I'm completely a convert. For someone who takes a lot of meetings, Vimcal the best meeting scheduling feature I've ever used. It also has an abundance of keyboard shortcuts and quick features that help to speed up your overall workflow. Their desktop version is paid but their mobile app is completely free and allows you to use pretty much all the same features. I promise you you'll love it.

A new favourite lip-mask. My lips get so dry, so easily (probably because I don't drink enough water) so having a good lip mask for bedtime is an absolute must. I got this one from Sage as a holiday gift and it's been the perfect repair product to apply before I sleep.

My Notion productivity dashboard. A bit of a self-plug here but one of the best things I did this year was consolidate all of my different notion dashboards to create the ultimate productivity workspace. I now use this template for manage all of my different projects and tasks and it's truly made managing multiple jobs so much easier. It's also what my entire marketing team at work uses as well. You can use 'CWANEWS10' fo 10% off <3

Incase you missed it

​​That's it for 2023! Can't wait to see what 2024 holds.

Angel x

PS. I've been working on a goal setting video for this week so stay tuned for t