A year is made of little things.
Eva Calder’s 2026 notebook. A page before breakfast, a walk after dinner, and a gentler relationship with the calendar.
Small enough to begin again
At the start of this year I wrote a list of improvements so long that it needed a second sheet of paper. By the next morning it already felt like homework. I live in Rotterdam, in a flat where the kitchen table is also my desk, and I decided the year did not need to become another demanding room to keep tidy.
So I chose smaller things. Read one page while the first cup of tea cools. Walk around the block after dinner. Put the day’s loose paper into one tray instead of several mysterious piles. Some days I do all three. Some days I only remember the tray. I am learning to count returning as part of the practice.
The three entries are moments when those ordinary repetitions changed shape. They are personal observations rather than instructions for a better life. I like hearing how people arrange their days, especially when the arrangements are modest and a little untidy. Read about me and this notebook if you would like to know why the year has its own small corner of the web.