One thing that’s become clear over the past year or so of chaos is that it’s helpful to focus on the things that you can control. With that in mind, I focused in on achieving my Apple activity badges each month - the personalised ones, not the all-three-rings-every-single-day one. At first it was just a bit of fun, and then, despite my best intentions, it became a complete the full year of badges project.

And I did it!

The first half of the year included monthly challenges like closing the exercise ring a certain number of times, earning a certain number of exercise minutes, and walking a certain number of kilometres. I’m glad that last one snuck in before lockdown happened, and then I don’t know if Apple planned it that way or not but it didn’t come back for the rest of the year, phew!

Obviously lockdown changed a lot of things, going from outdoor adventures to indoor-based activities. Being solely based indoors meant I realised how good the options are and how unnecessary my gym subscription was, so that worked out well for my wallet!

The second half of the year was tricky partly due to all the ongoing uncertainty but also because my workload went completely crazy. The difference between the types of goal became more obvious. Something like “earn so many minutes” is slightly easier because you can do more in one day to make up for a less successful day, whereas “close your rings” is obviously a day-by-day situation.

Finally, it all came down to December which was to earn exercise minutes. I thought this was going to be hard to achieve because it’s December and it’s been a long year and we all need a rest. But fortunately for me and my badges, Fitness+ came out and I had to try out all the things and thus I earned the badge with a week to spare. Hooray!

Now the question is whether to continue the streak. There’s clearly space for two more badges in that last picture…