The compact page-a-day calendar was easy to take on trips to the woods where my friends would offer to help with the puzzle and then immediately get frustrated that they didn’t know which seven-time Emmy winner a clue could possibly be referring to (Ed Asner). I can’t rip off a day until I’ve finished it (except for the times when I got behind by a week…catching up on that is too much pressure so I just rip seven days off in a chunk like they never happened).

I set myself rules to make it feel even more like an accomplishment (again I am not saying this is the right way to do things): I never google clues, but I can phone a friend. At the end of that year, I bought a crossword puzzle calendar to give myself a daily task (I’m bad at hobbies so hobbies must be tasks) for 2021 that could take anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours to complete. I knew it was hurting my eyes and brain, but I struggled during quarantine to find a hobby I enjoyed that took me completely offline. I refuse to look at my phone’s Screen Time, but I’m sure that in 2020 I spent at least 80% of my waking hours looking at my phone or laptop. A daily NYT crossword puzzle calendar - $14 at Amazon

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