52 analog activities for every week of 2026
what if we made joy and creation our NY resolution?
It’s official, at least according to me, that 2026 is shaping up to be the year of offline time.
I have been noticing it emerge quietly. Girls at my local neighbourhood pool flipping through paperbacks, requests from friends to come over and make beaded anklets for summer, invitations to cosy board game nights, conversations at the dog park lingering longer then usual… realising that me and just about every girlie is planning to make junk journalling our new years resolution.
There is a growing fatigue around constant digital presence, and when you zoom out, it makes sense. Every dominant cultural movement eventually creates a counter-culture, often not through rebellion, but through subtle shifts in how people choose to spend their time and attention.
Creativity, focus, learning, and presence all require uninterrupted, embodied engagement, which becomes harder to access when our days are shaped by algorithms and notifications. The growing pull towards offline activities reflects a desire to reclaim these capacities, not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity.
This is also why I have been rethinking the idea of resolutions. They are so often framed around restriction, productivity, or self-reinvention, particularly in relation to food, bodies, and discipline, as though a new year requires a complete overhaul of who we are.
But resolutions do not need to centre on control or optimisation, and they don’t need to involve a rebrand into a more polished version of the self. Although I personally am all aboard the whimsical rebrand train (look, I’m a fan of a rebrand as long as it’s actually cute and doesn’t involve less cinny buns).
With my whimsy rebrand in mind, I have put together a fun list of analog activities for those you who want to prioritise play, joy, creation and peace in 2026.
I love the idea of actually doing one of these activities each week but I think that may be too ambitious. I’ll keep you posted. But maybe, just maybe, if I use the time I spend on my screen, offline, I’ll have time to do the fun, quaint things I actually want to be doing.
52 analog activities for every week of 2026
Week 1:
Source a handful of novelty buttons from Facebook Marketplace or an op shop, find a sturdy old fabric bag, and sew to your heart’s content. No sewing machine required. Just a needle, thread, and the perfect cosy afternoon in.
Week 2:
Ask your grandmother (or someone else’s, honestly) if she has any old embroidered tablecloths hiding away. Turn one into an apron. Embroider your name if you’re feeling extra romantic. Then actually use it to bake a family recipe, not just for aesthetics.
Week 3:
Teach yourself how to make the perfect focaccia. Make it fluffy, oily, and unapologetically indulgent. I would trust any recipe from Nagi.
Week 4:
Sign up to a snail mail club. Let something arrive just for joy. Save the stickers and postcards for next month’s junk journal. I love Raindrops on Roses (my own hehe), Alex Gold, Cosy Mail Club, Craftaholic’s, Analog Club, and Lemon Drop Press.
Week 5:
Join a birdwatching group or simply decide you’re now a person who notices birds. Learn the names, their calls and fun little facts about the birds in your city. A great little article with lots of facts about the birds in Melbourne but feel free to search your own city.
Week 6:
Collect a few old shells and decoupage them with tissue paper. Line the edges with a gold marker and turn them into tiny trinket holders for rings, matches, or little affirmations you want to remind yourself of.
Week 7:
Start a junk journal. No rules, no perfection. If you want prompts, Martina Calvi’s A Year of Junk Journaling offers 52 weeks of inspo to get you started.
Week 8:
Join a sister circle. Use eventbrite to find one in your area if you can attend in person, otherwise you can join my one online. I host mine on the new moon every month if you’d like to join, you’ll get an invite as part of my snail mail club.
Week 9:
Plan a Valentine’s Day picnic in the park with your girlfriends. Think blankets, strawberries and silly little desserts.
Week 10:
Make yourself a fairy crown and designate it as your official house-cleaning crown. Chores are less annoying when you’re wearing something ridiculous and magical. Maddie Duda creates some beautiful crowns if you’re seeking inspiration and you can use this as a pattern to get you going.
Week 11:
Ask your smartest, most well-read friend for their top three favourite books. Commit to reading them this month, even if they’re not your usual genre.
Week 12:
Pick a country and learn what the national dish is. Hunt down a local specialty grocery store and make a meal for you and a loved one to share. I learnt to make Indian food in 2025 and it was of the best things I did with my year. A great life skill and I get to eat yummy Indian food whenever I want. This onion masala is a lifesaver and I often have one in the freezer.
Week 13:
Start a collection. Stickers, stamps, coins, pressed flowers, novelty salt and pepper shakers. I love the stickers from Martina’s Tiny Store. What did you love collecting as a kid before everything had to be useful or productive?
Week 14:
Choose a cuisine you’ve never tried before and book a restaurant to experience it properly. There’s an Ethiopian restaurant near my house that I’ve always wanted to try, an easy resolution I can keep.
Week 15:
Take a dance class. Ballroom, salsa, ballet, jazz, hip hop, pole. And if you’re like me with no rhythm and no interest in learning, try silent disco instead.
Week 16:
Replace the buttons on a boring cardigan with novelty ones. Source them from FB Marketplace or ask your mum or grandmother to raid her biscuit tin button container.
Week 17:
Buy the weekend paper and plan a fancy breakfast in bed. Pick wildflowers, make crepes or buy pastries, squeeze fresh orange juice, and drink coffee from a teacup on a silver platter. Romanticise your own life.
Week 18:
Write a poem about something small and beautiful you noticed this week. It doesn’t have to be impressive. The highest ambition of your week can be simply noticing the sun creeps toward your shoe.
Week 19:
Buy a rose and spend time just looking, teaching yourself how to draw it.
Week 20:
Source old tablecloths or lace curtains from the thrift store and make a ruffled tote bag. This simple pattern makes it surprisingly achievable, even if sewing scares you.
Week 21:
Play bananagrams (or any board game) with friends. We did this as a family when the electricity went off in South Africa, and we played by candlelight. It was such a cosy way to spend a night in together.
Week 22:
Learn how to make a lino cut stamp. This little video is a great introduction. My husband bought me a stamp making kit for Christmas, you could try one of these if you want everything in one.
Week 23:
Bring a poetry book to bed and read a few poems every night before you sleep. One of my favourites is The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy.
Week 24:
Learn to crochet or knit. Just start with something easy like these flower coasters. My mum made my sisters and I a set of four and they are so sweet.
Week 25:
Try aquascaping and create a tiny underwater world.
Week 26:
Start and finish a jigsaw puzzle. I love the ones by Salem Goods (hoping for a restock), but choose something you’ll actually enjoy staring at for hours.
Week 27:
Invite friends over and use conversation cards to go a little deeper than small talk.
Week 28:
Visit your local library and choose books based purely on their titles or covers.
Week 29:
Take yourself on a solo museum or gallery date. Walk slowly, sit on benches and let yourself be even a bit bored.
Week 30:
Re-purchase and re-read your favourite childhood books.
Week 31:
Make a recipe book that will store your recipes for generations to come. So many cute ideas if you just type in “recipe book” in Pinterest.
Week 32:
Buy stretchy elastic and tiny beads. Invite friends over and make bracelets or anklets together like you’re thirteen again.
Week 33:
Read three books under 100 pages long. Short doesn’t mean shallow. Use this list for inspiration.
Week 34:
Learn how to pray the rosary. It sounds religious but it’s a centuries old tradition which occurred long before the Catholic Church. It’s also rhythmic, meditative, and deeply calming. Read The Way of the Rose for context and also this article I wrote a while back for some goddess history if the religious element gives you the heebie jeebies.
Week 35:
Journal at the end of each day. Not pages and pages, just a few lines. This list of 1000 prompts can help get you started.
Week 36:
Make paper clay candle sconces. Make yourself a little goddess alter and say your daily prayers and affirmations there. You can use this DIY template here and decorate it yourself, Pinterest has so many ideas.
Week 37:
Collect rocks from a beach or trail and invest in a rock tumbling kit. This is def on my to-do list for 2026 as I collected some bangers last year.
Week 38:
Plant tulip bulbs and trust the future version of you will be glad you did.
Week 39:
Choose a topic you loved as a child; ancient Egypt, space, aliens, dinosaurs… and read the top three books on it. My dad always used to say you only need to know 10% more of a topic than the next person to be considered an expert.
Week 40:
Smash up old china plates from FB Marketplace or thrift stores and make the most whimsical bird house on your street. This is a great article that takes you through every step. I’m obsessed!
Week 41:
Volunteer to walk dogs at your local animal shelter.
Week 42:
Read The Mermaid Princess by Shirley Barber, then visit the beach, collect shells, and make yourself a paper clay trinket holder inspired by the sea.
Week 43:
Host a potluck night. Everyone brings one dish. No pressure for perfection, just shared food. If you feel like being cute, pick a theme.
Week 44:
Take Polaroids of your favourite people or pets and make paper clay photo frames to house them. Or, if you don’t like people, paint a hen wearing a bonnet.
Week 45:
Take yourself to a cat café and spend an hour petting cats. My dream date. Cute.
Week 46:
Create a plate transfer of your house or pet using tissue paper and porcelain markers. See this thread for more details and the comments for inspo from other users.
Week 47:
Buy a bird bath and spend quiet mornings watching your new neighbours arrive.
Week 48:
Collect lucky amulets over the year (keep a note of where you found them and what they mean to you), and store them in your junk journal, a heirloom wooden box or stitch them into a portable pocket alter.
Week 49:
Make a portable pocket alter. You can sew this together yourself, or fashion everything into a tin. I love this idea, carrying this around in my bag for good luck.
Week 50:
Try walking meditation. Walk as slowly as you possibly can around your local park. That’s it. I used to host this in Perth and it’s how I meet two amazing friends. Be warned though, walking slowly in a group makes you look a bit cult-y.
Week 51:
Learn to urban forage. This article is a good start if you’re in Australia.
Week 52:
Take a nap somewhere unexpected. Not the couch. The park, the lake, the back of your car after sunrise, under the stars.
I hope this list was helpful to you in deciding what activities you can choose to experience a more joyful, more whimsical, more playful, more peaceful and more present 2026.
Thank you for being here!
Hugs,
Madalin
buttons on the first week got me laughing. hey so it actually only has to make sense to me for me to do it and i don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else
This is such a wonderful, creative, and whimsical list! Will definitely try to do some of these in the new year.