2026 is the year I'm finally getting my shit together, I swear
This January, join me in "life pruning" before we set new goals
Dearest reader — if you’ve forgotten / never knew / wish you could forget who I am, rest assured that I’ve also felt the same way in the last day alone. Such is life.
You’re here because you know me (author x2) or signed up based on something I wrote in a past life. If you’re tired of hustle culture and like to laugh, keep reading:
Where I’ve been.
Two years and two months ago, I made the mistake of purchasing property. I even wrote about my new big house. I was excited for the idea of building community and equity IRL—of getting a big, beautiful house that needed work, finding some housemates, and watching something emerge that couldn’t be planned. I’d host dinner parties, art parties, entertain out-of-town guests using the downstairs bedroom as an AirBnb, make neighborhood friends, learn woodworking. I had plans—dreams, even.
What ensued was a period of 750+ days in which the universe decided that my finite time on earth was best spent standing in line at Home Depot, playing house mom to a bunch of 30- and 40-somethings, responding to ads on Craigslist, and memorizing nuances of real estate law in Multnomah County, Oregon.
I learned how group dynamics, over the course of years, can be spoiled by one person— even after they’re long gone; how quickly a toxic environment can make you crazy; that sometimes there simply is not enough ketamine or gin in the world; that people who avoid therapy after emotional trauma have a tendency to become controlling and lack self-awareness about their role in re-creating said trauma. How crazy were the past two years, you ask?
Last year, I was sued for entering my own kitchen.
No, I’m not exaggerating or making this up. As it turns out, dominant personalities have an outsized sway in group dynamics—a trend that trickles upwards and outwards in every network in life you can think of:
A class bully or loudmouth who teaches classmates to edit themselves
A nosy or impatient family member who demands info that’s not their business
An insistent friend
Someone going through a divorce who is angry and cuts down treasured plants in your yard for no reason, after asked to not cut anything down
An insecure boss or coworker, scared that you’re going to spill the beans1
A confident, domineering person who treats cooperative living situations like status games, becomes paranoid that she’s going to get kicked out, and starts telling people that everything the landlady does is illegal, confusing her desires with legal reality
Our lives are unknowingly, yet constantly swayed by these individual personalities—their quirks of information processing, their avoidant behavior, and failure to see that they make up a part of the system that they’re criticizing. If there’s one lesson I learned, it’s that people severely underestimate how much influence they have.
Alas—this includes me!
All of this is to say that I did not intentionally decide to take a break from Substack, just as I did not intentionally decide to step back from work, because work is how you make money, the stuff you need to do things like stay alive, and now I have a little thing called debt.
So here I am—The Starr Report is back!
Because I have had a year, this year’s theme is Resilience: rebuilding smarter; finding joy in unexpected places; knowing we’re not alone in the constant gaslighting era; and how to figure out what works for you. You can expect:
Funny stories with useful frameworks. To wit, this month I’m discussing pruning (why cutting is just as important as adding; when to leave a situation; what to let go of)
Honoring the mental growth inherent in following curiosity (deep-dives and rabbit holes, in keeping with the required weirdness of living in 2026; coming up: the randomness of how academic subjects were formed; why numbers are not to be trusted; mycology)
A series on how I’m writing my third book. Not many midlist writers get to partner with bestselling authors, learn how to sell workshops to companies, or learn all of the non-writing ways to make money as a writer, which I got from spending four years with Chip Heath writing The Hilton Effect and Making Numbers Count.
Variety. It’s the spice of life, motherfucker.
Here’s what I won’t have:
ENDLESS COMPLAINTS. Sure, I’ll complain. But with a point.2
AI to do any of my writing
An interview with Michelle Obama (sadly)
By now, mid-January, we’ve all technically given up on our New Year’s resolutions. Or we’re hedging: I don’t have that much time; etc. But if you look at complex systems—nature, sustainable networks, and the like—you cannot endlessly add because we are not infinite beings. Adding a goal is just one step in the proces:.
Winter is for pruning
If you’ve been online during the past month, you’ve undoubtedly seen everyone’s goal-setting workbook. I downloaded many, including Dan Pink’s “These 26 minutes could transform your 2026.”
Sadly, these workbooks are all useless for large swaths of the populace: people who are already drowning, busy, tired, or swimming in chaos, as I was for the past two years.
Chances are that you need to delete before you can add. I’ve designed the 2026 Winter Pruning Workbook, available as a PDF download here.
We can’t add anything without setting boundaries, saying no, and letting go of things we no longer need. Don’t dismiss the psychological effect of crossing something off of your list (even if you never get around to it). Anyone who has kids, a house, a job, a chronic illness, a birthdate that takes a minute to scroll to in a dropdown menu, etc., etc.—odds are that you’ve accumulated a lot of mental scripts and responsibilities over the years.
Taking this lesson, I evicted myself from my own house a few months ago. Life is not linear; things don’t always compound and add up neatly. Sometimes, moving “up” or getting what you thought you wanted comes with an unforeseen addition that seems designed to drive you crazy. There’s no shame is changing your mind. Do what you have to do to stay sane.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this, forward to someone who’d like it. You can also buy me a coffee or follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn. This post may contain affiliate links.
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Karla Starr (@karlastarr) is the coauthor of Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers. Her first book, Can You Learn to Be Lucky? Why Some People Seem to Win More Often Than Others, was a Fast Company book of the year. She also writes The Starr Report, which you are reading the very end of.
Side note, I am totally going to spill the beans this year
Preview: Deviance is everywhere—just not on your feed
The pruning book is excellent, though somewhat daunting. Thanks for building that as a resource.
Welcome back!!