Earlier this year I took my annual financial planning and year-in-review tasks off the to-do list.
The only real goal left after about the Fourth of July was to simply get through 2020, and no one needed to write down something like that.
Last week, though, I opened the annual file and got to work. I've preached the wisdom of the annual financial review for years, and so I planned to write that sticking to good financial habits might be even more important this year.
I gave it maybe 15 minutes and quit. My heart wasn't in it.
Part of the explanation for giving up is that I tried to imagine a reader who has lost a job or struggled all year to keep a small business going coming across this kind of column.
It has been that kind of year, when even normal activities still possible to do often felt uncomfortable to go ahead and try. The Big Ten football games were still on TV, but I never watched. Could those unpaid college kids be playing football in a pandemic just to save the TV contracts?
Maybe no one could escape the new coronavirus, but of course it hasn't affected everybody in the same way. In some families no one has become sick, while as of last count the virus has killed about 5,000 Minnesotans.
Folks in my professional circle had to go without close contact with friends and family, of course. They had to participate in church services only on YouTube live and cut back all sorts of activities that make life better, like leisurely restaurant meals, out-of-state vacations and even the annual trip to the State Fair.