In the lead-up to every summer for as long as I can remember, I have written a ‘summer bucket list’—a sort of aspirational guide to the season ahead. The items on the list have always varied in intensity, from simple things like fish and chips on the beach with friends, to slightly more complicated targets, like holidaying at a beach house.

No matter the size or respective difficulty of the goal, I’ve never successfully ‘completed’ one of these lists. In fact, I’ve never even come close. Lists are nice in theory, especially when you’re as big of a fan of organisation and scheduling as I am, but truth be told, the fun is usually only in the making of the list, and not the living of it.

So, this summer, I decided not to make a list of any kind. Instead, I’ve decided to live instinctively and with spontaneity (which doesn’t always come naturally to me) and to follow my every whim, so long as it serves one of the following priorities: time in the sun and time with the people I love. Not only is this much simpler, but it’s also a positive reward system, because instead of ‘failing’ to achieve something, pretty much everything I do over the summer is bound to satisfy my new approach.

Every now and then, an idea will pop into my head and suddenly I’m itching to make a plan for the summer, but I’m resisting that temptation, and it’s getting easier. Rather than a long list of must-dos stretching before me, all I see are long days by the ocean, and that’s pretty unbeatable.