A note on Day Zero Project on the goal: Establish a daily routine

PROGRESS UPDATE

A goal of Nicole Perry Brown on their A bit more than 43 things list with a status of In Progress.

Baby steps. We're settled in the new house, I'm settled in my work schedule (though looking to change it soonish), and Anya has started her new school. The big difference this year is she's riding the school bus, so there is a time by which she absolutely needs to be ready to leave. As such, I have not been letting her sleep in; I get her up an hour before she needs to leave and feed her here every morning. This has helped us both not rush, but it's also made clear that we were going to bed way too late.

Last night I enforced an earlier bedtime. Our Fitbits this morning backed me up on this: For once, we both got our target amount of sleep (7 hours for me, 9 for her), and our morning went much more smoothly as a result. So from now on, we sleep with the chickens.

As for my routine, I'm finally back into somewhat of a morning ritual: I take my vitamins, brush, floss, wash my face, put my contacts in, and get dressed every single morning. It's a start.

Posted 5 years ago

Related Notes:

I have not made any progress with any of this. I have done nothing all all, really, but work for the past month. In addition to my two jobs, my freelance work has increased exponentially, with no slowdown in sight. Which is great for our finances, but bad for me. I'm eating erratically. Collapsing into a coma in bed at night. I'm not exercising at all, instead spending my days hunched over the keyboard, and as a result hurt all over my body. I'm beginning to have trouble with doubling vision, breakouts, hair loss.

I spend my days in my pajamas. I don't even put in my contacts most days. I get up, get a cup of tea, and work for 12-18 hours without so much as a meal break (I eat while I work), then shower, go to bed, and sleep until I start it all over again. On weekends, all I want to do is lay in bed and binge-watch shows. (Granted, it's been cold. I'd probably want to do that anyway. Still...that's so not me.)

This is temporary, I know. But even doing this temporarily is no good for me -- physically, mentally, or emotionally.

I have found myself this past week taking FB breaks while I work. Which is also not very me, but I'm starting to crack at the seams.

So scrap the elegant, overarching plan. I need something in place right now to better care for myself, or myself won't be able to take care of anyone else. And then we'll really be screwed. I'll worry about long range once I have a chance to catch a breath. (less) (less)

6 years ago

I was in the midst of drafting a routine when my husband lost his job. To cover the loss, I went to FT (30 hours/week) with one of my jobs, but didn't ditch the other. Our days thus look a lot different than they did the last time I posted.

Also, I've re-evaluated my current system, and previous systems. And I've had to admit that the daily itemized to-do list does nothing but stress me out. Having to cross things off my list all day, every day. Not achieving everything I intend to do. Hell, just having a mix of dailies, weeklies, need-to-dos, and want-to-dos all dumped in the same pot stresses me out. What I think would work better would be this:

1. List all the things I would like to become routine. Determine how best to ensure they do become routine. (Be that enlisting family members, creating a physical chore chart, setting alarms on my phone, whatev.)
2. Create a list of need-to-dos and a way to make sure they stay on my radar (calendar entries, alarms, to-do list, etc).
3. Create a list of want-to-dos, separate from the need-to-dos and the routine, with its own accountability setup.
4. Most importantly, make sure that the tracking of 1-3 doesn't become a task in itself. I don't have time for that ish.

Habitica is cute, but it's not doing it for me. In the past, I've used Evernote, ToDoist, AnyDo, plus sites like 43t and Popclogs, Excel spreadsheets, even Google Calendar entries and Notepad files. I'm going to do a little research and see if I can find a different app that fits my needs. If not, I'll cobble together my own system. But I think it's important that I feel like the system is a good fit before I spend all that time setting it up. (less) (less)

6 years ago

It seems like a lot of my current goals -- and current challenges -- have to do with daily habits I'd like to establish. For example:

* I want our mornings and evenings to be pleasant, and eliminate the conflicts in both. I remember mornings and bedtimes being a power struggle when I was a kid, and often went to school/bed in a snit and not speaking to one or both parents. Didn't make for a good day or a restful night's sleep. So I'm doing a lot of prepping beforehand and setting up daily rituals to help smooth the way. We're not there yet, but I can say that we're doing a lot better than I'd expected, given my own childhood.
* My workload is feast or famine: I either work a few hours or 16. And I never know when I get up in the morning which it'll be. I thus need healthy food on hand that I can shovel in one-handed while working. This requires both thoughtful grocery shopping and adequate meal prep.
* As the only parent on deck 12+ hours of the day, a lot falls to me. School, meals, activity transportation, doctor visits, bill pay, house cleaning, child care...and I'm running a business, too. I tend to let my own needs fall by the wayside as a result, and goals like regular exercise get lost in the shuffle. I want to do better. I need to do better.

I've had good luck incorporating some habits into my routine; for instance, I brush and floss twice a day now, and would no more skip my AM flossing than I would putting in my contacts. (Which means I might do it if I were deathly ill, but otherwise it's non-negotiable.) A large part of getting myself to do things is to build them into the schedule: I make sure I pause in my morning work early enough to wash my face, brush my teeth, and put my makeup on when I go to wake the kids. Similarly, if I want me to exercise, I'm going to have to schedule it.

I had a good exercise schedule going, before the IBS flared hard and I hurt too bad to exercise. (Also, our AC died; nobody wants to exercise when they're in pain and the house is 80 degrees at 7 a.m.) But I'm feeling a little better now, and am ready to give it another go. Once I get a schedule mocked up, I'll post it here. (less) (less)

6 years ago