This week started with a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad moment. It is important to note that it was a moment in time because it would be very easy to define your day, week, or life by a single moment. I woke up today hating everyone and not being passive-aggressive, just aggressive. I am happy to report that the hatred has passed, and I only took out my wrath on the helpless sink of dishes. I get so much accomplished when rage cleaning. Poop happens. You deal with it and keep going. In practice, you deal with it and keep going, but sometimes it can derail and demotivate you to quit. My experiment on time management has run for two weeks, and this week has felt like it went off the rails. The blocks continued to pile up this week at a faster pace. They reached the top of the pile and are spilling over. I want to quit, but I know that I need to continue to be intentional and stop being a victim of circumstances.
Part of why this is happening is because I took some shortcuts. I started verbally reflecting on the day with the kids. It was quality time. It was also Jedi-level rationalization. By the third day of this, I realized I needed to write it down, and I also wrote down what the kids had to say. On Friday, I threw out the baby with the bathwater because even though I had things on my schedule, I forgot they were on my schedule. I think I may need to have both a digital and analog version of my schedule. It makes no sense to craft time carefully on my calendar and then ignore it. I am known for being dependable, and I am dependable to everyone but myself.
Our environment plays a massive role in our behavior. For example, rainy days put me on edge. It is harder to find the same amount of energy on rainy days versus sunny days. My environment is a patchwork of things I've stuck a pin in over the years. I am often overwhelmed and move from critical urgent things to hot-button items instead of my original goal of being intentional and using my time to accomplish what I want. I have had wins this week. I carved out my first power hour after trying to do one for two years. I have a vacation coming up, and I am viewing it as an opportunity to take out some of the pins. I also can't wait until vacation starts to get organized and must continue with this experiment. Hopeium has not been working. Setting a timer and doing short tasks works well, but I have not put those five or fifteen minutes on my calendar.
I created a physical paper calendar. Let's see how this works out for me. What I don't know that I don't know maybe another issue. I plan on planning out my week and also logging what I actually do. Perhaps this will help me to identify better and bridge the gap between my intentions and my actions. I also am realizing that I delineate time as work and non-work. The non-work days are far more unstructured than the work days, undermining me. Another win has been waking up at the same time each day, whether it was a workday or weekend. I got more steps this week than the week prior. I also was more selective in the training I attended and was able to take actionable data away. I had not planned on continuing to discuss my experiment, but it is helping me to process what is working and what is not working. If you are trying to change your life, do not give up. What can you try differently this week?
