It’s already the third week of January – how are your New Year’s resolutions going? I still love the concept of my twelve goals in twelve months, but I have to say that my discipline to actually accomplish my January goal is waning.
Last week, I got done everything that was on my to-do list that needed to get done. However, I wasn’t doing it on the schedule I had set for myself in the morning. You might think that’s okay, since I was still getting done everything I really needed to do, but I didn’t do most of the nice-to-have items that I had moved from my “this week” or “this month” list to finally check off. So… not really great.
This week, though, I’m honestly not sure if I can improve on the discipline side of things. My weekend ended rather poorly and I’ve now got a lot of personal decisions I’m struggling with, so I want to be realistic about what I can accomplish in the meantime. I know work certainly can’t take a backseat to my personal life, and I’m hoping that in fact my work will serve as a good distraction to keep my mind occupied. I’ll continue to get the urgent and important things done, but I can’t see myself prioritizing any nice-to-haves on my to-do list over some self-care things that I know I need right now. Bring on the chick lit novel reading and sweaty gym time!
I think what that means for my schedule goal is that I need to give myself a bit of a break. My friend Caitlin told me yesterday that she takes a similar approach to her work day in putting time onto her calendar to achieve certain tasks, and she sympathized with my discipline struggles. “Maybe you need to schedule some downtime rather than just one task after another,” she suggested, and I think she’s right. So I think this week I’m going to try to schedule a ten minute walk around the building every two hours. That will give me the breathing room I need, possibly help me in my uber-competitive desire to win my work Fitbit challenge, and also give me time to chat with coworkers about non-work stuff (which is some relationship-building that I should be doing anyway).
How’s your week looking? Tell me some good stuff!
I hope your week gets better!
Thanks, Joanne!
I hope your week improves, I also seem to have a list of to-do’s and yet no breathing room. I have set up time to step away from my desk at 3pm every day, to just stretch and move around, get some fresh air for 15min. So far it is helping and I am feeling more productive.
I think the get up and stretch break is one I’m going to need to put on my calendar, like you do… I completely skipped it yesterday :/