March Goal Progress: Week 3 Check In

I have been really overwhelmed lately, and just generally stressed on all fronts. It didn’t help that last week I got incredibly behind on sleep, which made me feel like a zombie all week.

I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately on the importance of sleep and exactly what happens when you go without it (see my Links I Love yesterday). But one of the most compelling sources of sleep information was not an article, but this podcast episode from Chalene Johnson, which discussed how the brain gets impacted by lack of sleep. The TLDR (TLDListen?) is that sleep deprivation can cause brain damage so significant that doctors think perhaps you were a drug addict! I’m starting to think that my April goal will need to be something around trying to get 8 hours of sleep every night… that would be a challenge for sure.

So speaking of my monthly challenges, it’s time for me to face the music: I utterly failed with my 100k steps goal last week, and I’m really frustrated by that. It started on Tuesday night when it was nearly 10pm and I only had around 10k steps, so I walked around my hotel for 90 minutes until I hit my 15k goal. But when Wednesday came and I was once again a few thousand steps short, I was just too tired to go walk again, so I told myself I’d make it up later in the week, and ended the night with about 12k. Thursday I got in 15.5k – not enough to make up the Wednesday deficit, but at least I hit my goal. But then Friday I only managed 10.7k steps, Saturday I squeaked in with 14.5k, and yesterday I had a measly 7.7k! Total for 7 days: 91,771 steps, or almost 10,000 steps short of my goal 🙁

Of course, missing an admittedly-aggressive step goal isn’t the end of the world. But beyond my step goal, I feel like I failed in a couple different areas last week. The step count was actually a good metaphor for the rest of my week: I had so much to do and kept telling myself I’d have more time for things once the weekend came, but then my weekend was so jam packed that I left a ton of stuff on my to-do list undone. My Dad is coming to visit this weekend, which I’m super psyched about, but I’m now thinking some of our “explore Colorado” activities will be things like “complete/file tax return” and “finish putting up curtains in the basement.” Not exactly the right way to host a guest!

My stress is compounded by all the travel I do for work, which has been wearing on me lately. I really love the work I’m doing right now, but being away from home four days a week is much less glamorous and much more difficult than it might appear. In addition to seeing friends a lot less than I would like, I feel like I’m also neglecting a ton of stuff around the house. There is so much I want/need to do at home, and no time to do any of it! I am so jealous of how most people get to go home every single night – it just sounds so luxurious to me to be able to do little tasks every day instead of being forced to save all the chores and errands for the the weekend.

On the bright side, I’m going to be taking a Monday to work from home in a few weeks (mostly so I can take my trash out, since pickup is Monday afternoons and our HOA fines us if we leave the bins out more than 24 hours). I’m also taking an entire week in May to work from home, which is going to be glorious. And finally, I’m thinking of taking some staycations in the next few months to use up some of my vacation days. My company is really generous with the amount of vacation we are given, but I think it says a lot about life on the road that my most wished for vacation is a few days at home to do chores.

But with all that whining out of the way, I’ll note that the fresh start of the week has me feeling optimistic. So hopefully I can soon make a dent in the chores at home, catch up on sleep, see my friends, and actually finish my to-do list each day? Well, a girl can dream…