vaneramos | Reviewing resolutions

Attempts to modify my routine continue to meet with resistance from the back benches. I know the reason: as already mentioned, I've been trying to change too many things at once. It's a familiar lesson. I should have known better. While any one of these goals on its own inspires enthusiasm, altogether they provoke rebellion and apathy. I am not happy when I have too many things to accomplish in a day, especially when several of them are unfamiliar or challenging. Too much newness is stressful. Before too much time runs down the drain, I need to decide what to salvage and what to let go.

"Small steps, Ellie. Small steps."

What specifically went wrong? I tried to introduce two—actually three new daily habits at the same time. Two of them required considerable time and emotional commitment: 45 minutes of daily physical exercise and an hour of fiction writing. At the same time I started trying to fix my sleeping habits again. I also have fibre projects that require daily progress to meet looming deadlines. All this was supposed to be happening while I was still adjusting to (what amounts to) a new lifestyle as a freelance writer. It still requires discipline, which does not come naturally to me, and I've been turning too much focus toward other challenges.

A specific problem with the exercise routine is that, while I love semi-aerobic weight training, I was not looking forward to starting to run a couple times a week. That has discouraged me from following through.

None of these things should have surprised me, but I have also learned one new lesson about myself: trying to follow a fixed schedule, with specific time slots for specific activities, hasn't work very well. My energy shifts considerably day to day. Writing fiction at 9:30 am might have been awesome fun one day, but most days it is not. I need to take each day on hour at a time.

GQueues software can work well for me. It's a glorified to-do list. Each morning I browse through different lists of tasks and choose the ones I want to do today, tagging them #today to send them to a smart queue. I can use as many pretty colours as I want so it feels like play. Things go better when I do them in whatever order I want, depending on mood and other factors. I have begun to relish checking things off the list each day, watching them disappear.

But if I give myself too long a list, it becomes counterproductive. I get discouraged and stop using GQueues. Another freelancer told me she has about 20 things on her daily to-do list. If she crosses off five of them, life is good. But I get discouraged by long, unfinished lists. I'm afraid to look at GQueues in the morning, afraid to face my negligence. So I'm going to set a new upper limit for my morning browse: no more than eight tasks tagged #today. If I can accomplish most of them, it feels like progress.

What pieces will I pick up? I've decided to scrap the two-month fiction challenge I signed onto. Trying daily to write fiction is only distracting me from looking for paid work. Maybe I can chip away at it from time to time when I feel inspired, but making it a habit will have to wait. Likewise, I'm going to stop worrying about changing my bedtime, for now. Staying up late and sleeping in is not ideal, but I'll deal with it later.

The fibre projects are going fine. No worries. I might put in an extra push this weekend to finish spinning for the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat scarf challenge so I can start warping the loom. But I'm not having any trouble making it a daily practice. Spinning can be an enjoyable form of morning meditation, or a change of pace mid-afternoon.

The new project I can't afford to drop is daily exercise. How will I make it work? I feel stressed because I've fallen so far behind in the daily actions previously set. So I'm giving myself a fresh start, an extra month and a new schedule. Instead of reaching 45 minutes per day by the end of April, I have until the end of May. I'm going to buy some more dumbbells and a bench to make the workout more enjoyable and effective. I'm also going to pick an alternative to running outside. Climbing our two flights of stairs a few times each day might work. Alternatively I'm considering using videos to learn how to step dance, which would be more complicated but more fun. Either way, I'll need a new pair of shoes.

As for the freelancing, well, the purpose of what I've already said is to keep everything else simple so I have enough time, focus and energy to work. If one of my eight daily tasks on GQueues is exercise, one is a fibre craft and two or three are typically errands or social commitments, that leaves three or four tasks related to marketing and writing for pay.

An exercise habit will be successfully formed when I don't have to include it on GQueues anymore.