New Schedule Update

So we’re into the third week of January. Time is flying faster than a peregrin falcon.

I’ve been doing well with my new schedule and daily planning.

I’ve been getting up early Monday to Friday and meditating, praying and stretching. I feed the dogs, make my lunch, take my time getting dressed. Mornings are slow and steady. I think the stretching is really helping with flexibility and my sore back…which is doing much better!

My daily to-do lists look different. I write the actual full date at the top of the page. And I am following the schedule that I set out that includes specific times for doing specific tasks. I am finagling if I get things done sooner, but even with the times that ‘open up’, I’m still working very hard to stick to ‘only do this work during this time’ schedule.

I’m swimming once a week. (Thank you, Mariette!) I can feel that I want to do this more…but I’m not putting pressure on myself to make it happen. Oh yes, I LOVE swimming. I swim freestyle, breast stroke, and mermaid (that’s a bunch of fun flops swimming under water like a mermaid. No bathing cap…long hair flowing behind me!).

In my date book, which is old-school paper, instead of putting a large ‘X’ when the day is done (as I did last year), I draw a beautiful heart. This way, when I look at the week that’s passed, I see a bunch of big, happy hearts! It’s a small but significant little change.

I am committed to working Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings on personal writing. This includes poetry, submissions, blogs and edits on my novel. I write with three different writers (one on Tuesday, one on Thursday and one on Friday). Two of these meetings are in-person, and the other is virtual. I am pretty terrible at talking way too much, but my writer friends know this so, we sometimes have to call it quits to the chatty-ness, and get to work. It is very important to me that I work with these writers. We keep each other on track, and we share our writing woes and woots together.

I also still spend a good amount of time talking with writers/meeting virtually for catching up, sharing and general love-festing. I try to schedule these on the same day or not all in the same week so that I can have at least a few days a month that are wide open for uninterrupted work. I love looking at my calendar and seeing one thing to do on the day. All the white space in the day box makes me feel the space of the hours I get to fill. This doesn’t mean my to-do list only has one thing on it!

I have not started working on my novel edits yet. I had chosen to give other work precedence in order to hit some deadlines up to this point. But since that work is done now…I can tell my brain and body that it’s time to get back on the edits. I hope to start later this week.

The only thing that I’m consistently not fitting in is exercise. I know that sounds bananas, but I literally forget to do it. I fully blame peri-menopause. There has been a switch in my brain. Whereas before the big PM, all I thought about was food and exercise, and then work…now all I think about is work. I think about food but only insofar as what to make for dinner and/or ‘oh no, I’m so hungry. I forgot to eat again.’ Even if I write ‘fitness’ on my to-do list, I literally don’t see it. But, I’m stretching, which helps, and I’m extremely mindful of how long I sit, and how I sit so that my back pain doesn’t get really bad again. And…I’m swimming. I’ll take it, thank you, kindly. Okay, maybe it’s the season as well…with my body’s desire to hibernate, that’s keeping me more sedentary.

Hope you’re doing well with your schedule and daily commitments. I really had no idea how much work…how busy this time of life would be. I’ll be 47 in May, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard.