It’s June! It’s kind of hard to believe; May was such a blur of allergies and all that was happening at work that it kind of slipped by me. I have a bunch of emails to respond to, so if you’re someone who emailed throughout May and hasn’t heard back, I will get back to you soon!
Last week I talked about switching up my goal posts for the summer because instead of setting individual goals like I’ve done in the past, I’d like to focus on building habits that I think will help me feel a bit more grounded and sane, especially during the busy periods of the school year.
DAILY ROUTINE
There are a few things that I would like to add to my daily routine. I realize that while it would be nice to do these things every day, it may not happen and there will be some days that I’ll have to prioritize which of these actually fits into my daily routine, but I still think that if I can incorporate these into my daily routine as much as possible, it would really help me feel more grounded. The first two things I tend to feel a little “lost” without when days go by without actually doing them and the last is something that I just think would be beneficial.
Writing. I didn’t write as much as I wanted to last year and, with a more flexible schedule during the summer, I think this is the best time to really find a way to incorporate it into my daily routine. Writing is something that I’m driven to do, so when I go too long without actually doing it I tend to feel like I’m going a little crazy. But popping in and out of a story isn’t the best for writing so I want to make this a daily habit.
Reading. This is such a relaxing habit for me and it’s something that I absolutely love to do, but during busy periods it’s so easy to keep putting it off until it doesn’t happen. And yet, sometimes I think I need it most during those busy periods. I need to be able to pick up a book and get lost in a good story for a brief period of time. Also, my writing suffers when I’m not reading, so if writing is part of my daily routine, reading needs to be as well.
Stretching. When I’m stressed, I tend to get a little tense, and for awhile I’ve been feeling like stretching really needs to be part of my daily routine. In fact, I think I tried to make it part of my daily routine with one of my 2014 Directives last year and I believe it was one of the directives that I didn’t accomplish. I’d like to spend a little bit of time stretching each evening. Ideally I’d like to take time to stretch at the beginning and end of the day, but I know myself well enough to know that I probably won’t make time for it in the morning. I’m not the type to wake up a little earlier to do things; I wake up with enough time to get ready and go… and sometimes I don’t even have enough time for that! So, the end of the day it is.
Goal for June: Each week I will add one of these to my daily routine. For both writing and reading I’d like to incorporate a half hour each day. For stretching I’d like to add at least 15 minutes in the evening.
WEEKLY ROUTINE
Scheduling. There was a time when I had a variety of tasks scheduled into my weekday evenings. I had chores and other things, like emailing and blogging (responding to comments/reading blogs) scheduled. I’d like to try to get back into that as much as possible.
Breaks. I’m also hoping that creating a schedule will allow me to take a day off of “work” related things regularly. I unintentionally took days off throughout the school year; there were days when I just couldn’t work. But those days left me feeling a little more stressed, because I actually had things to do those days. Hopefully, having a schedule and sticking to it will allow me to take planned breaks, so that they can be relaxing instead of stressful.
Goal for June: Start thinking of how to schedule the week and try it out!
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