This post really shows a deep-deep-deep dive into my brain. You should probably know I am often told I over-think things. On the other hand, I know I work best when I have a plan. I can stray from the plan, update and tweak the plan, but I need the structure within which to do that.
For my purple journal I’ve been trying to brainstorm what sorts of things I want to keep in there – like in a bullet journal format.
Details for cross-stitching (and maybe knitting, ohhh I would love to carve out some time for knitting again) will be in the Stitching Journal but the “habit” of stitching will be tracked in my purple journal. And I plan on using the Reconciliation day planner as a gratitude and writing prompt as well as for the action steps and other great info it contains.
But my purple journal will be my main go-to for the year.
Daily Habits
I’ve been trying to think of the things I want to get done each day (or at least as close to daily as possible):
– drink more water than coffee (and more water than beer but also drink way less beer generally)
– move – walking, maybe swimming in summer, learning to ride my bike again like I promised I would last year…
– mindfulness
– yoga – yes, different than move OR mindfulness
– reading for pleasure
– entering contests
– being creative – more on this below
– write – in the journal and stuff for sharing on the blog
Chores
Then there are the chores that I’d like to track as well, mostly because of the little rush of checking something off of a list:
– laundry – honestly not sure – this isn’t daily but definitely not weekly either! But I don’t want to not do it for days and days and then have to do nothing but laundry on Saturday to catch up
– kitty litter – daily
– dumping the dehumidifier (less a chore in winter but twice a day in summer)
– changing the bed sheets – weekly
– cleaning the dishwasher – monthly
– a household fix that needs to be done – monthly; stuff like take inventory of the baking cupboard; fix the side storm door; take a car-load of things to the donation centre; box up things for donation
– cleaning the washer – quarterly
– I’m sure there are LOADS I am forgetting but those are the ones that jumped out at me as I am writing this
Less Frequent Reminders
And things I want to remember the last time I did:
– changing toothbrush
– tracking periods
– bathe – I don’t mean for cleanliness (those are showers); I mean having a long soak with a bath bomb and a book. I love doing this but always push it off (“I just don’t have time”) and then find it’s been four months since the last one.
Time to be creative
And I still want to carve out time for being creative and crafty and stuff. So I brainstormed a list of what I want to do:
cross-stitch
knit
paint
bake
colour (I have some awesome pencil crayons and some amazing colouring books)
play an instrument – there are three in the house I have my eye on: piano, trumpet, and, uhm, I’ll just keep the last one a secret for now.
lego!
But I obviously cannot do each of those every day. And I don’t want to just happen to notice that I haven’t touched the watercolours in weeks. So I thought I would put them into two categories: EASY and HARD. Now it’s not the activity itself that is inherently easy or hard. Playing piano is under EASY (though I find it challenging) – because it takes no time at all to set up and when I am done, I just close the key cover. Watercolours would be HARD – I have to prep the work space, I have to figure out what to do and why etc, then do the thing and then I have to clean up after the thing.
Make sense?
EASY LIST
Cross-stitch – the task itself is easy (though time consuming lol) once I get the stuff I need all put together. But the putting together of the pattern, fabric, hoop, and floss only happens once. Then it all stays together in a kit bag until it’s done.
Piano – as noted: open key cover, play, close key cover
Colour – pick a book, pick a spot, colour. Put it all away after.
Lego – I do have loads of this. And I love working on it. It’s almost a form of mindfulness for me really as I have found I cannot fret about the future or dwell on past screw-ups when I am building. Even just following instructions etc. (right now this is still sort of medium instead of easy because of a lack of space and organization in the basement so maybe that should be an early chore…)
HARD LIST
Paint – lots of prep and clean up involved. And keeping the cat away from the work space. And finding a work space. And looking up a lesson. You get the idea.
Bake – lots of prep, including shopping ahead of time. Then often lots of clean up as well.
Trumpet – not really hard but not really easy either. Okay, never mind, maybe I should move this over to easy because it really is just open case, open book, play, put it away. But I have to do it in the basement to save my family and neighbours. And look up lessons? Okay, maybe it’ll stay here for now.
Knit – I’m putting this here basically because I haven’t given it any thought at all in the past 2 years really. So I would need to sort out my yarns, find my needles and do all that prep work before I can get started. But once I get that done then maybe it’ll be a medium-ish task? Like the trumpet 😉
The other instrument – this is completely new to me so I’m putting it under hard. I have to look up you tube stuff on how to play. I have to find a book. I really should put “clean basement room” as a top chore for January…
Now what?
Now that I have developed this amazingly comprehensive classification system (hahaha!) I’m still thinking about what to do with it. Maybe each item on the HARD LIST has to be done at least once every week?
But that seems like a lot. And once every two weeks feels like not enough. You know where this is going right? My goal is gonna spend time on each item on the HARD LIST at least three times in each calendar month. Maybe some months I’ll do more, maybe some I’ll be short but that’s the goal.
The goal will be to do stuff on the EASY LIST at least once a week. At least for stitching and piano and colouring. I’ll be a bit more flexible on the lego.