YIKES another accidental ten-day break from writing - shameful! It's no excuse, but I've been busy with work lately, a bit under the weather, and of course packing plenty into a social calendar that's gotten a bit intense over the last several weeks. We've had friends in and out, and I've been in and out too. Add to that Daylight Savings and colds throwing a cramp in my sleep, and you've got one cranky, unmotivated, spastic Liz running amok in Northern California.
It's gotten me thinking much more about how I need to get in better routines throughout the week. A few turbo-thoughts:
- I set my alarm for 6am every morning but don't actually get to work until around 8:30. At the peak of my summer ass-kicking routine, I was waking up, journaling for a bit, reading (often the New York Times, or else the book of the moment), and ensuring my life was organized and ready to go for the day. Today, on the other hand? Snoozed until 6:45 after a restless night, watched like 30 Instastories, and didn't make my bed. Now I'm sitting at work, low-key obsessing over the fact that there's laundry I need to fold and my room is a mess and of course that means my life is a mess...and it's throwing me off in general.
Goal: get back to the 6am wakeup, and actually, you know, wake up. I liked the journaling over the summer, but I think I'm going to try to get in a mini-workout before my 7am shower - it's better at getting me going than lounging in bed reading, after all.
- I've been on a major cooking binge lately - for some reason, this time of year, I always find myself drawn to the kitchen. It's been such a fun activity to dive deeper into these days, especially with a huge kitchen and two hungry, appreciative/complimentary roommates. That said, I'm spending a lot of my after-work time waiting in the checkout line at Safeway, screwing around in the kitchen, and cleaning up when all's said and done. I genuinely enjoy it, but it's not the best use of my time.
Goal: Grocery-shop on weekends and have a meal plan for the week so I only have to hardcore cook a couple times a week. Be better at putting together lunches for work that are grab-and-go, whether that's individually packaging leftovers or prepping for a week on Sundays. In general, do more work up-front to make dinners easier to pull together.
- And of course, there's the evenings themselves. Having roommates who are around a lot has been great - we genuinely enjoy each other's company, and choose to spend time together after work almost every day (which is really fun). What it isn't, though, is super productive - maybe someday I'll tell you about the week we watched Disney movies every night, or the time when Dave and I binge-watched Emily's vintage season of "The Bachelor" (to prep for Arie's return this January, duh) in about five days...
Goal: Work out after work, before even coming home or sitting down. Use evenings to write more, or to get out and do things instead of parking in front of Netflix. Swap evening wine/beer/cocktails for water and tea a few times a week (at least!). And actually start going to bed at a normal hour instead of using my 8:30 arrival time at work to justify hitting snooze so many times the next day!
Just a quick brain-dump to get something, anything, down on digital paper today - but happy Monday, campers, and hope you're all kicking ass!