Precariously Poised

Replacing ‘should’ in my vocabulary to cause less shame and encourage more meaningful action

April 20th, 2021

“Should‘s a funny word.”

That’s what my college roommates and I would say to each other in our responses to invitations to an evening out. “Well, I should write a paper/study for a test/go to bed early buuuut… should‘s a funny word.”

Isn’t it? Should implies that it’s not something you want to do and often isn’t necessary for your survival, but rather something that you believe someone else expects of you or that might make your life easier (but clearly you need convincing of that or you’d be more interested in doing it).

Lately, I’ve been catching myself saying should all the time. “I should do my physical therapy exercises”, “I should go to bed now”, “I shouldn’t eat this cookie”, “I should put my laundry away”, etc. Most of the time, my brain responds to this with “…but I’m too tired.”, “…but I don’t want to.”, “..but I’ll do it later.” (spoiler: I’m likely not doing it later). I think the reason it’s so easy to dismiss should statements is because this phrasing both presents the activity as a chore or something unpleasant and also something that I don’t have to do, or don’t have to do right now.

So now when I catch myself saying I should do something, I’ve been practicing reframing it to something I want to do and reminding myself of the benefits of doing it. After all, there are real reasons why they are on my should list. And if after acknowledging and listing out these reasons, I decide I’d still rather not do the thing, at least I’ve more carefully considered the risks and benefits of doing or not doing the thing. Maybe it’s something I’d be better off taking off my should list so I can stop avoiding doing it and then shaming myself about it or maybe I need to find more compelling reasons for doing it. I mean, there are plenty of things I don’t really want to do but do anyway because I really don’t want to deal with the consequences. For example, I clean my cat’s litterbox regularly because when it’s dirty she uses the carpet as her litterbox and that is much more inconvenient to clean.

Instead of, “I should go to bed now”, I’ve been trying, “I want to go to bed because I feel happier, am a more patient mom, and have better ideas when I’m well rested.”

Instead of, “I should do my physical therapy exercises” I’ve been trying, “I want to do my physical therapy exercises to prevent pain and avoid needing surgery.”

Instead of, “I should write this email” I’ve been trying, “I want to write this email because it won’t take very long and will feel so good to have it done and off my plate.”

I don’t always fully buy that I want to do it, but it’s definitely been much more successful at motivating me to power through doing the thing. So the next time you notice you’re shoulding yourself, pause and check-in.. why should you? What are all the benefits of doing it? What are all the consequences of not doing it? Then do it. Or don’t….

“I should skip the cookie….I want to skip the cookie because… you know what? I don’t have any good reasons. Fuck it, the cookie is delicious and I want it in my mouth.”

Either way, take it off your should list.
Quarter 2: Making impactful life changes to improve my sleep quality

April 15th, 2021

Hello, friends. We are now well into April and I haven’t yet announced my 2nd quarter goals focused on improving my sleep quality and quantity. So here we go.

Last quarter, I set my end goal such that I could break it up into manageable daily or nearly daily chunks. This time, I’m going to try just jumping into trying to make it a daily habit. Some days I will miss the mark because life happens and I will forgive myself and try again the next day. I think the really hard part is to get to a place where I don’t make any excuses, but I think the key to success there is that if I find I’m consistently not meeting my goal, I need to scale back the goal and revisit my reasons for wanting to do it in the first place.

By the end of June, I want to build the following habits…

Limit caffeine intake after noon

By this I mean I will not consume any coffee or caffeinated tea. There are some other things (like chocolate) that are sneaky sources of caffeine, but they are much less and in the name of keeping my goals simple and easy, I’m only focusing on restricting coffee and tea. Herbal tea doesn’t have any caffeine and so if I need a hot beverage fix in the evenings, I can always turn to this.

I know it’s the middle of April, but I’ve already been trying to follow this goal for over a week now. I think I slipped up once and that was mostly because I purchased a coffee chain iced coffee at 11am and drank it so slowly that it was still afternoon when I finished it. (I’m definitely a beverage sipper. Getting one of those super insulated thermoses was such a good investment for me and I highly recommend it to any fellow beverage sippers).

Be in bed, ready to sleep by 10:30pm

I’ve been tracking my sleep throughout the month of March and one thing I’ve noticed is that between my toddler waking, my cat’s late night friskies, my husband going to bed in the wee hours, and my own insomnia that most often loves to visit when every else in the house is calm and peaceful, I pretty much never get the recommended 8 hours of sleep if I go to bed at 11pm or later. In February, I averaged just under 7 hours of sleep per night. In March I did a bit better with an average of almost 7 and a half hours of sleep. So far, in April, I’m averaging 7 hours and 36 minutes of sleep per night. So I’m doing better than the last two months, but there’s still room for improvement to bring that average to 8 hours. Right now, I’m certain being in bed and ready to sleep between 10-10:30pm is a key piece of the ticket, especially since I seem to have lost my ability to sleep past 7:00am (and yes, if you’re following along with math, being in bed from 10:30pm-7:00am should get me a solid 8.5 hours of sleep. Should.)

Get 15 minutes of daily sun exposure

This was so easy pre-pandemic. From my car to my office at work, I did so much walking. And during my lunch break, to get away from my desk and the office environment, I’d often go for another walk around the campus. Now, I sit on my couch with my laptop for most of the day and don’t go outside much at all. My biggest motivator for going outside most days? My son. My toddler loves going outside, so I’ve been thinking twice about saying “no” when I really didn’t feel like going out. Supposedly, several minutes of sun shortly after getting up as well as while the sun sets is great for setting our body’s natural circadian rhythm. Since my son has also struggled off and on with sleep issues, I’ve been trying to find lifestyle changes that can help us both and this one seems like win/win (as long as he’s actually in the mood to go outside and the weather is pleasant).

Stop using screens after 10pm

This is going to be a hard one, you all. I grew up with tv in my nightly wind down routine. I remember being 5 years old, sitting in a dark room at 10pm, and watching a Disney movie until either I fell asleep where I was or my mom came in to put me to bed. I still love getting in bed, grabbing my iPad, and putting on some silly sitcom until I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. However, between the light emitting from the screen, and the general stimulation from the show itself, the jury is in that late night tv (and phone scrolling) affects our quality of sleep.

Knowing that this is going to be a difficult habit for me to break, I’ve decided not to try it right away. For the month of April, I’m focusing on limiting my caffeine and going to bed earlier so that I have some sort of habit already established there by the time I start looking to phase out my late night screen time.
Looking back on my progress, acknowledging my successes and turning failures into lessons

April 2nd, 2021
Soooo, I really fell out of habit last week into this week of planning my days, checking my tasks, and therefore working towards completing my quarter 1 goals. Then March turned into April and officially I am behind on these goals. And does my brain have a list of some convincing (at least to me) excuses? You bet. My brain has 3 decades worth of experience of talking me out of things. But excuses are just excuses and the truth is that if something is really a priority, you’ll make it happen. No. Matter. What.

And even though I ended my first quarter having completed 9 out of the 10 blog posts I aimed to complete, and I had written “Write blog post” in my top 3 priorities for today, I still considered just… not doing it. Postponing it for “one more day”.

I’ve been trying something new to break these cycles. Instead of focusing on how uncomfortable it feels to do things that I don’t feel like doing (and therefore how good it can feel to not to it), I try to remind myself of how awesome it feels to have it done. I mean, then I can do what I want to do without the extra weight of that thing I told myself I “should” do, hanging over my shoulders.

So here I am. It’s 9:47pm. Instead of vegging out like I want to do, I’m writing my next blog post and taking another step towards my goals. Moving forward even if today it’s just by a couple inches.

First quarter in review

So how did I do last quarter on my improve air/oxygen goals? I exceeded some and I fell shy of some. I don’t know that I believe it yet, but I’ve been telling myself that failure and mistakes are how we grow. If I turn the missed marks into learning opportunities then they aren’t really failures. If I say it enough, maybe I’ll accept it as truth one day.
- I swept/vacuumed my house floors 9 out of 8 times. SUCCESS!
- I brushed my dog’s fur 6 out of 8 times. Womp womp.
- I brushed my cat’s fur 7 out of 8 times. So close!
- I completed focused exercise/breathing/stretching for 985 out of 900 minutes. NAILED IT!
What did I learn?
- My toddler is one of my best motivators. That 9 out of 8 floor cleaning sessions? Yeah, he initiated a good number of those.
- Daily habits are easier to keep up than weekly ones. I tried to exercise every day and even though I missed a day or two many weeks, I still crushed my minute goal.
- If I don’t feel like doing it in the mornings, I’m probably not going to feel like it later either. I love telling myself I’ll do it “later”. I exercised most mornings, but on days when I managed to talk myself out of it because I didn’t feel like it now, by nighttime I usually didn’t have any additional willpower or motivation to power through and do it. On rare occasions, I did fit something in before bed. Most days, though, not doing it in the morning meant it wasn’t happening.
- Having a dedicated time to complete a task makes me more likely to do it. Exercise time is after breakfast. Doing a new habit after an established habit gives me a consistent trigger to start that new habit. It made me less likely to push it later because “It’s time to exercise. Let’s just do it and have it be done.”
How will I change moving forward?

I’d like to keep up with my air/oxygen improvement habits, but I’m not going to put them in my daily priority list anymore. I’m going to try to make all of them more regular (either daily or close to daily) and set an established habit for them to follow.
- I will sweep/vacuum my floors after dropping my son off at daycare (which would mean it will happen 5 days a week most weeks)
- I will brush my dog’s fur after my morning stand-up meeting for work (this works because he’s usually relaxed and near me at this time. This only works while I continue to work from home because of the pandemic but I’ll stick with what works now and figure out how to adapt when the time comes.)
- I will brush my cat’s fur right before going to bed (this is when she most commonly comes to me asking for attention).
- I will continue doing my exercises after breakfast
Adding sleep goals

This April-June I’ll be focusing on sleep goals (which honestly, I haven’t decided on what they are just yet). It will likely be something involving going to bed consistently earlier, limiting my late night screen time, avoiding afternoon caffeine, and/or increasing my sun exposure during the day. But more on that in my next post.
A perfectionist introvert’s fantasy to live blissfully alone, but is the grass really greener?

March 22nd, 2021

At the risk of sounding ungrateful and unloving, sometimes I find myself thinking fondly back to when I lived alone in my first apartment. I kept it clean and tidy and with pride because mine were the only messes to clean and I could run the vacuum in the mornings when I had the energy to do so because there wasn’t anyone else sleeping in the home who would be disturbed.

I could enjoy some rest when I needed quiet and rest. I could engage in an activity that required uninterrupted focus. I withdraw from socialization without a husband or child wondering where I went off to or what I was doing. I wouldn’t be woken in the middle of the night by child cries or a husband coming into bed after 2am.

Just imagining it sounds so absolutely delightful to my senses that I then feel pretty guilty about thinking it. I mean, I could never leave my family. As much as I sometimes wish for a break, I doubt I’d enjoy a permanent one. Most likely it would only take me a week–maybe two–to miss the full-body laughter of a child, the comforting and secure embrace of my husband, the jokes and the silliness of another companion, someone to share my thoughts, musings, and chuckle-worthy social media finds.

But I think I can use this fantasy as a sign of the types of self-care I need the most — sleep, quality me-time, a home cleaning service (ha! I wish!). Well, I’ve already decided that the next three months I will be devoting to making new habits to improve my sleep. For the other things, I wonder if a mindset shift will be enough. In the moments where I feel frustrated that my family is getting in the way of my ability to recharge and reset, maybe I can look for things about what they do that are energizing instead of draining. And turn some of those “Ugh, I just want to escape” moments into “Yes! I love these moments!”

Something to ponder.
Reframing “doing nothing” to allow for rest without the guilt

March 14th, 2021

Hello fellow, lovely humans! (Is this greeting weird? Does it sound like something an alien would say to fit in? Rolling with it anyway..)

This week has the esteemed privilege of seeing both International Women’s Day and my birthday (and I’m a woman, so that means double the reasons to honor and celebrate myself)! My prior week ended on a tough note: waking up with a migraine, treating a nasty gash on my toddler’s forehead, and a trip to the emergency vet to pump my dog’s stomach of the multiple grapes he stole off my toddler’s snack plate. So when I sat down to start planning my priorities for the week, I was of a mind to be kind to myself. I needed a break and a reset.

I started by choosing my weekly mantras/inspiration/affirmation. This week, I settled on: I am strong, empowered, and capable of anything. It seemed pretty appropriate for Women’s Day week. I liked the way it made me feel to say and I liked the way it didn’t ask me to do anything, just be.

I am strong, empowered, and capable of anything.

Then I made it my mission to go easy on myself this week. I limited myself to 3 tasks only in my to-do list each day. On my birthday, one of those “tasks” was a freebie, “Celebrate my birthday” and the rest of the tasks were things I wanted to do that had nothing to do with being productive: Buy myself flowers (Can we get rid of the stigma that you need someone else to buy you flowers? I have a husband and I still bought myself birthday flowers as a treat to myself and they are beautiful) and Get my free birthday Starbucks drink.

But you know what? Some days this week, even though I limited myself to 3 tasks, I only got to 2. One of the days, I didn’t even take time to plan my tasks for the day and so I had nothing to check off (not that I didn’t do anything that day, I’m sure I did something). Usually, this is the type of thing I would beat myself up over. I’d tell myself I’m being lazy, I should’ve this and should’ve that (and I’d be lying if I said that voice hasn’t whispered something along those lines) but this week is my be-extra-kind-to-myself week. So I’m doing my best to practice letting go of the “should’ve”‘s and “could’ve”‘s, embracing my humanity and cutting myself some slack. Next week is another week.

…practicing letting go of the should’ves and could’ves

It really has me thinking about and questioning this go go go, no pain no gain, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, American mindset I’ve been raised to have.

What if, instead of looking at inaction as “doing nothing”, we refused to believe that it’s possible to do “nothing” and started acknowledging it for what it is? I’m resting. I’m recharging. I’m thinking. I’m dreaming. I’m regulating my emotions. I’m enjoying my company. I’m removing myself from the noise. I’m releasing tension. I’m resetting my day. I’m taking care of myself. I’m honoring my needs. I’m celebrating me!

I’m taking care of myself.

Rest is a basic human need to heal, to recover, to process, to renew, and to reset. We need to stop looking it as being lazy.
Getting stronger: Using simple mantras to push through the suck

March 6th, 2021

Hello fellow beautiful humans (trying this greeting on for size),

I’ve had a mindset shift that’s been proving helpful to me and so I’d love to share it with all of you too (she says knowing that a whopping two people tops see each of her blog posts. But hey, if this blog only ever helps one other person besides myself, I’d still say the effort is worth it!).

Let me start by saying that I’m not a fan of exercise. I’ve given running a valiant effort (motivated by the large number of people who swear you learn to love it over time), I completed a couch-to-5k training schedule, and I went for a jog regularly after work. Did I come to love it? Only if you call enjoying the pride and endorphin high after it was over but hating every. single. second. of the actual running part “loving it” then… I think you need a new definition of “love” personally, but that’s just my opinion. It was too easy to come up with excuses not to do it… oh the weather’s too cold, the weather’s too hot, it’s raining, it’s too dark outside, blah blah, you know my brain is a master at talking me out of exerting effort. The moral of that story is that sometimes I think you have to be honest with yourself about things you hate doing even if it’s a popular means of achieving a goal like staying fit. Start by finding a method that you don’t hate with every fiber of your being.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t still be moments where it sucks. I currently subscribe to an exercise program that has new 15-minute videos every day (It’s MommaStrong, in case you’re curious) and while I find it much more palatable than running with some movements and stretches that I can honestly say I enjoy (though not to the point where I’d ever do them for no other reason than the joy of doing them).

One thing I’ve noticed is that when things get tough, my brain cycles through thoughts like Ugh, this sucks! This is so hard. I need a break. Let’s just stop. These thoughts make it more likely that I’ll take breaks (sometimes lots of them!) and also make it feel like it’s taking forever to get through 30-60 seconds worth of a movement. So I’ve tried something different on for size lately. When things get hard, I tell myself I’m getting stronger! and I just put that one thought on repeat until that exercise is over. This one simple change has made a world of difference when it comes to pushing through the hard parts. Instead of focusing on how weak and awful I feel doing the exercise, I focus on the goal and remind myself that it’s pushing through these hard moments where true growth occurs.

This was easiest for me to apply to exercise, but I’m practicing swapping out my thoughts during other hard/uncomfortable moments too. I’m learning. I’m growing. I’m getting better. I’m doing it. Progress is usually not linear or something we can see or measure after 15 minutes of any one activity, which can be very discouraging, and is why I think it can be so powerful to acknowledge why we’re doing what we’re doing and what is happening in that moment of going for it. Forget for a minute how close we are to our end goal or how uncomfortable it feels to do something we’re not great at, and remind ourselves that just by showing up and giving it our all (or even just our some if that’s all we can muster that day) is movement towards the goal!

Practice makes ~~perfect~~ progress.
First quarter reflection on my imperfect progress towards my 2021 health goals

March 1st, 2021
Hello lovely readers!

I can’t believe February is over already, and yet here we are! I’m definitely ready for Spring and warmer weather. And since it’s March, that means this is the last month for my first quarter goals so I thought now would be a good time to pause and reflect on how my progress is going and whether I need to make any changes.

Jan-Mar goals

First, a quick recap on what my first quarter goals are.. I’m focusing this year towards building new habits to support my overall well-being in the areas we humans need most: breathing, sleep, hydration, and food. Though, I got off to a bit of a late start (kicking off in February) these first three months are dedicated to breathing/clean air goals, which I decided would be to…
1. Clean my floors 8 times (yeah… I’m embarrassed to admit that my floor cleaning habits are so irregular and infrequent that this is my goal. At least I’m working on it?)
2. Brush my cat’s and dog’s fur 8 times each (ideally would also help with floor cleaning by taking care of loose fur BEFORE it gets dropped all over the floor)
3. 900 minutes of exercise/stretching breathing (about 10 minutes every day. It may not sound like much, but I’m building a habit to just GET STARTED and then I can work on increasing the time.)
How it’s going…

All in all, I’m pretty proud of myself. Has the journey been perfect? NO. Even with limiting myself to only 3 task priorities per day, I’ve still had days where I checked off only one of them. But, I remind myself that part of the point of this blog and my journey is to make progress without worrying about perfection. I’m learning and I’m practicing letting that go. At the moment, that looks a lot like my brain scolding me for not getting the other things done and then me taking a deep breath, giving myself a pat on the back for what I did accomplish that day, and adding the missed items to tomorrow’s priority three. I still feel disappointed in myself, but it’s getting better.

Cleaning floors

As far as my goal progress goes, I have cleaned my floors five out of eight times, which means I can reach my goal by cleaning the floors once per week (and have one week to spare where I can choose to clean my floors again… but that’ll be overachieving).

Brushing my pets

I’ve brushed my pets’ furs three times each, which means I’m going to have to brush each of their fur coats at least once per week and either double up one of the weeks or squeeze the last brushings in during the last half-week of March. One thing I plan to do a little differently this month is to move my dog’s brush to the end table by my spot on the couch. My dog often lies on the couch with me and I prefer to brush my pets while they are lying down and relaxed, so if I have a brush at arms reach during these opportune moments, I think I’ll be better setting myself up for success here.

Exercise/stretching/breathing

For almost two years, I’ve been doing an exercise program (off and on) called MommaStrong, an online exercise program designed especially for humans who have given birth and don’t have a lot of time to exercise. There’s so much I love about this program, but that’s perhaps a post for another day. Building a habit of showing up consistently has been an ongoing learning process for me. I don’t have a dedicated exercise space and I feel too self conscious to do it while my husband’s around to see so I either try to get it done in the morning (my husband is a late morning sleeper) or complete the exercises in our bedroom before bed, trying to be quiet enough not to wake my sleeping toddler in the next room. Well, motivation to open up the website, navigate to today’s video, and do physical exertion is much more difficult to muster up when I’m about to get ready for bed so that last one doesn’t work for me at least 50% of the time. So I’m trying to get better about not caring whether or not my husband can see me (which I did this morning. Truly, it wasn’t as embarrassing as I feared) and also not allowing thoughts of “I don’t feel like it. I’ll do it later.” to convince me to put it off. If it doesn’t happen in the morning, chances are too great that it won’t happen at all.

So far, I’ve exercised for 705 of my 900-minute goal. I have NOT exercised every day (I missed three days in February) but by exercising for 15 minutes almost every day that I did show up for, I’m on an even pace to get to 900 minutes by the end of March. 240 minutes remaining means just over six minutes per day or 15 minutes every other day is what I need to do.

The blog

I think it’s worth mentioning my progress on one more of my 2021 goals because it’ll help keep me accountable and it’s completely relevant to the blog. I’m aiming to publish 45 blog posts by the end of this year, 10 of which I’m working to complete by the end of March. Including this post right here, I’ve published 6 posts to this blog, which means one post per week will get me to my 10! Let’s go!
If there’s one thing I’m truly perfect at… it’s procrastinating

February 26th, 2021

Hello lovely readers!

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the last month or so, it’s that my brain is a very effective procrastinator and the most seducing thought it likes to give me is: I’ll do it later. In the morning, my brain tells me The day is young! I have SO much time! I don’t have to do chores now. I can always do them later. And every time I try to counter with But it’ll take just a few minutes. I could do it now and it will be done… my brain draws me back into the appeal of doing the thing later.

Spoiler alert… morning turns to noon turns to afternoon turns to evening turns to night. If nighttime comes and I’ve been telling myself I’ll do it later all day, chances are VERY good that I’ll either forget to do it at all or my brain will change it’s song to I’m so tired. I’ll do it tomorrow.

There’s a mini project at work that I’ve been dragging my feet on in this way. At the close of the work day, I’ll even try telling myself I’ll just get it done after work (Hahahaha. Nope.) Then as I lay myself down to sleep, my brain freaks out a bit about the consequences of having not completed it today. I’ve been doing this same dance for about two months now on this project. TWO. MONTHS. Sure, there were plenty of times during the work day when I’d buckle down, open up the word document, do some relevant research, identify some points to include in my writing, I might even write a couple sentences and then… I’ll stare at the page thinking I can’t do this or this is hard and then when my brain offers That’s ok, take a break. We can do it later. I find it impossible to argue.

It’s so frustrating. I can be very self-disciplined in so many areas, but this one has just been a struggle. My awareness of the habit does nothing to stop it and I haven’t quite been able to pinpoint the reason for it. I have some theories and I think it may be a combination of: I’m afraid the final product won’t live up to my standards, I’m overwhelmed with where to start, and/or doing it makes me feel uncomfortable and I’m not well practiced at pushing through the discomfort. And I’m not sure yet how to tackle any of those possible causes.

And if you think I might be writing this blog post as something to do instead of doing this project that I’ve been procrastinating… you would not be wrong! Sigh.

The perfect planner productivity template for this former perfectionist

February 17th, 2021

Hello lovely readers,

I’ve been searching for years for a planning template or system that works for me and I think I’ve finally stumbled upon something good so I wanted to share.

For a couple years, I tried Bullet Journaling, and while there are some things I really liked about that system (simple, clear, solid organization), I just couldn’t get the habit of keeping up with it to stick. I tried adapting it to my own templates in Evernote, a web and mobile note taking application, and it was better (because it was on my phone and so I always had it with me) but I kept rescheduling the same tasks over and over and over again because I’d write them down but I just wasn’t getting them done.

Then, one of the social media influencers I follow recommended the Day Designer, and the format was really nice but again it’s a physical notebook and I’ve simply decided those do not work for me. But I looked at their free printables and the structure they lay out there and one of the things that stood out was they have a section that specifically calls out “today’s top three”. As a ~~recovering perfectionist~~ practicing imperfectionist, I’m quite skilled at making a to-do list for days and it’s so daunting and overwhelming that I often don’t do any of it. Prioritizing just a few tasks is KEY for me.

Feeling inspired, I set to work on a new template in my Evernote notebook that was a modified Day Designer + Bullet Journal system and here’s what I ended up with..

Word/Phrase of the Year

I took this straight from the Day Designer, which recommended choosing a word that represents the focus for the word. For me, I expanded it from just a word to a phrase and my selected phrase for the year is Let go. Let go of what I can’t control, of the past, of judgment, of things I do not need.

Setting Yearly Goals

I also borrowed from Day Designer for the yearly goal categories and just tweaked it slightly. Originally, I was only going to have two focus goals this year (starting this blog, and completing the self wellness project) but I allowed myself to fill out the other categories with some very light goals. I’ve included examples for three of my goal topics. My self care goals at 6, 9, and 12 months into the year are not currently defined. I’ll flesh those out at the beginning of each quarter, as I reflect on how how the previous quarters’ goals have gone.

	SELF CARE My mental + physical wellness	PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Learning + growing	PURPOSE Contributing to society
GOAL	Set a baseline for physical health	Learn/practice water coloring	Start a blog
3 months	Clean floors 8x Brush dog’s fur 8x Brush cat’s fur 8x Exercise/stretching/breathing 900 min	Complete 1 water color art	Publish 10 blog posts
6 months	Above + sleep goals	Complete 3 water color arts	Publish 22 blog posts
9 months	Above + hydration goals	Complete 6 water color arts	Publish 34 blog posts
12 months	Above + nutrition goals	Complete 9 water color arts	Publish 45 blog posts

Yearly Log

This is my yearly overview where I list important dates to remember (holidays, birthdays, major scheduled events like weddings) and tasks or reminders related to a month (like doctor appointments that need to be made or health insurance open enrollment).

January	February	March	April	May	June
01 New Year’s Day 18 MLK Jr. Day (Work Holiday)	07 Super Bowl 14 Valentine’s Day 15 President’s Day (Daycare closed) Schedule cat vet appointment Schedule dentist appointment	17 St. Patrick’s Day File taxes	04 Easter 15 Taxes due	02 Greek Orthodox Easter 09 Mother’s Day 31 Memorial Day	13 Father’s Day 17 Cat’s adoptaversary Schedule doctor appointment

July	August	September	October	November	December
04 Independence Day	28 Dog’s adoptaversary	07 Labor Day Schedule eye doctor appointment	31 Halloween Schedule dog vet appointment	14 DST ends 25 Thanksgiving 26 Thanksgiving observed At in-laws’ for Thanksgiving	24 Christmas Eve 25 Christmas 31 New Year’s Eve At parents’ for Christmas

Weekly/Daily Log

This is where I’m most excited for how well my format is working for me. It helps me prioritize and focus my tasks. At the top, I repeat my goals (but only for the current quarter) and record what my progress looks like at the beginning of this week.

	SELF CARE	RELATIONSHIPS	PERSONAL DEV.	RESOURCES	PURPOSE
GOAL	Set a baseline for physical health		Learn/practice water coloring		Start a blog
2/3 months	Clean floors 2/8x Brush dog’s fur 1/8x Brush cat’s fur 1/8x Exercise/stretch/breathe 520/900 min		Complete 0/1 water color art		Publish 4/10 blog posts

Next, I set three and only three priorities for the week based on a combination of my goals and what’s going on that week. This means that at most I will only be prioritizing three of my above goals in one week. If there’s a special event or holiday that week, one or more of those goals might be bumped so I can prioritize celebrating that event and completing whatever tasks I need to for that event. For example, my priorities this week look like…

Celebrate son’s birthday

Physical health goals

Write blog posts

Once I’ve established what my three priorities are for the week, I can break those out into tasks for each day of the week. I like the below structure for each day…

Monday, February 15, 2021
TODAY Things to remember about today that I don’t necessarily have to take action on (like “Daycare closed”)	DUE Task (if any) that are DUE today.
INSPIRATION Inspirational quote, mantras, affirmations, etc	TODAY’S TOP THREE [ ] Task from “Due” if there is one [ ] Task related to weekly priority [ ] Task related to weekly priority
SCHEDULE Appointments, events, or tasks that need to happen during a particular time frame. Seeing this helps me scale back my to-do list if I have a lot scheduled for the day. 9a-5p Work	TO-DO [ ] Task that would be nice to do but is decidedly NOT a priority so don’t beat myself up if it’s not done [ ] Plan tomorrow
I AM GRATEFUL FOR… Daily gratitude.	ONE THING I DID WELL… Acknowledgment of something I did well today. No matter how small.

I’ve been using this format for all of February so far and I’m just loving how it’s organized. I’m keeping myself limited and focused and am practicing not beating myself up whenever there are incomplete tasks at the end of the day. I’m only prioritizing three things for the day and anything else I accomplish is just icing on the cake.

Just breathe: Setting air quality improvement goals without being a perfectionist about it

February 13th, 2021
Hello, lovely readers!

I don’t know how it’s the middle of February already, but here we are! I’m halfway through my first quarter of 2021 self care goals and I haven’t even told you what they are yet. In truth, though I did some research on common indoor air toxins December/January, I didn’t figure out my goals until the start of February. Better late than never, right? I’ve only recently come to recognize that one of my perfectionist habits is to do a lot of planning, getting myself really psyched up about a project, and then when it comes to doing any of my plans, I feel overwhelmed and get stuck in an endless cycle of telling myself I’ll start “tomorrow”. So this is me, learning and practicing to keep my goals more bite sized and ignore the excuses my brain is so fantastic and coming up with.

The research

I started with a little online research on common indoor air pollutants and put together the following list based on a collection of sources:
- Lead (in house dust)
- Formaldehyde (by-product of common items like cigarettes/cigars/e-cigarettes, furnaces, stoves, fireplaces, water heaters, vehicle exhaust, perfumes, air fresheners, anti-wrinkle clothes/sheets, cosmetics…)
- Radon
- Fragrances from cleaners
- Dust mites
- Mold
- Pet dander
I’m sure this list is not exhaustive. I’m going for progress over perfection here. 2020 me would take a look at a list like this and immediately start thinking up ways for how I can thoroughly tackle ALL of the items in this list (and I did… my brain was quite content to get to work on this). 2021 me is determined to break my perfectionist all-plan-no-action cycle. I limited myself to THREE goals.

The goals

Taking the above list into consideration, I wanted to set myself up for success with goals that are small, somewhat easy to pull into my regular routine, and impactful. This likely looks different for everyone but for me I was also inspired by the two loveable fur shedders in my family and home. I decided I wanted to build a regular habit of 1. sweeping/vacuuming the floors and treat the problem at the source with 2. more regular brushing of both my pets. For my third goal, I did something completely different and pulled in a previous on-again-off-again goal of regular exercising. Our exercise habits affect how we breathe so it’s not totally out of left field.

Those are the general goals, but I also wanted to make them SMART. That is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. So here’s what the final goals look like:
1. By the end of March, I will have vacuumed/swept my floors at least 8 times (since I’m in February, this comes down to about 1 times per week).
2. By the end of March, I will brush each of my pet’s fur 8 times (which comes down to completing a fur brushing about two times per week)
3. By the end of March, I will have completed 900 minutes of physical exercise, stretching, or breathing exercises (which I’m breaking down into 60 15-minute sessions and I started this in January so it doesn’t have to be daily, however I am going to attempt to do something daily even if it’s just 5 minutes).
The wins I made without trying

I may not be seeking to do it all right now when it comes to improving the air quality in my home. I also think it’s important to recognize that I’m not starting from square 1. There are habits I already have that contribute to a healthier air environment in my house including not smoking or living with smokers and avoiding bringing anything with perfumes or synthetic fragrances into my home. So even if I did fall off the productivity wagon and failed to meet any of my new cleaner air goals, I’ve still got some wins here that are worth noting.

Limit caffeine intake after noon

Be in bed, ready to sleep by 10:30pm

Get 15 minutes of daily sun exposure

Stop using screens after 10pm

First quarter in review

What did I learn?

How will I change moving forward?

Adding sleep goals

Jan-Mar goals

How it’s going…

Cleaning floors

Brushing my pets

Exercise/stretching/breathing

The blog

Word/Phrase of the Year

Setting Yearly Goals

Yearly Log

Weekly/Daily Log

The research

The goals

The wins I made without trying