Catch up time. Work seriously took over my life last week. I tried to get as many tasks done as I could, combined with staying on top of a couple work projects, but in the end, my 30 day usually took a backseat.
Here is where I am at over the last week:
Wake up on time - Originally I had planned on waking at 4:30 am during the weekdays, and at 5:30 am on the weekends. I had previously done well at 5 am in my last challenge, but I believe a combination of late nights and moving too quickly to 4:30 am was too much. I decided to make my ultimate goal 5 am again, and continue to try and back it towards 4:30 as I could. The last 5 days I did manage to get up by no later then 5 am, with two days by 4:40. I am happy with that, and will keep it up.
Exercise - I have pretty much scratched exercise off the 100% every day list for this challenge. I am exploring some classes outside of the house, and I am staying active, but my weekday schedule has been just too jam packed and combined with a motivation issue, I was getting very frustrated. So this month I will focus on my primary objectives, and just try to make progress as I can on this task. Maybe next month I will do the every day time again, I need to follow my motivation right now.
Daily ‘tasks’ – The items I have on my to do list like taking my supplements twice a day, dry brushing daily, ect, are going well. Of the 5 days, I think I only missed my supplements one time. Most of these tasks are just a minute or two long, and I am doing well at keeping them in the ‘flow’ of the day.
Pet Time - Originally I had planned on clicker training all 3 animals every day, for a combined total of 30-40 minutes. This proved to be a logistic problem, between my available time, and the fact the cats did NOT like being ’slotted’ into a schedule, it quickly fell apart. I backed off on this and have since just tried to make it a point to do something ‘one on one’ with one of the cats each evening. Example, the last few nights Bayou and I have gone outside together, he has wandered around on his harness while I have pulled weeds and cleaned up the front yard a bit. Or I will spend ‘play time’ with one of the other cats. This 10 minute time is much more likely for me to complete on a daily basis, so I am just going to start there. I have still made progress though in several areas. Bayou has had two quick neighborhood car rides, and some harness work outside. Dexter has improved on his overwhelming ‘meowing’ during meal times with me using a positive reward system while feeding.
Website work – Due to my day job, my home web work time had to take a backseat most of last week. I did some small research one or two nights, but otherwise I could not put in a lot of time. Above I discussed having to back off on a few tasks, and the reason being, is this month I would rather focus on my website and blog development. Last night and today I have probably spent over 6 to 7 hours catching up, plus I am trying to get a few blog posts wrapped up now. The website is far from ready to roll, and until then, I need to focus on that before putting my energy 100% into other avenues.
Meditation – I am disappointed at my lack of success in this field. I seriously did best with meditation in the morning. The house is at its quietest, I am not tired and doing other things, ect. But without the ability to get up at 4:30, I am unable to sacrifice the time in the morning. But, I am optimistic with my progress this week on my ‘waking’ time, that next week I should be able to meditate in the mornings. For now, I will squeeze it in where possible.
Hometime/cooking – I had some items on my challenge that matched last month, including my cooking schedule, packing lunches, ect. I have done well with preparing the night before, making sure to lay out food, pack my lunches, ect. My cooking and house care though has been hit or miss. With all my food issues and restrictions, keeping on track with this is key, and I need to buckle down no matter what on this. My housecare time is usually on the weekends, and I had hoped to start doing more every day to ease up the weekend rush. But for now, its just not going to fit into the schedule. Will just tackle that when I have more time to give this focus in the future.
So now I am faced with a thought. Do I continue the challenge with the original start date of 3/30, or do I restart this sucker with better a better plan? I am going to consider that over the weekend. I feel my energy and motivation is just a bit off balance. I am not 100% positive on how to improve that, but maybe a restart would be in order. Part of me is dwelling a bit on my lack of success in the last two weeks (as compared to my prior two challenges), and maybe to be done with that once and for all, I just need to shut this one down and regroup. If I do, Monday would be the start date, so I will meditate on that today and tomorrow, and see what I come up with. I also have a sneaking suspicion that my lack of meditation is contributing to my focus issues.
I am still here, still working away….and still liking the 30 day challenges…….. just hit my first serious speed bump and right now I am downshifting to gain momentum again.
