So, wow, it's 2016. It's already the middle of February, or rather, given this month's abbreviated existence (even in a Leap Year), it's already the second half of February. Time to review January and see what happened there.
I do believe I have found "planner peace", so far as the organisation and set-up of my Bullet Journal is concerned. I toyed with the idea of "One Journal to Rule Them All", but decided that I enjoy compartmentalization entirely too much to want to combine into a single book everything I do so far as planning and organising my life. Well, it was either that or admit that I do so much planning and organising that the one book would have to be hardbound and at least the size of one of those massive quire books I used to buy for a forgotten purpose at a job many moons ago.
So, for 2016, I will continue to use a multi-book set-up: an actual pre-printed weekly/monthly planner from Mead (yes, I went cheap this year) for my daily to-dos and work hours, alongside my spiral notebook from 2014 which is still going strong (I am too cheap to start a new book for the new year) for my daily log notes, and an interactive journal I bought from Chapters-Indigo (the store in Canada where I could cheerfully go bankrupt) with daily prompts to encourage a year of self-exploration.
I set myself some fairly simple goals for January, and today I took a look back through my various books and calendars and my Habit Tracker (located in my Bullet Journal) and decided maybe they were loftier than I thought (ha!). To recap:
Financial - Start saving again using the 52 Week Money Challenge. For the last couple of years I have managed to make it to the middle of this challenge, only to quit once the weeks/amounts started really adding up. This year, I decided to start from the other end, working my way down the amounts, to align my goal with my income, which is higher in the winter and early spring because of my seasonal employment. Well, I was a little slow out of the gate in January, and saved just enough to cover weeks 1-8 ($36), instead of weeks 52 and 51 ($103) as was my goal. I have to call this one a miss.
On the win side for Financial, though, was my goal to not spend any money for at least 90% of the month, or 28 days out of 31. I managed exactly the 28 days. By "spending" I refer to anything no related to our needs for food, shelter and automobile expenses. I am not even counting clothing, because I have enough in my closet to suit my various seasonal needs, and more besides, so clothing went on the chopped side of the list when I made this goal. Similarly, although the tin of Tazo tea (Awake English Breakfast, seriously good tea) would count as food, I have more than a few varieties of tea in the kitchen, I could have kept my money in my pocket, but I didn't, so that day went on the "spending" side of the equation.
Mental/Emotional - Definitely a win here, as I continue to meditate daily with Headspace. January saw me through to day 398, as I completed a repeat of the Self-Esteem pack, worked through the new Generosity pack, and started repeating the Pro packs (less guidance from Andy, more silence, extremely challenging for a mind that needs no encouragement to get caught up and lost in thought).
Physical - This may be a win? The goal here was to complete a minimum of 3 workouts per week, and I actually did my 5 scheduled workouts for 3 weeks out of 4. The off week I managed 2 workouts, but am seriously bummed that I couldn't motivate myself enough to even get on my yoga mat for 20 minutes for the one day needed to make this a certain win. I've made some changes to my schedule for February that should hopefully make this easier this month. You'll just have to read more rambling next month to find out how I did.
The definite miss on the physical goals was to establish a habit of going to bed by 9:30. Read strictly, my Fitbit sleep logs tell me I managed that exactly 3 nights out of 31. Yep, 3. If I read more into the spirit of the goal instead of the letter, and interpret it loosely to mean "get to bed before 10:00 p.m.", I still only managed that for 16 out of 31 nights (and some of those days are rather iffy, because really, not a few of them were like 9:57 p.m.). Again, I decided a schedule change had to happen in February, so look for that goal to come around again.
Interests/Hobbies - Anyone who knows me, and quite a few who don't, knows I read for pleasure. To that end, it might seem strange that I decided to track my reading days in my Habit Tracker, but I decided it might be worth tracking because lately I haven't done as much as I would like. In December, I managed 14 of 31 days, in January I brought it up to 21. That still leaves 10 days in the month when I didn't do the one thing I enjoy more than anything else. That's 10 days I didn't make time for what I love to do. What was I so busy doing I didn't make time for me that way?
I also set a goal to use the calligraphy supplies I received for Christmas every day to practice my lettering, with a goal to learning the Italics alphabet to at least a competent standard by the end of the year. I managed 15 days out of the 31 in January, this even after realising that it only takes me 15 minutes to write the entire alphabet in miniscule (common, or small letters) and majuscule (capitals). There's another pleasurable activity that I couldn't spare 1% of the day for. So, some work is called for here to make sure I balance the increased work hours with downtime to rejuvenate.
Well, it's been snowing all day this Family Day, the rest of my family is reposed in front of the television, so I think it's time to go and hang with them again.
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| My Journal System for 2016 |
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| Encouraging myself to practice |
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| Calligraphy supplies, courtesy of G |
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| Downtime |
