Happy New Year
This year, I’m going to take a different approach and actually create habits that stick. Working from home requires a insane level of discipline and focus, one that I didn’t need while working at my corporate job. Not to mention, the capacity to deal with the added stress and anxiety due to the global pandemic. It’s been tough for all of us to say the least!
A few months back, I went thru a faze of insomnia which resulted in my inability to get up in the morning, constant headaches and extreme exhaustion. I wallowed in self pity for a while and then decided to take control and do something. Against the pleas of “NO” from the negative voice in my head, I signed up for 7:30am zoom classes. I knew getting up that early would be hard but I needed something different. I’ve been pretty active during quarantine but the solo workouts in my living room were getting boring. As expected, the first day was terrible because I didn’t sleep the night before but the class was awesome. And to my surprise, that night I slept like a baby and was able to wake up easily to the next day. Moral of the story: if something isn’t working, change it!
Once I was actually able to get up in the morning and function, I started asking myself these questions: What am I doing with my day? How am I staying focused? And, How do I create habits that will allow me to reach my goals? Although I didn’t have all the answers, I took the below steps in order to start.
I got a digital planner from Wendaful.
I always used planners but it was important for me to declutter my desk and reduce the bulk in my purse. So far I love it, it literally has everything you could possibly need. This planner is hyperlinked so that you can move around quickly. It also has a ton of templates so that you can add additional pages and create customizable sections.
Create a vision board
Creating a vision board is something I always talked about doing but never actually did. It important to visualize your goals and see those images everyday. I’m going to create two boards, a digital board that will live in my planner and a physical one that I plan to create with my partner for our shared goals.
Setting yearly and monthly goals
My new Wendaful planner has sections where you can create yearly and monthly goals. I sat down and I thought about the things that I wanted to achieve this year and a realistic time frame in which I could hit those marks. Then I back tracked and broke these yearly goals down into monthly goals. The monthly goals were then broken down further into weekly/ daily goals. It’s sounds tedious but it helps me stay organized and focused.
The rule of 3
Normally, I would create a ridiculously long task list, only get thru a fraction of it and then kicked myself when I didn’t get enough done. Now, I write down 3 main task everyday and stick to that. I can’t tell you how amazing I feel everyday after completing my 3 tasks. It’s like all of a sudden, I have all this extra time to breathe, sketch, read or do whatever else I want. I feel less pressure from myself about having to work every sec of the day to hit my goals. There has to be a balance or else burnout is inevitable.
I’m a work in progress, all this is still new to me. Everyday isn’t a success but I’m already functioning better than I have been in the last year. The goal isn’t to be perfect but to create habits that eventually become routines.
xoxo,
Fortune
Check out my last blog post, My Prada boots are my new obsession!
