There was a note in (I think) the NY Times about how staying at home through the pandemic leads to "Blursday". It can feel like we are sleepwalking through our days, every day Groundhog's Day. I think this was already sort of true for me when I retired, but the pandemic really accelerated it. How do I tell one day from another? What did I do yesterday, much less last week? And, how did I get through a week without doing anything? Anything useful, or productive, or compassionate, or anything other than basic eating and flopping on the couch with a book or tv? I first wrote about this problem just a couple of months after I retired, and again in 2020. It's remained a problem, more or less, as time moves on. The "less" is generally when I have actual deadlines coming, things like leaving on a trip. This winter, with an increased need (again) to stay home, it feels necessary to grasp my days and make something of them. But how?
You've seen my report card, where I record the statistics kept automatically for me by my various devices and automations. Sometimes, that simple record is all I have, and even some of the line items are hard to recreate: did I actually go downtown this month? Let's look back at my calendar or emails to see... And, with so few items on my calendar, I don't look at it, and so forget the few things I have.
I have to-do lists, and that is not the problem. Actually getting up off
the couch to do things, when I think "but I just did something on that,
that's enough for now" and "I'll do something about that tomorrow". But I need the record, to keep me honest. My memory will always round up, way way up, assuring me things have been better than they actually have been. I have tried various things, but I've got a couple methods that I've stuck with for a while, and they help.
One of the practices I've long but intermittently engaged in, is tracking my food, for diet purposes. For the past couple of years, I've done some daily worksheets more than half the days, that ask me to plan food in advance, and track what I've eaten yesterday. But in addition, these worksheets (which have varied over time) have spaces for things like "What am I grateful for today?" and "What did I do right?".
So I've decided to quit this pricey diet group, and make my own worksheets. I freely plagiarized from several different sources to create something new for this year, a daily worksheet. Food remains prominent, as I work to both plan better and record what I actually eat. (I am motivated to plan in order to use the food I have in the house with less waste, to ensure I am getting some vegetables in especially, and to also look at the calendar, make plans for the day, and ensure I will have time and energy to cook and eat according to plan. I'm recording afterwards because I want to focus on how I feel before, during, and after eating.) So far, this one-page a day is working for me. I generally do this in the morning, after that first cup of coffee.
I'm using these worksheets on the ipad - I built them on the computer in excel and powerpoint, and then turned them into pdfs I pull into my note-taking app on the ipad. So with my apple pencil, I write on the ipad as if it were paper, but it's not paper. That way, should I want to go back and look, I've got it near at hand, without cluttering up things. And, I can modify and adapt the worksheets at any time. Also, the colors mean nothing, I just switch up colors in the app every day because I can.
Again, I see this as keeping me honest about what I am actually doing. I am very self-indulgent, in how I spend my time, and also how I eat. But I am striving for balance, and that requires a clear-eyed understanding of what I am doing. This is daily a minimal effort, and it feels worth it for now.
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