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dolorosa_12I mentioned a while back that I was trying something different with various long-term and short-term (non-fannish) goals, and as I've come to the end of the first month of this new approach, I thought I'd write a check-in about how it's been going so far. I'm approaching things with the aim of a minimum of one big admin task, one big garden task, and one big house-related task per month, with the option to add other things. So, how did it go?
My garden task was to weed the flower beds in the back garden, and mulch the area under the fruit trees. I was foiled in this by the ground being completely frozen for much of the month of January, although at least the weeds didn't get any bigger. So instead I changed this goal to be to remove all the (currently unused) container garden pots from the deck, and to sweep the deck and all the footpaths. This has been done, and the weeding will be transferred to February as the garden goal.
The house-related task was a big cleaning job that I'd been putting off for ages because it's awkward and difficult. We clean the bathrooms, mop/vacuum/sweep the floors and dust hard surfaces once a week, and obviously wash up and clean the kitchen more frequently than that, but there are other more infrequent tasks that take longer and build up. I've finally done this particular job, which is a good thing too since Matthias's family is visiting us this weekend and it had to be done before that.
The admin task is something expensive and annoying that comes around once a year, and I finished it — at least my part of it — last week. Everything outstanding requires input from other people, so I'm calling this task done as my work in this regard is done.
I ended up with two additional tasks. The first was to consistently attend two specific fitness classes at my gym every week for January. As most of you who've been here for a while would know, I swim very frequently for exercise — four times per week, 1km each time — and do yoga every day, but other than walking I don't really do any exercise that involves impact. This was in part due to pain in my ankles and wrists that started in 2021, but that has dissipated somewhat and it was bothering me that I wasn't doing any movement that involved both impact and an elevated heart rate. The two classes have ended up being a great deal of fun — I'm still pretty bad at them given I haven't done anything like that for years (I used to run, and it's probably been fifteen years since I did any non-yoga fitness class), but they suit me perfectly and are back-to-back on a Saturday morning. This has meant rearranging my life somewhat, but not to an unbearable extent. I can already feel the effects, and imagine things will only get better.
The second task was a more concrete reframing of one of this year's big goals: to spend way less time idly scrolling through social media, and to basically pick anything else (read a book, watch a new TV show, go for a walk, clean something, etc) to do when I'm at a loose end. In the end, I've landed on an approach in which I've banned myself from all social media platforms (I don't count Dreamwidth) before breakfast and after dinner. I had to go back at some point and ban myself from Twitter entirely, because it was giving me panic attacks again, and so far I've stuck with it. I'll come back eventually when I'm in the right frame of mind. This particular task has been revolutionary — suddenly I have so much more time and get so much more done. Last year I read 87 books: this year I've already read 21 in January alone! (Some are short stories, but so were some of the 87.)
So, all in all this approach seems to be working, and I'll set some more goals for February and see how things go.
The last two books of the month were great — and very different! They were The Haçienda by Isabel Cañas (a retelling of du Maurier's Rebecca set in Mexico after its War of Independence) and Last Exit by Max Gladstone (a typically hard-to-categorise book, part road novel, part campus novel, part multiverse novel, the story of five university friends who discover the ability to move between worlds and find themselves locked in a cosmic battle; it reminded me of American Gods in its focus on the minutiae of weird Americana, but it's also very much an exploration of the original and ongoing sins of the United States, and very, very specifically about people of my age at this current moment, in terms of the cultural touchstones and big political events the characters remember).
So, January's reading ended on a high note, and it's onward to February, I guess?
My garden task was to weed the flower beds in the back garden, and mulch the area under the fruit trees. I was foiled in this by the ground being completely frozen for much of the month of January, although at least the weeds didn't get any bigger. So instead I changed this goal to be to remove all the (currently unused) container garden pots from the deck, and to sweep the deck and all the footpaths. This has been done, and the weeding will be transferred to February as the garden goal.
The house-related task was a big cleaning job that I'd been putting off for ages because it's awkward and difficult. We clean the bathrooms, mop/vacuum/sweep the floors and dust hard surfaces once a week, and obviously wash up and clean the kitchen more frequently than that, but there are other more infrequent tasks that take longer and build up. I've finally done this particular job, which is a good thing too since Matthias's family is visiting us this weekend and it had to be done before that.
The admin task is something expensive and annoying that comes around once a year, and I finished it — at least my part of it — last week. Everything outstanding requires input from other people, so I'm calling this task done as my work in this regard is done.
I ended up with two additional tasks. The first was to consistently attend two specific fitness classes at my gym every week for January. As most of you who've been here for a while would know, I swim very frequently for exercise — four times per week, 1km each time — and do yoga every day, but other than walking I don't really do any exercise that involves impact. This was in part due to pain in my ankles and wrists that started in 2021, but that has dissipated somewhat and it was bothering me that I wasn't doing any movement that involved both impact and an elevated heart rate. The two classes have ended up being a great deal of fun — I'm still pretty bad at them given I haven't done anything like that for years (I used to run, and it's probably been fifteen years since I did any non-yoga fitness class), but they suit me perfectly and are back-to-back on a Saturday morning. This has meant rearranging my life somewhat, but not to an unbearable extent. I can already feel the effects, and imagine things will only get better.
The second task was a more concrete reframing of one of this year's big goals: to spend way less time idly scrolling through social media, and to basically pick anything else (read a book, watch a new TV show, go for a walk, clean something, etc) to do when I'm at a loose end. In the end, I've landed on an approach in which I've banned myself from all social media platforms (I don't count Dreamwidth) before breakfast and after dinner. I had to go back at some point and ban myself from Twitter entirely, because it was giving me panic attacks again, and so far I've stuck with it. I'll come back eventually when I'm in the right frame of mind. This particular task has been revolutionary — suddenly I have so much more time and get so much more done. Last year I read 87 books: this year I've already read 21 in January alone! (Some are short stories, but so were some of the 87.)
So, all in all this approach seems to be working, and I'll set some more goals for February and see how things go.
The last two books of the month were great — and very different! They were The Haçienda by Isabel Cañas (a retelling of du Maurier's Rebecca set in Mexico after its War of Independence) and Last Exit by Max Gladstone (a typically hard-to-categorise book, part road novel, part campus novel, part multiverse novel, the story of five university friends who discover the ability to move between worlds and find themselves locked in a cosmic battle; it reminded me of American Gods in its focus on the minutiae of weird Americana, but it's also very much an exploration of the original and ongoing sins of the United States, and very, very specifically about people of my age at this current moment, in terms of the cultural touchstones and big political events the characters remember).
So, January's reading ended on a high note, and it's onward to February, I guess?