WTS Day XXXVI

You would think I was used to the heat by now but it is officially baking today. I didn't do any exercise today or yesterday. This is partly tomorrow logic as I am booked in for a gym class tomorrow. I know that gym classes aren't enough though, and I need to be doing some at home as well. That is a thing to watch. 

My first day of Habit No 2. is going well, as in it's actually going. I got up this morning and wrote at the laptop. Nothing too startling or anything. It's also twenty to five now and I already have my five o'clock writing done. I'm not sure if bringing it forward is a good idea or not, but couldn't think of an advantage of waiting until five o'clock. I'm working on an essay. I doubt this essay will ever be published but the best writing advice (have heard this from Kevin Barry and elsewhere from Neil Gaiman) is to be a finisher. To finish things and not leave scraps lying around the place. The computer makes this kind of thing even more dangerous. I would like to be writing fiction rather than essays, but feel not writing on the basis that I can't think of something fictional would be a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I read as well this morning that Joseph O'Neill gets an idea for a novel only once every ten years. This makes my one-short-story-a-year output seem less pathetic. 

In other news I am going out tonight, just to language-exchange, but that is something. I have become something of a hermit. But that is outside circumstances, to an extent. Things will pick up again. Have been doing a lot of reading and finally finished "The War that Ended Peace". I love reading, really reading. What do we mean when we say "reading for pleasure"? Why do we assume reading for pleasure means reading easy books, or frothy books that don't challenge us to think about issues? For me that is half the pleasure of reading. I hate the phrase "reading for pleasure", and I'm not the only one, although I know I'm in a minority. For most English teacher, this is heresy and unspeakable on forums like TESEO. 

If I had to sum up in one word my current status, I'd say it is "bored". Not that there is anything wrong with that. There are so many days. I wish we were going back early, the way some schools do, so as to get days off during the term. How welcome those days would be! I didn't vote, but think anyway there was little point in voting. In the words of Joseph Stalin: "It's not those who cast the votes who have the power, it's those who count the votes." 

WTS Day XXXV

Kicking myself this morning for not going out last night, but trying to remind myself of how tired I really did feel. This was, I think, from lack of planning and also from the unseasonably warm weather. There was no-one at the MeetUp that I wanted to see in particular. I didn't cancel, just didn't show up, which strikes me as mean-spirited and I resolve not to do so again, even if it is just drinks. 

It is #26habits day again today. My last habit was to stay out of TKMaxx. How did I do? I went there twice, once this day last week, and the second time yesterday. I bought one item: a foot cream. Once a week might seem plenty and not like I have succeeded, but what is important is that quite a few times I went into town or to the shopping centre and didn't go in there. This is the test, it had become an automatic thing that if I were in town for any reason I would "check" TKMaxx, in a hunter-gatherer kind of way. That is hopefully a thing of the past, and I will endeavour to keep out of there as much as possible for the rest of the summer. (What am I saying? It's quite possible for me never to darken their doors again. Better to say I will keep my visits to withing reasonable limits and not buy things of which I have several already). 

Time now for Habit No 2. I have toyed with a few over the past fortnight. A serious contender was to stay away from Youtube, but I am postponing this to the next time because I don't want this to be some kind of Lenten omnibus of giving up this and giving up that. I have decided that every second habit, at the least, will be adding an activity rather than taking it away. The frontrunner than became to develop an evening routine...a kind of bookend to Elrod's SAVERS. This I have come up with in the form of FLOAT. I did think first of JOLT. Journal-Organise-List-Tidy, but that sounded too much like a morning routine. The letters of FLOAT stand for 

-Five-minute journal.

-List

-Organise

-and

-Tidy

I am good at filling out the morning section of the FMJ, which I do as the A component of SAVERS, but lots of the pages are either blank at the bottom or have the headings but nothing filled in under them. I just forget, but making this part of a definite routine helps. The list is the right-hand side of my Moleskine diary, which functions as a bullet-journal to-do list (yes, I did try full-on bullet journaling and while I can see it is very clever, it just didn't work for me). In the evening I check off what I've done with an X through the box, and add in items that have arisen during the day so I have some kind of window into the future and this also minimises having to get out of bed because I've forgotten something. Then I organise anything I need for the morning/pack if I'm going anywhere. This isn't usually necessary this time of year, but will be a crucial step in September. Then T is for setting a ten-minute timer on my phone and tidying up, mostly in the kitchen. 

Life-enhancing as this routine is, it hasn't made the cut for this fortnight's habit because as soon I as conceived it, it's been extremely easy to stick to. Maybe when the enthusiasm wears off and I need a re-boot it could become one of the 26 habits at that stage. When it came to picking the habit, I decided to think about my priorities. Going out more is one of them. Another is writing, and this is where I finally settled. Drumroll....

Habit No. 2 of the #26habits is to use Dorothea Brande's two strategies to get more writing one. The first strategy is to write first thing in the morning. The second is to commit to another specific time of day to write. I plan to follow this five days a week. Five is enough, and I will pick the time five o'clock, or as close to five o'clock as I can manage. We will see how this will go. 

WTS Day XXXIII

I am sure these headings are breaking all the rules of blogging by being so undifferentiated. Now I am writing in this every day I could come up with sub-headings. 

Am just back from the gym: I don't use the machines because I hate them and can't stay on for longer than ten minutes but I have a membership that allows me two classes a week so I normally go to those. It is actually a clever way of structuring the membership. I can sign up for the class on the app, and if I cancel the day before, I have credit to book an alternative. However, if I cancel on the day or fail to show up, then I lose the credit and can go to maximum one class that week. This is handy and I go more now than when I joined first on a short-term unlimited pass. The unlimited pass meant that I could cancel a class on the day and just book one for the following day. This was too easy, and half the time I wouldn't bother going the day after either. This way, even if I'm tired after work and not in the form, I have to attend the class. It's today or never. 

I am all for classes as I find they are the exercise form that allows for the least motivation. An alternative would be exercise-through-commute but I couldn't really walk or cycle the thirty kilometres of mostly motorway without serious damage to my coiffure and possibly life. I sign up and turn up and after that it's just following instructions. This will sound bizarre but it is an actual treat to be a class member for a change instead of being the one at the top of the room, directing the action and taking responsibility for everyone keeping up. It has underscored the importance of lesson planning: there is little worse than the instructor trying to think of what to do next or looking for a track on their phone. Actually, the only thing worse is when they say "Okay guys, what do ye want to do next.....or.......?" and the loudest voices win. My choice almost never triumphs; I am on a very low percentile when it comes to general fitness. 

I had to call into work today and some-one asked me what I had on for the weekend. "Nothing this weekend", I answered and I am trying to feel proud of myself for my honesty and authenticity. It is the truth though. I have nothing on. I have texted an acquaintance and asked if there's anything on she would like to go to, but have heard nothing back. There is a MeetUp drinks I think I will attend if there is nothing else on. It is okay. There will be other weekends with lots on. This is life, now that I'm well into my forties, and I never wanted to be a middle-aged nighthawk with lots of eyeliner and a collection of bodycon dresses. That's not me. I am getting lots and lots of reading done, and a little writing and am organising my life in ways that'll keep paying off for months to come. 

Still it would be nice to have fun. Will try to persuade one of my married-with-kids friends that we need to go on a Night Out. That'd be fun. It is half-past five on Friday and a little late to be making weekend plans.