Last month, my monthly challenge was to work on writing a schedule for each day so I wouldn’t forget to do things I need to do. It’s been a rough adjustment from being out of work to being back to a full day most days. And even though I didn’t have a ton of stuff to do outside of working and my workouts each day, I was still noticing where my days were being wasted doing things I didn’t need to do and where I was forgetting to do things I wanted to get done. So creating a schedule for each day seemed to be a good challenge.
I had an old notepad that was designed for doing daily schedules on, so that’s what I used. It had a few sections on the page that I didn’t really need or wanted to use, but it was easy enough to use it. And for the most part, it worked. I started off strong with doing the schedule every day. Then I realized I only felt like I needed it when I had other things to do in my day. If I just had my work and workout and nothing else to do, then I didn’t do them. But when I had work meetings, things to make sure I was watching, or other tasks like doing my taxes; then it was perfect.
And I think that’s exactly how I want to keep using this idea. I don’t always have to create a daily schedule (although I am getting better at setting alerts for things that go into my calendar app so that’s helpful). But when I have something different or extra in my day, this is the best way to make sure I get it done. Even if I just make a to-do list with tasks, that’s helping me to remember to do things. And I know that as my schedule starts to fill up in the future, doing this is going to help keep me on track and not let things slip my mind.
And connected to the idea of my schedule filling up, I want my monthly challenge this month to be about finding more joy in my life. I’m still pretty isolated and lonely, but last month ended up being my most social month in almost a year. My parents were here for the day. I got to spend time with a friend (who is being as safe and isolated as I am). I did a few other fun things that I haven’t written about just yet. I felt like I was starting to have a life again. And even though I have known how badly I needed this, I don’t think it really hit me until I allowed myself to have more joy in my life again.
It’s still going to be hard to find ways to do this. I have very few friends that I could see in person right now because many of them have jobs that require them to be around a lot of people. Or they have someone in their household who is extremely high risk and they can’t risk seeing anyone. I am not going to take too many risks these days because I know we are getting so much closer to the end of the pandemic. I don’t want to slip and then get sick. People are still getting sick and dying every day. But at the same time, I have seen how much better I feel when I have things that feel much more like my old life back.
I’m going to look into more online events that my friends and I can all watch together. I might look into outdoor things too, but that might be a bit more of a risk than I want to do just yet. I have been wanting to do this for a long time, but this is the first time I have this push after experiencing a small bit of my old social life back again. And I think knowing what I’m missing and not being so separate from it is going to help motivate me to try harder.
I do still want to be hopeful that it won’t be that much longer before things are safer and I won’t have to work as hard to find ways to have joy, but I’m not going to depend on that hope. I’ve done that for almost a year now and I know that for my mental health, I can’t keep putting it off any longer.
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Back To More Scheduling (or Seeing How Much My Time Unemployed Affected Me)
Scheduling Life (or Trying To Remember What Day Of The Week It Is)
Trying To Not Let My Stress Get To Me (or Continuing To Find Ways To Cope With Isolation)
Remembering To See My Friends (or Actually Scheduling Hangouts)
Doing The Opposite Of My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Focus On The Good)
Scheduling Without A Schedule (or Hoping To Make The Most of My Unemployment)
