As I wrote about halfway through January, I think I might have picked the wrong monthly challenge for my first one in 2023. I had so many good intentions to work on planning out a schedule and so many things happened that made that a lot more difficult than it should have been. I really did try to figure out at least something to have regularity in my week, but it was limited to only a few things.
I have a much better idea of when I can try to cook a meal since it’s really limited with my schedule. I want to try to figure out some faster things to make so I can cook after work and not feel overwhelmed or eat too late. And I’m working on prepping ingredients so they are easy to grab throughout the week. For example, I make my own pickled onions to add to salads and sandwiches on the weekend so I have them all week.
I also had a few small ideas about my cleaning schedule. There’s a lot more to work on with this, but I am trying to use my robot vacuum more so I don’t feel as much pressure to do vacuuming after work to keep up with things. I’m looking into other shortcuts to tricks I can use for other cleaning tasks, but I think I really should think more seriously about having a cleaning service come in once a month or so to do a big cleaning. I think that will help keep things in order so my weekly cleanings aren’t as big. I have to do some budgeting work to figure out if that’s feasible, but I’m making it a higher priority for me than some other things I was thinking of saving for.
Even though my January challenge about scheduling didn’t go that well, I have another scheduling challenge for February. This is a part of my big annual goals for the year, but this month I want to really focus on my sleeping schedule and making sure I get more sleep each night.
This has been something I have known I needed to do for a long time, but it really hit me hard this week. Last week, I was doing really well with getting to bed on time and getting an hour or more sleep each night than I have been getting. I know I still need more than that, but I did feel a difference and I was feeling a lot better. But this week, I’ve been getting back into my usual habits and I’m not getting enough sleep again. I’m actually getting a bit more sleep this week than I did a few weeks ago, but it’s still less than last week. And it’s making me more tired than I have been before. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a huge change, but I guess this is a sign that I really do need to focus more on sleep.
And that’s exactly what I plan to do this month. I know it’s tempting to stay up late to read to catch up on tv or other things, but I just need to remember that I can do that another time. Unless there is something urgent that has to be done, I want to really try hard to stick to a better sleep schedule even if I want to stay up later. I know this won’t always be possible, especially if I am meeting up with friends in the evening or going to dinner. But I can make an effort for all the evenings I’m not out and don’t have a good excuse to stay up late.
I’m curious if I’ll be able to do this since this is something I’ve been struggling with for a while. But I’m also curious to see how this makes me feel if I’m able to do it for most of the month. I want to see how it affects my physical and mental health. I know it will only have positive effects, but I don’t know how much of a difference it will make yet. But hopefully, but the end of this month I will be able to update you with the results!
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