January Recap
My goal for January was:
1) Write a little something every day.
I’ve pretty much done this in January, but I realized I was already pretty much doing it before January, so I’ve not noticed much of a difference this month.
As I’ve continued to reevaluate my Habit Experiment, I found this quote from a letter Hunter S. Thompson wrote to a friend in 1958:
“So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.”
I’m not sure if a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson is the best person to take advice from, but I like the sentiment. It reflects the shift in perspective I’ve been experiencing towards my Habit Experiment. I’m not ready to jettison goals entirely, but I’m trying to see them in the context of what I’d like the big picture of my life to look like (I’m not even to the point of figuring how to “make a living”). Conclusions are in short supply at this point, but I trust that asking the questions is a good place to start.
And now for February’s goal:
Implement FlyLady routines
My goals:
1) Do daily FlyLady routines more regularly, particularly bathroom swish-and-swipe and morning and bedtime routines.
2) Streamline my weekly cleaning.
3) Add in 15 minutes a day of zone decluttering/detail cleaning.
So, how do these goals promote the way of life I’d like to have? I’d like to have less stuff so I’m more mobile (and less embarrassed when movers come to pack up our house), and I would like each of the things I own to have a purpose. The stuff I have I’d like to be tidy and clean, but I also don’t want to spend all of my time cleaning and organizing my stuff. My hope is that routines will help me keep things decluttered and tidy with a minimal outlay of time and energy.
I must admit, my heart’s not really in this one. I’ve been off-and-on following FlyLady routines for nearly nine years now with off-and-on success. I could blame my children, but if I really wanted to keep to cleaning routines, I bet I could. I suspect that it doesn’t matter as much to me as I think it does. I’m not sure that “recommitting” to routines is going to help now, but I’m giving it a try. (I should probably make next month’s goal, “Brush up on my pep talks to myself.”)
Points to Ponder:
Do you focus on goals or on a way of life…or both?
Imperfect Happiness 