FEBRUARY UPDATE
I knew from the minute I decided upon February's challenge that it was going to be difficult for me. Over the last few months I'd slipped into the awful habit of absentmindedly checking various social media channels pretty much constantly throughout the day, such that my sleep and mental health were suffering as a result. Cutting back on scrolling seemed like the perfect plan, and while it's been even harder than I anticipated it's been eye-opening and well worth the challenge.
It scares me how much these habits were ingrained on my subconscious. Multiple times throughout the month I had to physically stop myself from refreshing the twitter app, or I found myself scrolling through Instagram without really paying any attention to what I was doing before I would shake myself and forcibly put my phone down. I hate that obsessing over social media was just second nature to me and checking various apps all day was virtually my default setting. By challenging myself to limit my exposure to them, it meant I had a little voice in my head constantly telling me to reach for a book, go for a walk, or speak to another human being instead of having my phone glued to my hand. Signing up for email updates from my favourite websites helped enormously too as I've managed to read all the articles I need to see during my morning email check, rather than discovering them in dribs and drabs over the entire day. While there were a number of days where I well and truly failed and found myself scrolling well into the night when I should have been asleep, the large majority of the month was a resounding success.
I'm now extraordinarily conscious of any time I spend on my phone looking at anything other than texts, my crossword app or my emails. I'm going to continue to limit the time spent on my phone during the day - and maybe even try and be stricter - as I feel much better for it. All in all, I've found ways to cope with less social media, and am all the better for it. I've had no FOMO at all, and in fact found I didn't remotely miss or care about what I didn't see. As far as I'm concerned, that's a success!
(gold stars - reading / silver dots - film / green dots - saving money / green stars - workouts / silver stars - brain-training / blue dots - learning / blue stars - yoga / red stars - social media)
As usual my film watching has be exemplary this month (including pulling an all nighter for the Oscars); I frantically finished reading SS-GB before the series started on BBC One last Sunday; I have an unbroken 28 day completed crossword streak; and I've been saving money. I just need to restart my cross-stitch and I'll be keeping up most of these challenges!
MARCH PLANS
Most people are under the impression that I'm super organised. While I definitely am at work, at home it's a different matter entirely. I'm a sucker for spreadsheets, labels, and a beautifully organised filing cabinet more than most normal people, but at home everything falls apart a little and my life feels like semi-organised chaos. As such, I want to spend March treating home like work, and attempting to spread that level of military-grade organisation to my home-life. At home I find it impossible to stick to any form of schedule, and I'd like to rectify that.
I'll be working out a timetable of sorts and doing my best to stick to it, by planning my days in advance with my colour-coded calendar so I can slot in workouts, learning and events. I also have a to do list longer than my arm of files and papers that need sorting through so I'll include them too in the month's challenge. Hopefully in 31 days I'll be much more organised in a myriad of ways!
So, 30 days of organisation...go!
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