First things first

Back to Covey's habit's this week - I am up to Habit Three: Put First Things First.

Spend time doing what fits into your personal mission, observing the proper balance between production and building production capacity. Identify the key roles that you take on in life and make time for each of them.
[Quick MBA]

Covey creates "a framework for prioritizing work that is aimed at long-term goals, at the expense of tasks that appear to be urgent, but are in fact less important. ... Important items are identified by focusing on a few key priorities and roles which will vary from person to person, then identifying small goals for each role each week, in order to maintain a holistic life balance. One tool for this is a worksheet that lists up to seven key roles, with three weekly goals per role, to be evaluated and scheduled into each week before other appointments occupy all available time with things that seem urgent but are not important."
[Wikipedia]

Here is a link to a blank weekly worksheet designed by Covey. Their way of scheduling doesn't really work for me as I am not available at consistent times, but I will be incorporating the ideas from it into the to-do lists which have become part of my FlyLady routine.

First I have to identify the roles which relate to my long-term goals (mother, wife, writer - to quickly name the most obvious ones) then I have to get into the habit of identifying three small ways to progress each role each week, and scheduling them into my weekly plan.

I also want to work on classifying my to-do list based on Covey's time-matrix. There are some more tools and ideas for doing that here, including a free spreadsheet - I just have to make sure I don't fall into Rimmer's trap (Red Dwarf fans will immediately understand) of spending so much time making elaborate colour-coded timetables that I never do any work!

This site has some more ideas on how to evolve a scheme of personal management that works for you. I was particularly struck by this quote:

In order to subordinate your feelings, impulses and moods to your values, you must have a burning "YES!" inside, making it possible to say "No" to other things. The "Yes" is our purpose, passion, clear sense of direction and value.
[ProfitAdvisors]

I also liked the way that site tied the first three habits together - being proactive is realising that I am the programmer; clarifying my long-term goals is writing the program; and now I come to the stage of executing the program - putting it into practice. Speaking of which, Wombat just woke up, and I still have to feed the chooks and the parrot before I can get him up, so I'd better get moving!

SMART habit progress:

• Waking up Wombat = working on finding a happy medium - he's not getting an instant response, but he's not (usually) being left there until he gives up on me either!


• Setting Long Term Goals = I've written out eleven goals, and have shared them with Yeti, so good!


• Being Proactive = realising that I am in control - autopilot responses getting less!


• Declutter = HABIT - made $25 on eBay so far this week selling old dressmaking patterns (and the auctions aren't finished yet)... and have burnt piles of treasure rubbish on Yeti's fires...


• My Work is to Love = feeling good


• Daily prayer = HABIT


• Positive Parenting = getting back in the groove - mainly lurking on the 4RealLearning Forum and thinking about homeschooling goals


• Exercise = HABIT - I miss a day here and there, but am getting fitter - now exercise-biking 4.5kms in 10 minutes, up from 2.5 when I started and the pulse rate is consistently lower ;D

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Waking up Wombat

A short break from Covey's habits... something else needs work!

Lately I have fallen into the bad habit of letting Wombat stay in his bed for anything up to an hour after he wakes up, while I finish what I am doing. I listen to him on the monitor, so I know he is not too upset. He has a big, safe bed with toys and books to look at, and although he often cries a bit when he wakes, he generally plays quietly and goes back to sleep for a bit. Even so I don't think this is a positive thing for me to be doing. I notice that he cries more often during the night and is much less cooperative during the day, whereas if I get him up as soon as he wakes up, he is so happy to see me and tries very hard to be good. This has been happening both in the mornings and his afternoon nap time and it's starting to stretch out longer and longer. The crunch point came this week when I caught myself turning off the monitor so I wouldn't have to listen to him Yeti wouldn't hear him whinging because his teeth hurt and he has a wet nappy and he wants his Mummy.

Naughty Mummy.

My new habit for this week is to respond to Wombat as soon as I know he is awake, and not to make him wait for whatever it is that I think is more important, because really, it's not. I just need to be better organised so I get the important things out of the way first, while he is soundly asleep, so I am only doing the optional, easy-to-stop things around the time I expect him to start stirring.

SMART habit progress:

• Setting Long Term Goals = needs more work


• Being Proactive = trying hard


• Declutter = succeeding beyond my wildest dreams - even Yeti is clearing out his spaces - a LONG way to go, but going to claim this as HABIT!


• My Work is to Love = most days, in intention if not always in practice


• Daily prayer = HABIT


• Positive Parenting = not reading or thinking enough... too much autopilot


• Exercise = HABIT - and starting to lose about 1/2 a kg a week... not much, but it's progress!

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

A sense of purpose

It has been quite a difficult few weeks, culminating in an explosion of tension. However, my new habit of being proactive has seen me through it (along with a lot of prayer) and I now feel ready to move onto the second of Stephen Covey's habits:

begin with the end in mind.

It is more urgent now than ever before for me to clarify my long term goals - I have a week to go until my 34th birthday - I still want to have two more children before I turn 40 - and we have decided that at 86, Yeti's mum should be enjoying herself rather than providing for us, which is going to require some substantial and imaginative reconstructing of family finances - in one way it is liberating to feel we will be cutting the apron strings and relying on our own resources, but in another it is petrifying, especially when we are contemplating getting pregnant and a major house move as well.

The change must start from within.

There are no short-cuts here. To engage in this habit, you need to have a dream, define your own vision and get into the practice of setting goals which will allow you to make measurable progress toward the dream. ... Until you have defined your vision - the big dream to which you will be working - you will be unable to move on to habit 3 which provides a basic framework for you to re-align your efforts so that you will ultimately achieve your heart's desire.
White Dove Books

It's time for this little energizer bunny to get out of her rut: "stuck on a wrinkle in the carpet… using a lot of battery power… but… going nowhere."

"Begin with the end in mind: Develop a principle-centered personal mission statement. Extend the mission statement into long-term goals based on personal principles."
[QuickMBA]

When I thought about what I wanted as my mission statement, I came up with... you guessed it... MY WORK IS TO LOVE!

So my new habit for this week is to start writing down what I personally want to achieve - the big gold stars I want to award myself - and more importantly, discussing them with Yeti.

I think I've been doing really well with the proactive habit - I'm amazed at how many niggling things have been disposed of. Things which have been waiting months for someone else to 'get around to' are now no longer on anyone's list - I've been adapting The FLYlady's advice to my own needs, and I'm amazed at how big a job can disappear in just 15 minutes! I still need more work on the stimulus-choice-response cycle, but I have at least thought before reacting a few times. I even have my timer ticking down now to make sure I don't waste spend more than 15 minutes on the computer before getting on with real life!

SMART habit progress:

• Being proactive = excellent & enjoying it (more work need on choosing my response to stimulus)


• Declutter = babystepping - the proactivity is really helping here


• My Work is to Love = ditto on the proactivity, and this week's habit as well - it's all coming together!


• Sacred Space prayer = fell apart with no computer or internet access, but I pulled out my weekly missal and am reading daily scripture for myself so excellent


• Positive Parenting = in my mind and trying to practise it, though haven't had time to read anything new


• Exercise = consistent 20 minutes a day - am going to add another 10 minutes to my afternoon routine starting today to celebrate losing 5 kilos since I stopped studying and reACTIVEated my life - wooohooo go me!

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Changes

This has been a real emotional rollercoaster of a week with some momentously life-changing decisions made. I'm still feeling pretty shell shocked and all my habits have suffered. If my ego thought it could just swan into a new life as supporter rather than supportee, it was wrong. Each day I am reminded that you don't become a new person simply by turning your face in a different direction and saying 'I want'. Even hard work alone won't do it. It is necessary, but not sufficient (that's a term lawyers use meaning that you have to have it, but it's not enough all by itself.)

Thankfully, Yeti says my only work for this week is to rest and get my head together, bless him. He pointed out that I haven't had a proper break from studying in 15 years (I nearly bawled when he said that - I guess that shows just how much I need one!) I can't possibly expect myself to adjust to being a dropout non-student overnight. However, he also suggested I start thinking of ways to be more efficient, more effective in my life. To think about becoming the person who can achieve all the things I want to do. This reminded me of a long-term goal... a seed sown long ago that has been lying on rocky ground waiting for some rain.

Years ago I first read of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits for Highly Effective People. Everytime I forget about them, they pop up somewhere else. I think it is time I started making them mine! (I probably should buy the book, but at the moment I am stuck using internet resources. Luckily there are some great summaries out there.)

"The Seven Habits move us through the following stages:
1. Dependence - the paradigm under which we are born, relying upon others to take care of us.
2. Independence - the paradigm under which we can make our own decisions and take care of ourselves.
3. Interdependence - the paradigm under which we cooperate to achieve something that cannot be achieved independently."
[QuickMBA]

I would like to think I am independent, but when I look at myself honestly, I am really still in a stage of dependence.

The first habit is:

become proactive

You can either be proactive or reactive when it comes to how you act about certain things. Being "proactive" means taking responsibility for everything in life. When you're reactive, you blame other people and circumstances for obstacles or problems. ... Between Stimulus and Response, we have the power to choose the response. [Wikipedia]

"Our response to what happens to us affects us more than what actually happened. We can choose to use difficult situations to build our character and develop the ability to better handle such situations in the future.

Proactive people use their resourcefulness and iniative to find solutions rather than just reporting problems and waiting for other people to solve them.

Being proactive means assessing the situation and developing a positive response for it. ... Once we decide to be proactive, exactly where we focus out efforts becomes important. There are many concerns in our lives, but we do not always have control over them. ... Proactive people focus their efforts on the things over which they have influence, and in the process often expand their area of influence. Reactive people often focus their efforts on areas of concern over which they have no control. Their complaining and negative energy tend to shrink their circle of influence.
...
Change starts from within, and highly effective people make the decision to improve thier lives through the things that they can influence rather than by simply reacting to external forces."
[QuickMBA]

Up to now, I have definitely indulged in a reactive mentality. Too often I function on auto pilot. I don't give myself time to assess a stimulus and decide how best to respond.

"Covey contrasts ... having a proactive mentality with being reactive. Reactive people, he says, are those who are resigned to the truth that whatever they do in the present can have no effect on their circumstances. And interestingly, for reactive people, it really is a truth, for whatever we believe in our heart affects our thoughts, words and actions.
...
Proactive people ... will point out that there are always choices. It is by the decisions we make, our responses to people, events and circumstances that proactive people can and do affect the future. We may have no control over what life throws at us but we always have a choice about how we are to respond.
...
this notion that having a particular attitude of mind (which is really where this habit begins) can make such a huge and positive difference to almost everything we experience in life ... is also completely liberating.

When we are finally prepared to accept full responsibility for the effects that are manifest in our lives; when we have the strength of character to admit it when we make mistakes (even big ones); when we are completely free to exercise the options available to us in every situation; then it can be said that we have finally internalised this habit. The other six of the habits require that we first work on our basic character by becoming proactive and thereby transforming ourselves into men and women of integrity."
[White Dove Books]

So that is my challenge, starting this week. This (and the next 2 habits) "are the "private victories" required for character growth. Private victories precede public victories." [ProfitAdvisors]

On a daily basis, I need to focus on my circle of influence - look at my world, see what bugs me about it, identify little things I can change, and act on them. I also need to take a moment to choose my response to stimulus, rather than just reacting. That's enough to concentrate on for a start. We'll see how I go.

(Sorry about all the long quotes, they are really reminders for my own reference, as this is the most convenient place for me to store them.)

SMART habit progress:

• Declutter = excellent


• My Work is to Love = up and down


• Sacred Space prayer = very good


• Positive Parenting = no rabbit trail this week, I haven't done enough reading


• Exercise = not good, several days missed entirely, only 20 minutes on other days instead of 40. Needs to be a proactive priority!

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Confessions of an heriditary hoarder

I am a hoarder. My sister is a hoarder. My mother is a hoarder. My grandmother was a hoarder. If you traced my maternal line back to the stone age, I am sure you would find the cave of my ancestress filled with rocks, stones and pebbles, leaves, dried flowers and grasses, scraps of fur, bone and sinew, twigs and sticks, and anything else you might think of because it glitters prettily in the sunlight or just might come in handy one day.

The problem is, my husband is also a heriditary hoarder. Between us we manage to have "stuff" overflowing from every surface, box, cupboard and drawer - most of which has not been touched by anything except dust since it was originally placed there.

Even with things I use regularly - Wombat's clothes for example - the "stuff" tends to accumulate out of control. I only sorted out and tidied his drawers two weeks ago, and already I am battling to close them, and having to pull everything out to find the item I need...

So my new habit for this week is going to be one of the hardest things I have ever attempted. I am going to DECLUTTER (ignoring the tiny shrieking self who runs for cover in my innermost being leaving handfuls of torn-out hair behind her)...

That's right. On at least three separate occasions each week, I will attack a different drawer, box, container, shelf or surface, throwing out, giving away or selling anything I can bear to part with, folding, sorting, dusting, tidying and rearranging. (I had thought of doing it every day, but the chances of that happening are miniscule, and then I would get caught in that procrastinating perfectionist trap of "I failed yesterday so it won't matter if I don't try today".)

Other habits are going well this week. A number of you expressed interest in reading more about Positive Parenting, so I have decided to keep track of my 'rabbit trails' (a term popular with homeschoolers, referring to how research on one subject often leads you down a rabbit trail to something else.) I think writing it down will also help me to remember, so each week I will post links and a summary of my research in a separate entry so as not to clutter up :) this one.

This week's Positive Parenting Rabbit Trail is: Tomato Staking.

I am also enjoying my daily prayer with Sacred Space, and thought I would end by sharing this snippet from today's meditation:

In God's loving presence I unwind the past day, starting from now and looking back, moment by moment. I gather in all the goodness and light, in gratitude. I attend to the shadows and what they say to me, seeking healing, courage, forgiveness.

SMART habit progress:

• My Work is to Love = good (an average of 7/10 for the week)


• Sacred Space prayer = excellent


• Positive Parenting = excellent (reading about it if not always putting it into practice)


• Exercise = excellent (back on track - doing 20 minutes every 2 hours, instead of 10 minutes every hour)

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Smart Habit Saturday

For my new habit this week, I have chosen to focus on the phrase "My work is to love."

I keep finding that on days when I remember this quote and hold it firmly in mind, everything goes smoothly & everyone around me is happy. On days when I forget it, I end up in arguments, with myself & with others, and I spread misery instead of cheer.

I would tattoo it on my forehead, but I so rarely look in the mirror these days that I don't think that would help.

I thought of buying post-it-notes and sticking it up on every surface I looked at during the day, but (a) I can't afford to be indulging my stationery addiction at the moment and (b) it would seem like false advertising to my family on the days when my ideal did not match the reality.

Hence my cunning plan - I will make remembering it (and living by it) a habit!

MY WORK IS TO LOVE



SMART habit progress:

• Sacred Space prayer = very good


• Positive Parenting = a work in progress (sometimes up, sometimes down)


• Exercise = atrocious (but hoping to get back on track)

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Smart Habit Saturday

My SMART habit this week is daily prayer. I have had this link saved for a while but only ever used it sporadically - I will now want to make a habit of using it daily:

SACRED SPACE

This site is run by Irish Jesuits and provides on-screen guided meditations and a short passage of specially chosen scripture each day. It only takes about 10 minutes to do and always makes me feel wonderful afterwards. Here is an excerpt from the end of today's reading, which turned out to be very appropriate:

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.

At the end of the reading, the guided meditation prompts you to ask: "What are you saying to me, Lord?" Sometimes I really have to puzzle over the answer to that - but not today :D

The rest of this post is WAY too longwinded and contains WAY too much information. You are very welcome not to read it!

Positive Parenting: Good. This week I have been concentrating on giving positive feedback and rewards (hugs and kisses) for all the little things Wombat does well, ignoring minor misbehaviour, asking for his cooperation (that really works! It's amazing how much Wombat understands, and how much nicer things can be if I explain what I'm doing and why, and then do it WITH him instead of TO him.)

It hasn't been all smooth sailing - he has suddenly become afraid of the dark - or perhaps it is just the awful teething making it harder for him to settle? We have had some screaming tantrums at bedtime but it seems better for him if I don't turn the light off until after he has been asleep for a few hours. I am going to invest in a night light & see if that helps.

I have sidestepped napping battles by watching for his 'sleep window' instead of insisting on two naps a day (and am getting hardly any work done as a result). I have also sidestepped the nappy changing battle by using a cloth nappy folded into a pad in a pair of training pants - it doesn't work for sleeptimes, but it makes him feel more grown up during the day - and this week he is finally using sign language for potty! (I have been trying to teach it to him for 6 months - ever since he decided he didn't like pooping in his nappy.) All poop goes in the potty now - and he makes the potty sign when he is sitting on it - now the next step is to get him used to the idea of telling me when he feels the need to pee.

(EDIT: When am I EVER going to learn??? Every single time I have made a comment online about my wonderful Wombat consistently pooping in the potty, I will spend that day changing dirty nappies. Every Single Time. I think that boy can read my thoughts...)

One thing I have found in my reading which has really helped is not actually to do with positive parenting, but it has made a big difference. A while ago I read about St Therese and her 'Little Way'. I immediately sorted out some beads from my stash to make a set of sacrifice beads, but never went any further. This week I found myself reading about St Therese again, and discovered we had something in common:

Every time Therese even imagined that someone was criticizing her or didn't appreciate her, she burst into tears. Then she would cry because she had cried! Any inner wall she built to contain her wild emotions crumpled immediately before the tiniest comment.
(Catholic Online: Saint Therese of Lisieux)

I can SO relate to that! I read further and rediscovered her concept of using beads to count her 'little acts of love'. Nothing heroic, nothing huge, just everyday good deeds - making Wombat smile... cleaning up a mess... smiling at my mother-in-law... it doesn't even have to be something you don't like doing - just something God would approve of!

Basically, when you do a good deed, or offer up some little sacrifice to Jesus, you move a bead towards the crucifix. When you do something wrong (grumbling to myself about hanging the washing... losing my temper... leaving a mess for someone else to clean...)* you move a bead back the other way (towards a Miraculous medal of Mary, or a medal of St Therese, or some other saint/inspiration to do better). I have found this really helps me keep track of my day - I don't despair after a bad day, because I know I have done good things as well, and if I am having had a good day, I am also more aware of the little things I do that hurt others. The beads are very easy to make - here are some clear instructions and here is some more information on how to use them.

*(to quote Sandra Boynton's song 'I like to Fuss': "I like to fuss, I like to moan. I like to stand on my chair and say leave me alone... I like to gripe, I like to brood, I like to stomp all around in a truly terrible mood..." - that's the main bad habit that has me pushing beads in reverse ;P )

Exercise: excellent! WOOHOOOOO! I was so inspired and feeling so good about exercise this week that whenever I missed a session, I did double the next time so I could still tick it off. The secret is in setting such small, manageable ten minute sessions! Having said that, I am on hold for this week. It is that time of the month, and I have discovered an unexpected and unwelcome side effect of weaning. While I was breastfeeding, it seemed that my body had finally settled down into having normal manageable periods instead of my usual bloodbath. I was incredibly happy! Now that I have stopped, I am suddenly plunged back into the dark ages of a huge mess and cramps. *sigh* If I'd known that was going to happen... oh well, I guess it's just more incentive to get pregnant again :P (though Yeti insists on us waiting until I am under less study stress...)

The end result is that my exercise plans have ground to a shuddering halt. I have been reaching for the chocolate, and the second spoonful of sugar that I had happily been doing without has somehow crept back into my tea. The big challenge will be taking up where I left off once this week is over - and that is the challenge I have failed in the past. Still, I was really enjoying the exercise this time, and definitely feeling the benefits of it, even if they weren't externally visible. Rather than push myself in a weakened state, I am going to spend a week doing less strenuous stretching activities and make that part of the exercise habit so I can cope with times like this.

SMART habit progress:

• Positive Parenting = good


• Exercise = excellent (but on hold)

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

SMART Habit Saturday

My score for exercising this past week has been 'good' - the goal is 4 hrs 40 mins a week (10 minutes per hour, four hours a day between 3am & 7am - my study time). I managed 3 hrs 40 mins. 'Very good' would be 4 hrs or over, and 'excellent' would be the whole 4 hrs 40 mins. I won't count it as a habit until I can write down 'excellent' for three weeks in a row! But I am pleased with the effort I have put in and I feel better for it.

For this week's habit I had planned something reasonably simple - personal grooming. However, a more urgent need has arisen. I am very hesitant to write further, and I should warn that what follows may be disturbing. I don't know what you will think of me after this, but it is a dangerous tendency and I need to write it out into the open so I can combat it. (Please don't send me hate mail!)

My level of aggression towards Wombat is unacceptable. Most of the time I am his loving, cheerful, entertaining, comforting mummy who will read endless stories, sing endless songs and generally try to be understanding. He is a typical toddler - sweet, loving, cheerful and entertaining, with a stubborn streak a mile wide, a desperate desire to have his own way without actually knowing what he wants, and the ability to push all mummy's buttons at once. I have found myself withdrawing and behaving coldly in response, and when that doesn't work, I have lashed out at him.

After a rainy day together with only one half-hour nap for him in the morning (despite yawning his little head off and rubbing his eyes raw, he wouldn't couldn't fall asleep this afternoon) he was tired, I was tired, his teeth hurt, I had a sore throat from singing lullabies over and over again. He asked me to read a book by pushing it hard into my face. I told him I would, after I changed his nappy. He cooperated with the change, then started crying when I went to put the wet nappy in the bucket. Without thinking, I slapped him in the face with it. That is SO far from how I believe a mother should behave that I am ashamed to type it. What kind of psychological trauma could that cause? Here I am celebrating how much he remembers from his books and the words I teach him, and I go and behave like a cruel bully towards him. It took me a long time to cheer him up afterwards, and this morning he woke up at 2:30 and despite lots of reassuring cuddles, I couldn't get him back to sleep until 4.

He has four pre-molars cutting through at once, and I am sure he is in a lot of pain. He is adjusting to the loss of our breastfeeding relationship. I am under a huge amount of stress from all sorts of directions, and on top of that I am dealing with the hormonal effects of weaning. That's no excuse. A few months ago I read in the newspaper about a couple who had whipped their 4 year old daughter with electrical cord and then shoved her into a boiling hot shower, giving her third degree burns. They were so ashamed of themselves, they didn't take her to hospital until six hours afterwards. All because she was 'refusing' to be potty-trained.

This horrific story stuck in my mind, because at times I can feel how easy it would be to snap like that. I have never gone close, and I think I would never ever ever do such a thing to my beautiful boy. But today scared me. It made me realise that I'm much closer to the edge than I think and that if I don't start stepping back from it now, when things get really challenging I won't be able to cope. Then Wombat will be the one to suffer, not me, and that's a thought I can't bear.

As a result, I have to take responsibility right here and now - and what better way than to make positive parenting a habit? I will try to read something on positive parenting every day & put it into practice. I will also give myself a parenting score out of 5 each day, since I find having a quantifiable goal helps to keep me on track. I have tried to adopt positive parenting in the past, but seem to forget the principles and backslide when the stress builds up. Now it is time to make it a way of life, not just a nice idea! I will remember:

My work is to love.

Here are some links I have found to start my reading:
- Positive Parenting.com
- Positive Discipline.com
- Encouraging better behaviour
- Positive Routine Management (this is the Australian 'baby whisperer' - she has a lot of interesting things to say about communication... I can see I am going to be spending a lot of time re-reading this page & trying to put it into practice.)

Time to go, or I won't get my exercise done this hour. It is cold, pouring with rain, and I don't feel like it, but I do want it to be a habit, so I will "just do it". Hopefully I can apply the same technique to being a better mum.


SMART habit progress:

• Exercise = good

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life!

Smart Habit Saturday

When I noticed the judge for Scribbit's WriteAway Competition this month, I was immediately intrigued by her blog name: The Lazy Organizer. Sounds like my kind of person, I thought... so even though I don't have time to add anything more to my reading list, I went for a look.

Luckily, the first post I bumped into was for Smart Habit Saturday. (Not that the rest of her blog isn't a good read, it's just that this is what I really need - even more than I need a genuine Alaskan Moose Candy dispenser.)

I had a whole post planned in my head about traditions, and what kinds of traditions I want to start for Wombat, and how such things have to become a habit for me before they can be a tradition for him (little things, like remembering to say grace before meals)... but then my mind started overflowing with all the habits I really needed to be working on. I started to feel overwhelmed, so I got out the calendar, and wrote down one for each Saturday. I now have new habits planned to work on every week for the next three months!

The thing is, I know this works. Concentrating on one thing at a time means you can actually put some effort into it without being distracted - or it becoming a distraction from the other things you must do. Before you know it, it becomes second nature and you don't have to think about it any more. Getting up early to study is a good example. At first it took a lot of effort. Now I actually enjoy it. This morning, I even woke up at 2:50 am, ready to go - 10 minutes before my alarm went off!!!

Which brings me to my first Smart HABIT (as Lara at The Lazy Organizer explains, S.M.A.R.T. stands for "Saving Money, Associations, Resources and Time". I need to do all those things, but to begin with, there is a most important resource that needs looking after. My body.

My first smart habit is:

1. EXERCISE

All my life (or at least for as long as I have been aware) I have deplored my mother's habit of pushing herself to get things done - working on without taking time to look after her physical needs. When she was young it wasn't a problem, but now, at just over 60, she is facing hip surgery and is in constant agony from her back. Despite this, she keeps doing what she has always done and nothing changes. (She is a cake decorator, so her work involves long hours bent over a table with nothing moving but her fingers.... hmmm... not unlike someone who works constantly at a computer...)

The thing is, this tendency must be heriditary, because I am turning out to be just as bad. I sink myself into my work, and hours pass by without me moving. (I am including all computer time under the title 'work' there - but I should admit much of it is play - blog reading, website building, other writing, editing photographs - however, that is a topic for another habit some other Saturday - except that if I spend too much time playing & too little time working, I am even less inclined to take time off to exercise, as I have too much catching up to do...) Despite my good start this morning, I have now been sitting at the computer for two hours, have not opened a law book, have certainly not exercised, have not thought about my posture and have not even gotten around to putting my slippers on - I am sitting here in bare feet and it is 5 degrees celsius.

This year is proving to be worse than normal, due to my increased workload, and the fact that I am busy with Wombat the rest of the time, so I can't just go for a long walk or hop on the elliptical whenever I feel like it (which admittedly wasn't all that often anyway.) There are so many things I need want to get done... who has time to exercise???

The answer, spoken very firmly to myself, must be "MAKE TIME OR ELSE".

I am overweight and unfit. My posture is terrible. I need to do something about it asap, or my most important resource (me) will not last my lifetime.

I have pulled out my elastic home gym for stretching & isometric exercise and will use that for warm-ups, and then I will hop on the elliptical and cycle as fast as I can for 5 minutes. I aim to start by doing this once every hour as a study break, and hopefully increase to every half hour once it becomes a habit.

Being a glutton for punishment, I am even going to take Ulysses out with me & read while I cycle ;) may as well get a mental and physical workout at the same time (and hopefully finish the darn thing some time this year)! I will report back on my progress and list a new habit to work on next Saturday. (As Lara points out, it takes 21 days for something to become a habit, so I don't expect instant results... but having publically declared my intentions, and having to review my progress & report back each week should help keep me on track towards my goals.)

In case I needed more incentive - when I was 14 I had an operation on my knee... lately, that knee has been going to sleep or getting painful pins and needles after I have been working for a few hours... my attempts to get the blood flowing to it again at least allow me to bring you this pretty photo - so now I have no excuse at all not to make exercise a habit - there's even a blue moon!

Today is a good day to start making a brand new ending.