Some weeks my checklist encourages me to do everything I should do to improve my life, tracks important information and happy memories, and organizes my work.
Some weeks it shows me what I’m not doing. It’s easy for me to think that I usually get enough water and exercise, that I rarely eat sugar, that I keep up with my housekeeping and my morning and evening routines — but sometimes life gets busy and all those things fall by the wayside.
It’s good to know this. I feel tired today, and I can look and see that I had just over six hours of sleep each night this week, that I ate sugar every day, and that I had multiple meetings and events each day, disrupting those morning and evening routines.
That lets me know the changes I should make. It reminds me that I enjoyed a concert and a dinner and choir practice and the WordCamp meetup, so maybe that’s worth feeling a little slow on Saturday.
As for my routines, it occurs to me that I could simplify both into the same four steps:
- Exercise at 6:00. I’ll brush teeth before the morning workout and clear my desk before the evening one, but both can be scheduled at 6:00 to kick off the routine.
- Wholesome meal followed by clean up. That’s clearing dishes and making my bed (if nobody’s in it) in the morning, and dishes plus a daily chore in the evening. It’s whole grains and fruit at breakfast and meat and vegetables for dinner, but wholesome in both cases.
- Teeth, nails, skin, and hair — morning includes dressing my skin like a grownup and putting on make up, evening includes flossing and slathering on the unguents, but if I do something for each of those organs morning and night I should be reasonably well-groomed.
- 8:00 rule. In the evening, 8:00 is when I should get ready for the morning and then for sleep. In the morning, it’s when I start work. In both cases, it should be the end of consumption — TV, news, food, phone calls, what have you.
Exercise, Meal, TNSH, 8:00. Not a memorable phrase, admittedly, but maybe I’ll come up with one.