Today I choose...

... to have a lazy day.

To some of you, that might seem like nothing much to blog about, but I am not good at choosing to have a lazy day. Normally, I have a big list of stuff to do (and believe me, I still have a giant list of stuff to do that at least part of my brain thinks I should be doing!) and deciding not to do things off the list feels very difficult.

But, last night I had a very bad night's sleep, my arrhythmia is tapping away a syncopated rhythm and although my list of stuff to do is no shorter, I have decided to have a quiet day and not chip away at it. The world will not end if I don't do some of the stuff until tomorrow. Or the day after. Or never, possibly... Today, it's more important that I relax and take care of myself.

As I say, this may not be anything major for many of you, but believe me when I say how hard it is for me to see a list of things to do and decide to walk away from it.

Anyone else find it hard to ignore your 'to do' list?

Looking back; looking forwards

Janus - the god of beginnings and transformations:
He looks to the future and to the past (hence two-headed)

I have finally started to plan 2015. A bit late and still a bit haphazard, but at least I am able to think about what I’m wanting to do in 2015 (beyond the obvious – not end up with burnout again).

I always do a review of the past year – generally between Christmas and the New Year – where I look back over plans/goals etc. and also review my daily journal and see how the day-to-day went. This year’s review a) only took place a couple of days ago and b) was an eye-opener.

I suppose it wasn’t rocket science but it was striking to me to see just how many days towards the last half of 2014 that I noted that I had slept badly/had had vivid dreams or nightmares/was exhausted/kept waking through the night/that my arrhythmia was bad... Since both my mental and physical health were crumbling, all my other goals became affected too. By late November I had collapsed and could barely even plan on getting up. This utterly floored me as I have always been super-planned.

Anyway, doing the review helped me to think about my goals for 2015, central to which are to protect my mental and physical health. I’ve also read back over a couple of posts I did a while back, specifically this one (on ensuring that your goals are things you yearn to do). Finally, I have managed to get my sh*t together and draw up some sensible goals, from which stem the projects and next actions that are the core of my ‘system’. I’m not going to post on the system –see here (2012  set-up), here (my planning system), here (projects to next actions), or here (getting ready for 2014) for details on it. Essentially, the system that worked for me in 2012, 2013 and 2014 (until I hit burnout) will no doubt work for me in 2015! The only tweak I have made is to stay in the compact de Villiers binder. As a consequence I can only have four months of WO2P in the binder, and the monthly planning sheets and weekly planning sheets for everything other than the current month are kept in a ‘planning binder’ (navy Portland filofax) along with the pages outlining the goals to projects to next actions.

Here's hoping that 2015 ends up better than 2014 finished...


As I should remind myself every day:

If I'm not yearning to do it, or it's not essential... why am I squandering my life on it?