Exercise, rewards and stationery!

To tell the truth, I don’t really need many incentives to get my running kit on and get out there or to do my five sessions of 30 minutes a week of exercise (I cycle 6 miles each way to/from work which takes care of ALL of that usually!).

However, I am terrible at sticking to a training schedule. I will go for the run, but instead of the intervals training I’m meant to be doing, I do double the distance but as a steady run (and therefore never get any faster). Or, I’m meant to be doing hill runs but I decide they’re not enough fun and are tiring, so I go on the beach instead. I’m doing the exercise, but when I’m training for something specific (half marathon etc) that’s not good enough.

I also buy too much quite a bit of stationery.

So, I have decided to try and use stationery as a reward for doing the right kind of exercise!

Ingredients:

Silver stars

Gold stars

Week to view diary

‘Stationery reward’ pages (see below)

Mulberry/filofax

Method:

In the weekly plan, decide what the training schedule for the week is and write it in the Mulberry/filofax.

When the training session is completed, put a silver star on the appropriate day in the week to view diary.

At the end of the week, in the weekly review, if there are ALL the silver stars there that there should be, add a gold star to the stationery reward page.

Each month, if there are 3 or more gold stars, the reward for all that exercise is the purchasing of stationery (and combine it with Bureau Direct’s monthly discount code so you get more for the same money!)

What the stationery rewards page will (hopefully) look like at the end of January!

Results:

I have pretty gold and silver stars in my Mulberry/filofax?

I spend less on impulse purchases of stationery?

I run the next half marathon in less than 2 hours?

Anyone want to join me in this lark?

"Sharpening the saw"

The last few weeks have been ridiculously busy, throwing off my goal-achievement and generally wearing me out. I needed to do something different today.

A while ago, I went on a course which talked about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey), one of which is to “sharpen the saw” or (in layman’s terms) to look after yourself so that you are more effective. My recollection of much beyond this concept was a bit fuzzy, and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was supposed to do to sharpen the saw, so I read the summary on Stephen Covey’s site and also this blog.

Good job I did, because otherwise I would have assumed I was just resting today and that magically, all blunt saws would be sharpened! Resting would only be preserving/enhancing the physical side of me. I also needed to ‘sharpen’ the emotional, mental and spiritual.

What did I do?

Well, I went for a run this morning. I’m training for a half-marathon so that was on the books for today anyway, but unlike my DH (who thinks that running is something that has to be done in order to eat as much as he does and not get fat…), I enjoy running and find it relaxing and therapeutic. So although I was running (and potentially making myself more tired), I was also enhancing my health and in fact relaxing.

I had then intended to chill out with a book and a pot of tea, but after reading the summary, I thought I should at least try to work on the other areas.

For the social/emotional aspect, I wrote letters to friends and took time to relish the fountain pen and silky writing paper combo whist I did it. I love writing letters; almost as much as I love receiving a hand-written letter. I owed a few people a few missives, so I sat down (after evicting the cat from the desk chair) and wrote away.

For the mental aspect, I did some reading and some work on my new book. I’m at a stage I really enjoy, which is discovering the characters. I write long character dossiers and have pictures of ‘them’ cut from magazines (if I spot someone who looks right) and pictures of ‘their house’ cut from Ideal Home etc. They slowly come alive as I work on them. That’s one of the fun bits. Of course, once they’re ‘alive’ they also plague me until I finish writing which can be less fun at times!

For the spiritual aspect, I tried to meditate, but unless I’m also running, I find it almost impossible to get into a meditative state. I used my sand-timer (which always helps me to focus - at least on the falling sand - and to think less) but it was still a bit of a struggle. Maybe the running could cover both physical and spiritual??

Anyway, I’m feeling a little sharper and realised that (apart from the running) that’s largely due to paper, pens and ink featuring highly in my day!

Review of Habana Smooth

Working my way through reviewing all my notebooks from The Journal Shop, it’s the turn of the Habana smooth (2 pack). I had originally bought these because I thought they would be good for planning the new book in, but a) they were too thin and b) they didn’t lie flat enough (and I have enough to worry about when I’m writing not to have to fret about pinning down the corners of a notebook so that I can read it). I’ll be using an A5 filofax for the book planning instead.

The cover is very smooth but I don’t know what it’s made of – not leather but some form of plastic or vinyl? Anyway, it feels sturdy enough to be able to write in the book without having something other than your knee to lean on, but is still flexible. The cover had a label giving its description (ruled notebook) in six languages and the number and weight of the pages – 96 pages; 85g (presumably per m²). The book is 16 x 24 cm with rounded corners and a discreet logo at the bottom right of the cover.

corner logo and rounded corners

The first page is blank (and, as ever, stuck down the spine edge to the first lined page). There’s no ‘title page’ like there is in the Ciak.

As you can see from the first lined page, I am using this notebook as a running log/journal. I’m aiming to do a half marathon for charity in May 2012 and thought I would record the highs and lows of my running schedule. This seemed slim enough to not end up with oodles of blank pages at the end!

Although it doesn’t really lie flat, with some persuasion, it can be encouraged to lie almost flat!

first lined page - you can see the front sheet is stuck to it

The paper is thinner than in the Ciak but is very smooth to write on and copes well with fountain pen. My Parker Sonnet always lays down a lot of ink during writing and this did sit on the surface a bit – enough that I would need to use a blotter before turning the page, to be honest. But, there is minimal bleed-through to the other side with any of: Parker Sonnet, Parker italic nib or Osmiroid flat-tip nib (my three favourite pens!). You can see in the following picture how little the bleed-through is (and I know – I write really dull things about my running!).  The thing holding the pages open is my Garmin!

minimal bleed-through and nice to write in fountain pen in

It’s interesting (to me) to note that the same thing that happens when writing in a Moleskine seems to happen in this book too – the blue/black ink from the Osmiroid always gets lighter and more turquoise looking after a day or so. The top entry (from the 5^th Oct) looks paler and more greeny than the entry from today (8^th). Maybe it’s the cream pages?

The line-spacing is quite narrow (5.5 mm) so if you had large writing you might struggle to fit to the lines. My writing is reasonably small thankfully. For a running journal it’s fine – for book planning it would have been too narrow I think. My Moleskine was 6 mm line spacing and it felt too dense at times, especially in A4 en bloc. There is no ribbon marker in the book.

Overall, I would give it a 3 out of 5. It’s small and good quality, but the line-spacing is a tiny bit tight, it doesn’t lie flat easily and the lack of a ribbon marker is a shame. But, for the price, it’s a good, serviceable notebook.