Small Bites in 2013

It's resolution time, I guess.
I could say that I'm going to lose weight or get into shape but I don't need that kind of pressure.

At the end of last year, I wasted a lot of time. Learning how to stream from Netflix didn't help but I also had so many things that I needed and wanted to do that I couldn't decide what to do so I'd take a nap.
I resent externally imposed schedules. While working in a public library, the reference desk schedule ruled my life. Finally escaping this somewhat arbitrary schedule was an amazing relief. But it has a cost: I have to decide what to do and when to do it, not a skill I've mastered in my prior worklife.

Also, I tend to get compulsive about projects and, without external forces, will keep working on them until I deem them complete. Sometimes I hesitate to start even finite projects because I don't know when I can finish them. One thing seems to inevitably lead to another and who has time for that today?

I love being able to spend all day making jewelry or writing or working on Photoshop. But I can't live like that on a daily basis because I can't decide whether I should be making jewelry or writing or working on Photoshop today.
Instead, I need to learn to take small bites from different tasks every day.

Yard work is overwhelming, especially at this time of year when the falling leaves look like a blizzard. Rather than working in the yard for eight hours and straining my back so that I can't do anything the next day, I need to limit myself to one hour (two at the most). Then I get vitamin D every day and eventually all the leaves will be composted and I may not want to commit suicide when the seed pods start dropping in the spring.

Probably the most important thing to schedule is going to the gym. I need to make it so routine that I don't even think about it and feel incomplete if I skip a day. It's only been a week, but I've gone every day and not once thought of excuses.

I need to spend at least one hour (and no more than four) on my computer. I can go for a week without logging on because my iPhone is so useful. But then the things that I can't do on my iPhone don't get done (like blogging). Instead I post cryptic messages on Facebook.

I need to balance work and home like we all do. But since I work at home, no one is going to help me. I need both every day and I need to NOT get bogged down with one and forget the other things I enjoy doing.

And sometimes I need to go rogue. Having a schedule is what makes ignoring the schedule fun.