Introduction 2020

 Dear friends I haven’t met yet,

     A year ago, I was in a very different situation than I am now, externally. Internally, I struggle as much as this intro post says, with some imperfect pottery made along the way that has made things easier. Though, there’s new setbacks too. I would like to take today’s post and go over some of what’s changed regarding what I’ve already written on the blog.

     First of all, trying to read on a schedule is not working for me. I realised recently that I actually am reading a lot every day, but instead of reading fiction books, I’m reading a lot of nonfiction on the internet. Mostly it’s news articles and blog posts, especially to do with my interests or what I call “researching my deficiencies,” where I try to see where people succeed with things like habit building that I’m so bad at. It does help, actually, but I don’t make nearly as much progress as a neurotypical or healthy person would.

     Because I am trying to write my own fiction, I am trying to read more fiction, but I’m not putting it on a schedule. I will try to read books as I check them out from the library on Libby and not return them unread, but I won’t be making an effort to read a book a week. Maybe a book a month, according to my Goodreads goal. As always, you can see what I’ve been reading at the bottom of my blog posts.

From last year’s introduction post, here’s what I kept:

• Minimalist bullet journalling every day

• Daily caffeination

And here’s what I changed

• Reading differently, although I read more now than I did a year ago

• the “bare minimum” turned into routines and habits instead of scattered thoughts

• A more complex lifechart that I keep in my bullet journal

     I’ll now go over what’s changed. First, the “bare minimum.” In my post last year I had a disorganized list of things I wanted to do every day, with the bare minimum I wanted to accomplish for a non-zero day, and a scale of tasks I could complete up to the most optimal for the same goal. For instance, for oral care, the bare minimum was use mouthwash while the optimal was flossing and brushing my teeth. In between was using a dental guard at night to prevent teeth grinding.

     Now, instead, I’ve created routines to build the bare minimum into my day, and build it up so I’m doing the optimal thing more often. I started out small, with a night routine of brushing my teeth, writing in my diary, and taking my meds. I already had the habit of taking my meds, so it was only adding two things that took less than five minutes each. I did this for a number of weeks before adding a similarly small-stepped morning routine. Finally, here’s what each routine reliably looks like now (when I’m not sick as I have been since New Year’s.)

Morning:

• Make coffee

• Take meds

• Bullet journal & set alarms for the next day’s activities

• Do an oracle card reading for the day

• Eat breakfast. Check social media or read while doing so

• Write (with music playing)

• Brush my teeth

• Check emails

Bedtime:

• Take meds

• Floss

• Brush my teeth

• Write in my diary

     You’ll notice that parts of this routine reflect the bare minimums I used to have, such as play music, oral care, or caffeinate. As 2020 progresses, I will add more routines and habits slowly, as I get used to the ones I just added recently. For instance, I will add exercise, writing for longer, and meditation. I will go over that more in a future post.

     With the addition of routines, meeting bare minimums becomes almost automatic, and increasingly automatic the more I do the routines and the more times in a row I do them. As of the time of writing this, all of my routines have been messed up by getting sick the first week of the year. However, I’m confident that what I built will be waiting for me when I’m done being sick (especially since I refer to a written guide of my routines every day.) Also, I keep track of when I completed 2/3 or more of my routine in my bullet journal on a habits page I just recently started keeping track of separately.

     The last thing that’s changed is my life chart. Originally I only kept track of 5 things, and only numerically. Now I keep track of a whole page of things per month, and the numeric side of things has changed from SEEJA (Sleep quality, Energy, Emotions, creative Juices, Appetite) to SEEJE (the last E being Enthusiasm, as I find that is more indicative of the kind of day I’ve had, whereas a high appetite doesn’t mean I’m having a good day.) Here’s what I’m keeping track of as of January 2020:

• SEEJE with a total score to see how that day went overall

• Appetite on a scale of 1-3

• When I slept

• If bad shit happened that day

• My period

• Sex

• Headaches/Migraines*

• Nasal Symptoms*

• Gastric Symptoms*

• Lactose intake*

• Alcohol intake

• Extra sugar intake

• Whether I was crestfallen that day

• Whether anxiety impacted my day significantly

*These being for the physical side of my ailments

     This whole list is either affecting my health or affected by my health or both. For instance, lactose intake influences whether I have gastric symptoms (but isn’t the only cause for them) and headaches can influence my mental health as they sap my energy. At the end of the month, I look for patterns on what affects what and how, as well as overall patterns like how often I have gastric symptoms or bad days. This page in my bullet journal is called “observations.”

     Before I go, here is another list: posts to look for later this year

• New Year’s goals (not resolutions)

• “Sidebars” with things such as book reviews

• Goals planning workshop

     And a look at how my tracking looks in my bullet journal:

• Build Your Best Writing Life: Essential Strategies for Personal Writing Success by Kristen Kieffer

• The New Paper

• Webcomics that update SO SLOWLY

• Email lists from Well Storied

• Email lists from Daring to Live Fully