APRIL GOALS
1) Keep a food journal. Not complete. I didn’t even attempt to food journal this month. I have made this a goal many, many times and I never complete it. Maybe I just don’t want to?
2) Replace my bed. Mostly complete. My new bedsheets, pillowcases, and quilt are here. My bedframe has been delivered. My brother has ordered the mattress and box spring from his work. All that’s left is for him to deliver the mattress/box spring and then set up my bed, which should be happening either today or tomorrow. WOOHOO!
3) Schedule a LASIK consultation. Not complete. I submitted a request for a LASIK consultation at a nearby eye center, but I never followed up with them. Oops.
4) Work through the Anxiety Toolkit that my psychiatrist sent to me. Complete! Once I finally sat down with the workbook, it didn’t take me all that long to go through. It wasn’t life-changing by any means, but it was useful to go through it.
5) Set a biweekly budget. Complete-ish. I set the budget, but I did not really check in on it like I wanted to. I must get better about this!
MAY GOALS
1) Work out every day in May. This will be a tall order for me, but I’m also excited about it. I failed miserably with my walking/exercise goals last month, so I am very behind with my goal of logging 50 Peloton workouts (of 20 minutes or longer) this year. I’m also not doing great with my goal of walking every day. A goal like this, where I have to find the time to get in a workout daily no matter what, has worked well for me in the past and I’m hoping the same holds true this month.
2) Check my bank account every day. After many years of being meticulous about tracking my spending and itemizing every purchase, I grew very tired of the practice in early 2023. And… I just gave up on it. I wanted to find a different way to track my spending that didn’t feel so overwhelming. I’ve been playing around with different options, and I may have finally settled on something that works better. It may feel like this idea of a daily check-in of my bank account isn’t any less overwhelming than itemizing my purchases, but we’re experimenting here. Maybe this works, maybe it doesn’t. But I won’t know unless I try!
3) Schedule a LASIK consultation. Rollover goal.
4) Get my skin tags removed. I have a variety of skin tags that need to be removed by a dermatologist. I’ve had to get skin tags removed before (I’m prone to them), and it’s a very easy process, but best handled by a professional. I just need to schedule an appointment!
5) Do not use my phone until my morning workout is complete. Elisabeth has been having some interesting conversations on her blog about phone usage. I have a tendency to use my phone a lot (my current daily average for screen time is over 6 hours, if that tells you anything). I don’t necessarily feel bad about how often I use my phone, but I do think I use it as a crutch to avoid switching to different tasks throughout the day. I also almost always use it first thing in the morning, blearily scrolling through Instagram as I try to wake up or wasting the first 30 minutes of my day playing phone games (ugh). Since I have a goal of working out every day this month (and I’m going to try to always do my workout first thing in the morning), I’m going to try to build this new habit right alongside it. I already keep my phone on DND from 8pm-8am so it’s not that I get distracted by notifications when the alarm goes off… but other apps can easily distract me. Hopefully, this goal will not only challenge me to use my phone less but also to get up and do my workout so I can use my phone, ha.
Love the idea of no phones until after a workout. Pairing two goals like that: delaying phone use + daily workouts is genius.
I have tried food journalling so many times and just…hate it. I know it works wonderfully for many people, but it never worked for me. I also now try to eat “intuitively” so writing down what I eat feels counterproductive to that goal…but even still I long ago abandoned any thoughts of being “successful” at maintaining a food journal. For me, it took a lot of the joy out of eating!!
It does take the joy out of eating, doesn’t it? I just need to stop thinking this is a goal that will work for me! I obviously do not want to do it. Argh.
That phone goal will definitely help with your workouts! That’s what I’ve been doing! I get up and check the weather and log some stuff on my phone but then do my workout and save social for later.
And I am the same as Elisabeth when it comes to food journals. Pretty much the exact same. I hope you find something that works for you there!
I think so, too! So far, it’s going really well. There was only one day when I started using my phone before my workout and it really threw off my schedule!
Working out in the morning is just impossible for me. I want to be a person who does it right away in the day and gets it over with, but it turns out that I’m not that person. I can’t wait to hear how that goes.
Haha – well, if it helps, I wish I was someone who could work out at ANY time of day. But I will find every excuse to not do it unless it’s the first thing I do when I wake up. I wish I was more flexible about this!
I love a morning workout! It’s just…done! And then I do other things. I actually look forward to it (you KNOW how I feel about my Peloton!!!)
If a food journal works for you, then go for it, but I have to say that I get weird and obsessive when I have kept one in the past. In fact, I knew I had to change when one year I ordered one from amazon and when it arrived, my son – who was maybe 12 at the time – said “Oh no, Mom, that’s not a good idea. No, you should not have that.” Um, wake up call? But at the same time different things work for different people and if it works for you then I will cheer you on!!!
I’m so proud of you and your Anxiety Toolkit!!!
It’s so nice to have the workout done first thing in the morning! That’s really the only way I will do it and then I feel so good for the rest of the day!
I would prefer to workout in the morning. I am not able to do it all that often since I am not the kind of person that can get up at like 4:30-5 to workout. So I only do it on the weekend and the days I WFH if it’s not crazy busy. It’s been way too busy lately though.
So exciting that you will have your bed soon – maybe by the time I make this comment! (I’m being on blogs!!).
My brother is one of those super early morning workout people because it’s the only time he can workout. So he will sometimes get up at 3:30 (!!!!!!!!!!!!) to work out. I do not have that kind of dedication to ANYTHING, much less working out. (And he works a very physical job! I don’t get it.)
YES to first-thing-in-the-morning workouts. For me, if it doesn’t happen then, it’s not likely to happen at all. So I’m in your brother’s camp – get up as early as needed to fit in some kind of movement.
I’m intrigued by your allusion to doing something new to track your spending – is it an app? Something else? (A spreadsheet would not surprise me -it’s you, after all! – but now I am curious!)
Ugh, that goal is going to be a major fail this month, lol, but I have an idea for how I want to work on my budget moving forward and it WILL be a spreadsheet because that’s how I roll. 🙂
I am all for morning workouts as you know – but I can also get distracted by my phone sometimes (and then start later than I wanted).
I am also intrigued by your new budgeting approach. I know you’ve been tracking diligently for so long – are you attempting like an envelope system or something like that?
No, not an envelope system. I was just going to track it in a spreadsheet as usual, but in a different way. It’s not working out this month, unfortunately. Blah.