Struggling To Set Routines
Journaling To Hold Myself Accountable
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When I set my goals this year, I knew what my largest hurdle in achieving those goals would be. I thought about ways I could work around it, but when push comes to shove, it all boils down to one thing. Consistency.
I thrive off routines. The problem is, my work schedule bounces all over the place. I work in retail management so there are days I open the store and have to get up very early, while other days I close and have to stay up pretty late. Other days are a mid-shift which means I can sleep in a bit and get home before I’m exhausted.
The days I do best as far as getting stuff done around the house or the writing I so desperately want to get done are the days I close. I usually wake up around seven, spend an hour waking up and drinking coffee, and then I will still have several hours to work on whatever I want. Those days aren’t the issue.
It’s my opening shifts that are the problem.
My sleeping patterns suck. I get a few hours here and there throughout the night. Very rarely will I sleep for more than three hours at a time. When I have to get up early, I’m exhausted. Add to that the two hours of commute time, the nine hour shift… I’m out of the house for eleven hours and by the time I get home my brain, body, and patience are shot.
When I planned things out, I tried to figure out what I could do to combat this, but the fact is, there is nothing I can do. I have a planner with my days planned out, and I have a writing accountability buddy. I was hoping those two things would help me out, but so far they do nothing for me. I did, however, find something that is working so far.
The day I bought my planner, I also happen to come across a journal that was calling my name for some reason. I’ve tried to journal before and have failed miserably. This time, I wanted to use a journal to keep track of what I’ve done in order to reach my goals.
Journaling is holding me accountable.
Every night when I’m exhausted and go to get in bed, there’s my journal. I pick it up and open it to the first empty page. What I’ve found is I don’t want to write “I did nothing”. That gives me a choice. I either force myself to pull out…
