June. My other favorite month (in addition to May and October). I love the whole anticipation of summer, the leading up to the solstice. Lots of celebrations, from our anniversary to the end of school. This June promises a lot of fun outings---I've already got several planned, and I'm sure we'll squeeze a few more in. It starts with lot of family time and will end with a kid-free week when we drop the boys off with my parents, at my sister's place (i.e. payback for Spring Break)
May had its ups and downs. To focus on the ups: I think I've cemented my meditation habit---I have a 32 day streak going, after lots of stops and starts and missed days here and there. I am doing 10 minutes of "Calm Light" on the free "Calm" app. There is a minute of guidance and then silent meditation for the rest. Sometimes I totally get in the zen and feel amazing---sometimes my mind wanders constantly. It all counts, and I keep trying. I also did a plank challenge, and worked up from 1:30 to 4 minutes in about 5 weeks! The challenge expected people to go from 0:10 to 5 minutes in 30 days, which is insane. I'm going to keep at it on my rest days from the gym/running and hope to get a solid 5 minutes by July.
I've been listening to old episodes of Gretchen Rubin's "Happier" podcast, which I actually quite enjoy. One of the episodes mentioned a quote I'd heard before (probably on the blog) but never fully got: "Work is the most dangerous form of procrastination". I thought it was about how I used to organize my socks instead of studying in college, or similar. But when I listened to them talk about it, I realized it is way more insidious and its been my downfall the past couple of months. I hate writing papers. Hate hate hate. Love writing grants. Hate writing papers. Love analyzing the data, and doing literature reviews, and planning experiments. Hate writing papers. You get it. For a while I was flat-out procrastinating---social media, vacation planning, online shopping. But then I decided to get my butt in gear---and did every single non-paper-writing work-related task I could conceive of, crossing items off my list, and ending the day with a feeling of false accomplishment. Yes that stuff had to be done at some point (most of it), but it was not a priority.
Recognizing the problem is the first step, and today is going better. I've cut myself off email and even allotted a very short time for patient messages, so no "urgent" things derail me. We have a belated birthday date-night tonight, and I've got a fun new dress to wear. For the first time in a while, I'm loving all the clothes I'm seeing in stores, and I couldn't help myself from buying some new things for summer.
Happy June!
This is interesting -- why do you think you hate writing papers but love writing grants? Most people hate grants because the chances of funding are so low, while with a paper you will generally be able to publish somewhere, eventually.
ReplyDeleteAnd happy belated birthday!
I tried the 30-day plank challenge once. It was ridiculous. I got up to about 3:35, I think, and I just couldn't any more. Right now I plank for about a minute, once a week, which probably doesn't do much since it's so little, but at least it's something. I also do crunches that same day.
ReplyDeleteyay with the meditation streak! i was doing GREAT w/ mine until pregnancy destroyed my mornings (and they may be kinda gone for the next couple years . . . heh). I am determined to get back to it though!
ReplyDelete