New Habits are So Time Consuming!

New habits are time consuming. I believe I've heard it said that the best way to kick an old habit is to replace it with a new one. Doing one thing instead of another takes away the temptation to do what you want to stop doing, with an added bonus of keeping your daily regimen intact.

This new exercise thing has added a half hour to my morning routine. I gave up sleeping in that extra hour in lieu of making time to exercise, while (trying to) form a new habit of getting up at 6:00 a.m. This is good.

The writing thing? It feels harder.

In my old life, I woke up early to intentionally make time to write. My daycare family walked in the door at 7:30 a.m. and everything I managed to get done in the day from that point onward was a bonus. I placed writing first and everything else was second priority.

I now appreciate the fact that my daycare days forced me into some good habits and routines.

I believe what I miss most about my daycaring days is "quiet time". Once my little people were all sleeping &/or still and quiet, I took my laptop and worked on my word puzzles like my life depended on it. Getting those puzzles completed satiated me in a way I assume a smoker may feel after having a cigarette. It was a need. It had to be done. I felt better while doing it and relaxed when I was done.

I would squeeze in time to write in our daycare blog during that time of great quiet. If there was still time to spare, I would cruise the Internet and (most likely) find myself in the thick of my Facebook feed looking for adult input into my very child oriented days.

In this renovated life of mine, my mornings are still too short. I have been running behind on my puzzles by almost a day for several mornings and this morning I just "had" to catch myself up. I believe this is what may be called an addiction but it is not a negative thing so I'm not going to berate myself for it. I must simply find a new place in my day for it.

This thing called cleaning is another thing I have not delegated time for. Once again, back in the daycare days of yore, I had a basic cleaning routine. At my peak, I washed swiped down the kitchen floor every day after lunch. I kept on top of day to day tasks, did basement chores on Thursday and upstairs cleaning was done Friday. It was not uncommon for me to be vacuuming while the kids ate their afternoon snack, so we could head directly outside and I would come into a clean house at the end of a very long day. Yes, I even vacuumed daily back in those days.

I sat down each and every Friday afternoon and mapped out our lunch, snack and supper menu for the following week and on the weekend, I bought groceries accordingly. I baked, I cooked, I froze leftovers and I seemed to have a readily available bounty of homemade muffins, slices and cookies to offer a guest who may drop by. Yes, I even had guests back in the olden days.

Man! That does not sound like me at all. In my prime, I did okay.

There is no need for much of the routine I had in place back in those days. Vacuuming cat hair, cat chores, laundry, cleaning bathrooms and having a clean kitchen are about all I really expect of myself. And I'm doing all of those jobs in a very slap dash and half hazard way.

One thing at a time. Like this:

Maybe I need to add "vacuum cat hair off of living room blinds" onto my weekly chore list. Yesterday, the bathtub. Today, the blinds. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?