This Time...

This is mostly the same as a post I wrote today at Spark People, but the same principles apply to housekeeping as weight loss in many ways.

I think everyone, at some point, falls off of whatever wagon they're clinging to.  This is followed, almost inevitably, by a point in the future at which one says, "This time I'll do it right."  I'm all for positive affirmations and goals, but "This time..." is more like a promise, and one that is often destined to be broken.  

I've been slacking for quite some time now, and I wanted to start today fresh and trying harder.  But something about "This time..." rubs me the wrong way.  Maybe it's because it implies other times, more opportunities to fall.  Maybe it's because it implies picking up right where I left off instead of backing up a few steps and building back up to where I was.  Maybe because it's just too general.  Maybe it's because it's been said hundreds of times before and it carries the weight of all those failures with it.  Maybe it's because it encompasses too much time.  "This time..." could be months or years.

I think I'll go with "Today..." instead.  "Today..." I will pay attention to my priorities.  "Today..." I will get some - any - cleaning in.  "Today..." I will track what I need to.  Today I can handle.  It's one day, a finite time.  And if something goes wrong Today, there is always another Today - tomorrow.  If I said "This time..." and fell today then I wrecked the whole thing.  

So far Today is going fine.

I did something right

I wrote the new program specifically to encourage prioritizing and doing the important things over the piddly things.  And you know what?  It works.  It's come back to kick me in the you-know-where.  I did plenty of work today.  Hours, even.  Stuff on my list, stuff that needed to be done.  But it wasn't the stuff that *really* needed to be done.  The things that I had decided this morning were the most important.  So by dinnertime I'd worked all day but was at barely 65% of goal.  And it's a modest goal y'all, really.  I "wasted" the entire day working on less important things, and it shows.

But that's exactly what it's supposed to do.