Last fortnight, I tried dropping my sleep-ins and adding tech-free activities.
I’ve been a little slow reviewing this, because I had a lot of random thoughts but not actually much specific to say about it. I guess this is an example of when I expect stupidly amazing things of myself (i.e. writing something long, entertaining and profound) and forget that the most important thing is just to keep things simple and start.
I have mixed feelings about my attempt to fix my lie-in habit. In fact, it is working! Because I had this aim in my head, I found most mornings it was pretty easy to get up not too long after waking up. The only few mornings I didn’t manage it were after very bad sleeping nights (for instance, when we’ve had some horrible hot summer nights) and I ended up actually sleeping late in the morning (as opposed to merely lying in). I’ve noticed that there’s a slight improvement to the time I feel sleepy at night and go to bed. It’s only slight, so I haven’t yet shifted it to a properly decent time yet, but any improvement is welcome!! Yay!
On the other hand, in this last week, after my “fortnight” finished, I’ve found myself more inconsistent. I’m still getting up before midday many days, but there are days in there when I’m lying in bed late for no particular reason other than that staying in bed is more appealing than getting up. I think what I had hoped was that this would just be the start of The Great Sleep Cycle Shift, and that I would gradually get up earlier and earlier, go to sleep earlier and earlier, and in the end have a lifestyle where I not only get up early but also fill my day with productive things.
I guess I just need to continue to plug away at this slowly.
As far as adding tech activities went…well, it didn’t really.
On reflection, I failed to adequately identify and plan for my blocks, barriers and natural tendencies. It is never my strategy to merely tell myself to do something and expect to carry it out. I’d be an amazingly successful person if I could do all the things I tell myself I should do each day. The problem, obviously, is that I don’t do them! So, I try to “observe” myself and figure out what are my blocks and barriers for the behaviour (for instance, temperature, time of day, interest, physical restraints) and also when do I naturally engage in or feel like engaging in that behaviour (or similar behaviours).
(One example of this is exercise: Although experts say that the morning is the best time to exercise, I generally have too many blocks and barriers for morning exercise. However, by late afternoon, when the sun is dipping lower and doesn’t feel so fatal, often I look outside and actually feel like going out into the fresh air. I’ll put on runners and brush my teeth and somehow feel clean and energetic. I’ll listen to energetic music – and might even start listening to it as I’m getting ready, so that I start bopping away and moving around even before my exercise has formally started. Although there are currently other physical blocks, that is an example of how I have in the past worked with rather than against my natural tendencies.)
I thought I’d done this with this non-tech activity stuff. I thought that I’m mainly sticking to my laptop and phone because I get mentally-passive, non-physically-demanding instant-entertainment. Therefore, I bought myself a new puzzle book and two new books to read (one is the latest English-language volume of my favourite manga Natsume’s Book of Friends, the other is one of Terry Pratchett’s last novels, a few of which I still haven’t read, Raising Steam). It worked, but only a little. I did have a nice time one evening reading some Natsume and I did spend a bit of time another evening doing some puzzles. And that was it. What is available online is still more appealing and less effort than offline.
This is a problem for me that I haven’t really figured out, yet. I suppose I did identify two things, though: The first is that I need something much much much more massively fun and interesting to consistently engage me. The other is that my physical problems are much more of a barrier than I thought. Because I have back problems, and a tendency towards neck/migraine problems, the position of my body and arms when I’m doing something make a big difference to whether I’ll do it (knitting and drawing are a bit straining, for instance). Of course, it’s not that the laptop and phone are great in that regard, but I can change position a lot, I don’t have to hold my laptop up, and my phone is relatively light and small to hold. I really didn’t think that holding open the pages of a normal book had even become annoying, let alone holding a puzzle book in one hand and trying to write in it with the other. It seems trivial, and perhaps if I’d become super-engrossed in them they would have actually been trivial matters, but instead they turn into blocks. The next time I considered reading Natsume, the prospect of physical positions that a little awkward was all it took for me to put it off (until never).
I guess it’s back to the drawing board when it comes to spending time away from screens and monitors!
P.S. Please excuse any mistakes or confusing bits. I normally self-proof-read and catch about 70% of them, but I’ve posted this one without any proofreading.
*I feel like I want to think of a better word than “Challenge”. I’ve always called this overall project “a lifestyle experiment” and I feel strongly that wording it as a challenge implies more of a “must-succeed” attitude, rather than trying something out a behaviour or an approach to a behaviour and evaluating its efficacy. Yes, I’m hoping for positive change through this experiment, but I’m trying to figure out what works for me, not to constantly give myself pass-or-fail tasks. Well, I’ve probably been using it for too long to change, now!
Drop One, Add One 