I keep thinking about the fact that I never had to think about exercise growing up because it was built into my schedule through team sports. Every day after school I was on the field or in the gym with the rest of my teammates. I never had to think about it. As an adult, I’ve never been able to get on that kind of schedule. What Hell Week is showing me is that I need to find some kind of structure. A few guys at work are part of a running club. They go out a couple times a week during lunch. That always seemed crazy to me, and I’m not sure I can handle it right now. But it’s the sort of thing I really need to explore. I don’t have enough discipline to maintain a fitness regimen over any length of time. So I’m going to seriously look for outside sources of motivation and inspiration.
I keep a pretty tight handle on my work schedule, but I can’t think of the last time I planned any kind of fun. Not that I never, ever have any fun. It’s just that I’m not the one who makes it happen. I’ve always wanted to visit Buenos Aires, so I went ahead and booked a weeklong trip there for the fall. It felt totally spontaneous even though it’s not going to happen for like six months.
I’ve always thought of time management as being one of my strong suits. I’m always very punctual and I never blow a deadline. But I realized during Hell Week that I have a tendency to put things off, which creates a lot of feelings of guilt and dread. For example, my wife and I have been talking about taking a trip, just the two of us, literally for years. But we have two young kids, so it’s never been a priority, which I feel bad about. As part of the yearly planner, I selected a weekend a few months out to finally make it happen. It’s not going to be anything major, but just the fact that I’ve taken that step lifted the guilt.
As for work, I realize that I’m not very good about keeping a daily to-do list, and I often put off doing harder tasks until later in the day. As a result, I’m walking around with that feeling of dread for most of the day. So I’ve started making the to-do list and tackling the toughest item first. It’s helped a lot with the motivation.