Habit trackers

I made a monthly habit tracker spread in my bullet journal this morning for April. Even though I've been using the bullet journal format since late 2019, I've only created and used a handful of monthly habit trackers spreads.

This is my very first one in December 2019:

It really helped me boil down what are critical things to do everyday and it gave me the tiny reward of getting to check off a box / color it in.

I used it one more time in January of 2020 and then drastically simplified it in March of 2020 to something like this:

Haha that was so cute of me to do a sleep tracker. It's the only time I did it but I thought it looked cool in someone else's bujo. I think at that time I was really struggling with feeling rested when I woke up, so I was trying to figure out patterns.

In the tracker above I must have been focusing on the habits that pertained most to mental and physical health. (David remember those DIY kettlebells you made me when the yoga place shut down??) 

I didn't seem to keep it up much tracking the rest of the year (probably pandemic related?).

In January of 2021, I brought back the habit tracking but more in a micro format, focusing on absolute essentials to guide me each week.

I created this habit "widget" for the the first time I tried a weekly spread, rather than just letting my day take as much space as it needed. It helped for that time, but I didn't keep it up for too long. I think after only two weeks, I got bored and/or felt too limited by the weekly spread. (Some weeks I need to write a lot, and others I don't need to. Having only two pages per week just didn't work for me for long.)

Incidentally, I recently picked up weekly spreads for a second time, and this time it seems to be working a bit better. I think it partly helps that I've found a way to make it vertical rather than horizontal. And also I think I'm in a season where it's good for me to see the limits of my time.

I had a couple weeks in February of 2021 where I somewhat continued the weekly habit tracker interspersed into my daily logs. 

When the kids were doing remote learning at home it was nice to have some routines, something that was just for me to do and didn't have to do with anyone else's anything.

That leads me to today, more than one year later. It was surprisingly fun to put together.

I could give more details on this if you're interested, but one thing to note is that these things are roughly in chronological order for the day. Some are habits for which I need to get back on the wagon (e.g, I've been sliding towards at 5:45/6 am wake time lately), and others are ones that are pretty habitual and yet I'd like to reward myself with a checkmark nonetheless (e.g., making the bed). Others are just cues to my schedule, such as switching over laundry (and a super new habit of using the Delay Start option on the washer to prep a load the night before). The timed items are just minimums; I find it helps me just to get started.

When I sat down with my journal this morning I wasn't expecting to make a habit tracker; rather, it had been on my list to think about my April goals/foci. I had been mulling over it for the past few days, and while I had some ideas, I also felt really overwhelmed by the thought of tackling my goals. 

The habit tracker seemed like just the right thing to keep me moving forward and balanced into spring. My goals can't be accomplished if my sanity isn't in tact, and my tiny habits every day are a huge part of maintaining my sanity.

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Do you use a habit tracker? Please text or email me a picture if you do! I'd be so curious to see what you're working on.

A few things that are working for me

Today I thought I would write a short list of things that are working for me. Some have been working for a long time, and some are new things I am trying out. Here they are, along with how long I've been doing them.

1. Using my phone in greyscale.

I only noticed this tip on my second read-through of How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price, which is a book that has a ton of other amazing tips, many of which I have adopted and found major benefit from. 

I love that the monochrome makes the screen less overstimulating and distracting; I find that I can focus a little better on what I came to do. Also, it makes real life all the more vivid. 

(On the old iPhone with the physical - and, so oddly, it's not even physical, it's a haptic that makes it feel like you're pressing the button, o brave new world - home button, I'm able to set a shortcut to triple-click the home button to toggle between b+w and color, when it's needed, such as for Maps.)

(Been doing this one since around Oct 2021.)

2. Similarly to the above, using Inbox When Ready on my computer and Compose on my phone. 

I'm sure it's obnoxious to all my friends whom I email before checking texts or even checking email, but it's super helpful for me to be able to send outgoing messages without being inundated with incoming requests.

(Began using Inbox When Ready in Dec 2019, searched for and found Compose shortly after.)

3. "Salty" oatmeal in the mornings.

1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Quick Cooking Rolled Oats. Boiling water to cover, and then just a little more. Generous pinch of himalayan pink salt (maybe almost 1/8 t?), a few drops of vitamin D (HT: Bethany), and a pat of Kerrygold butter (you get to decide how "healthy" an amount of butter). Sometimes a dash of warmed milk and/or cinnamon.

This is my post-walk, pre-morning pages routine. Alongside a cup of coffee, obvs. Actual Breakfast happens about an hour to an hour and a half later with the kids.

(Probably started this Jan 2022, maybe earlier? Discovered this particular cereal more recently; I love its nutty taste and texture, almost a hybrid between steel cut and instant.)

4. Watching 20-30 minutes of Queer Eye every weekday.

I've been highly rigid with myself about entertainment all my life. I stopped reading for pleasure somewhere in high school and didn't really pick it up again until the first quarter of my 30s. And when I did, I felt highly guilty for doing so.

Not exactly sure how I developed this very recent routine of watching brainless, lovely TV every day when Cori naps, but it's been so healing, and it's so good for my mental health.

It's rather like a daily grace to myself; I don't need to complete a certain number of things on my todo list to earn or deserve it.

Fell off the wagon last week-ish and when I noticed that everything was feeling broken a couple of days ago I wondered if this was partly why.

(end of '21 or beginning of '22?)

5. Painstakingly labeling each of kiddos' markers with their colored tapes.

My SIL, Diana, shared a tip years ago about giving each of the kids a color, and they've been using their color for their plates, water bottles, etc., for a long time and it has simplified things tremendously. It has saved me so many breaths and I have definitely washed fewer dishes as a result of this one decision.

But the application of this that has been working recently has been to markers. We have had so many iterations of organizing art supplies, most of which have not been very successful. I was sick and tired of picking up markers off the floor, especially uncapped ones. Is there anything more aggravating?

Around Christmas last year, I bought three packs of washable markers for them at Target and was going to wrap them for gifts. I ended up holding on to them longer because I was not happy when the current system and didn't want these new ones to be squandered.

I decided to wrap a piece of their colored tape around each of the 20 markers in each set. (I know.) Even after taking the time to do this, I still didn't give the markers to them right away. 

But one day it became apparent that they needed new ones, so I packed up all the old stuff, and then put each set of markers into pails for each of them, marked their spots on the shelf for where it goes, and let them at it.

It has been surprisingly nice because now if they leave a marker out, we know (we ALL know) by just glancing at it, whose it is. And I think they are just a touch more motivated to cap and put them away because it's theirs.

A little overkill, perhaps, but the little mark on the shelf reminds them where their bucket goes. Every reduced brain decision is a win in my book.

My brain hurts thinking about which possessions should be co-owned by the group vs. owned by one individual. This method seems works for this particular area. 

At least for now.

(About a month? And there are currently no other writing/coloring implements out at the present besides #2 pencils. No colored pencils, no crayons, etc.)

6. A filing box for the car.

I know some people who "live in their cars." I am not one of those people. (I don't know if a homier homebody exists, honestly.) However, even for me, who is the furthest thing from someone who lives in her car, I find the car a constant mess of stuff, despite my best efforts.

Between kids' papers, important receipts, water bottles, endless returns, mittens (so many mittens!), and the books I bring to read when I have a minute here or there, I have not been able to get a handle on the passenger seat. 

I've been having this problem area on the backburner of my brain for a while because I figured there's gotta be something I can do that works for me. 

Lately I've been on a kick of turning "piles" into "files" by transforming things from being spread out horizontally to being "filed" vertically, even if those things are dimensional (new concept for me I learned from Jacyln Paul). 

I had thrifted this basket and was using it in my room for current projects, but decided to put it in the car and found that it conveniently fit in between the driver's and passenger seats! 

I put a few literal files in it to help me not lose important papers in transit; the back of the filing basket is reserved for things I need to return. Books I'm reading (to my kids or to myself) can also go in there vertically for easy access.

This still doesn't include a lot of other junk that does end up in the car, but it does feel like a little haven for me, that resulted in me asking, "How do I want this to work for me?" and "What do I need to have access to in the car?" rather than asking "How do I organize everything that is stuffed into the car?" (Which, the answer to that one is, I don't wanna.)

I don't know why this purpose/intention-focused organization had eluded me until now. But I'm glad I know about it now.

(Less than one week....)

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Tell me: what's been working for you?

"Before" photos

The meat of today's post is a handful of photos of Theo and Cori's room on an average day. The state of their room has been bugging me a little lately and I've been wondering if I can make any improvements to it.

I am hoping these can serve as "before" photos and that one day there will be some "after" photos. 

I've been on yet another decluttering and minimalizing kick ever since my seminary roommate, Cassie, recently got me into The Minimal Mom on YouTube. The host, Dawn, is friends with Dana K. White of A Slob Comes Clean and so of course I read all of her books, too. 

One fun tip White recommends in Organizing For The Rest of Us is taking before-and-after photos of the spaces you're working on. 

Usually when I finish organizing a section of the house, I can't believe how I actually improved and transformed a space. Mostly, I'm left wondering why I ever waited so long to start.

But then, despite past successes, I still look at spaces in my house and feel hopeless. It's hard to imagine things being any way other than how they are.

So of course I wouldn't think to take a "before" picture. Because there's never going to be an "after."

However, today, I've decided to get curious and see what might happen if I take a "before" picture—if one can even call it that.

Before (see what I did there?), I would have seen a (my) blog as a platform for showing finished projects. Today, I’m just showing up.

Is it possible to subvert the whole concept of underpromising/overdelivering? What if, instead of setting any goals, be they tiny or aspirational, we held—without expectation—snapshots of where we are right now, existing in what we hope is a liminal space between what is and what might be?

I don't have any grand scheme or a vision of what things could be yet. However, I do find the power and cumulative effect of tiny daily acts really incredible. So whether I just put one sock where it belongs or I take the time to figure out better systems so we don't have to constantly be putting away socks, I'm hoping for evolution.

At the very least, there seems to be nothing to lose, except maybe my pride.

I've noticed that sometimes when I work on home organization projects I eventually hit an aha moment that really brings everything together and makes it "work", but I rarely have that piece of insight at the beginning of the project. 

It’s not unlike that moment where after typing eight pages of words for a five-page paper, you finally arrive at your thesis.

With Theo and Cori’s room, I'm starting today at the "prompt" stage. "Design a room that functions well for them and is not an eyesore for everyone else."

(Could teachers be more vague?!?!)

Knowing me, I’m likely to procrastinate and work on three other places of the house, and to my adult self, I’m saying, that’s okay! There’s no judgment! I don’t have to work in a linear way. There’s no deadline, there’s just something I want—a dream, a desire, a hope—and I’m learning that it’s okay to put this stuff out there.

That said, if you have any tips or ideas to solve all my problems, I’m all ears.

RIP

Our meals have been pretty sad lately, but I am accepting that this might just be a season. Whether it was motherhood or the pandemic that led to the death of finding joy in preparing food, I won't ever know. At this point, the best thing I can do is accept the reality, hope that it's just for a season, and create room in my life for other more satisfying creative outlets.

Not only does the New Lisa tolerate Tupperware, she also actually scrubs toilets and has been known to swipe at a baseboard with a rag every once in a while

I share this here in case any of you are struggling with boring dinner rotations or lack of novelty around the dinner table. You're not alone.

Without further ado, here is our ultra-boring dinner schedule we followed surprisingly religiously for about a couple months this winter. 

Perhaps a more fun way to think of this is as a capsule meal plan. Like, we haven't given up entirely on life.

Saturday: take-out (usually Mexican or Vietnamese) -- this is a new addition, and it's been super nice (albeit counter intuitive) to pair grocery shopping day with take-out
Sunday: sheet pan chicken OR pork chops and kale

Monday: tacos OR spaghetti (we got 1/4 cow last fall and it helps to just have one day a week I need to remember to defrost meat)

Tuesday: leftovers

Wednesday: xuxu soup OR cheater hainanese chicken

Thursday: leftovers -- pre-pandemic we rarely had leftovers night; now it's twice a week and I'm pleasantly surprised to find out I haven't (actually) died from this.

Friday: spam and egg w/ rice and cauliflower

(The overall concept of a fixed meal plan is a marriage of Kendra Adachi's "Decide Once" principle to reduce decision fatigue, and Zombie Mode, which is a schedule that the Alive version of yourself writes for yourself on the days you feel dead.)

In the past couple weeks I've definitely started to feel a slight desire to cook other things (er, more precisely, to eat other things). But instead of switching up the whole schedule--because the schedule has helped create more sanity for me--I'm slowly introducing the option to try something different on a Wednesday night (e.g., cast-iron roasted chicken). This seems to strike the right balance between routine and novelty for me in this season.

I'm thinking that when it's actually spring, I will have a mostly different meal plan (capsule?) for the week, and possibly with more free choice days. In the meantime, this has been serving us decently well.

P.S. Shockingly, we have been following our nmemonic breakfast schedule for five years (!!!), with only one change. On Tuesdays we have tater tots and scrambled eggs. 

Achieving failure

instead of covertly seeking
to attain perfection

and only then

presenting

the put-together self

today i choose to see 
failures as evidence 

that demonstrates

the simple fact
that i have tried

We're all 14 again

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