Baby Steps (Spoiler: this post is not about babies.)

Writing and keeping a journal is something I’ve enjoyed all my life. It’s also my eternal New Year’s Resolution because I’m not the most consistent writer.

In fact I think I may go to a print shop and order a whole pad of paper printed with my resolutions so I don’t even have to write them out any more– just tear out a new sheet of the notepad and hang it on my mirror on January 1st to replace the old one… which looks exactly the same.

I may be inconsistent but I’m eternally hopeful!

So… I started this blog one year ago, April 8, 2017. I looked at my WordPress dashboard and I have published a dozen posts. That doesn’t really qualify as a blog, does it? Well, twelve entries averages one a month. I guess that’s better than nothing. (Told you I was eternally hopeful!)

One of the consistent themes in my inconsistent writing is the struggle to find time to do things which are important and nurturing to me, and to give myself permission to do things I find creatively fulfilling. To demand time for those things! Okay, I haven’t graduated to “demanding” yet, I’m still somewhere around “asking quietly when no one is listening.”  I’m not that assertive…or selfish.

Why do so many women label self-care or even basic self-maintenance as “selfish”?

Is the laundry selfish because it needs to be folded? Are the dishes selfish because they need to be washed? Is the cat selfish because he needs to be fed? (No… but he is a bit selfish for unrelated reasons.)

Wow- even my litany of arguments is a housewife’s To-Do list. That’s proof enough right there: I need to get out more!

One of the YouTube guru/cheerleaders I sometimes watch talks about scheduling everything. Everything! Even free time. It seems like it would take all the “free”dom out of free time to have it walled into a prison-cell block on the Day Timer, but who knows? Even prison free time is probably better than none at all. I’m not structured enough to ever have attempted it.

Maybe I should. It sounds plausible that giving it an actual spot on the calendar implies that it’s important to you and you’ll be more likely to honor it. I hate to admit it but I’m a little skeptical.

As mom to a super-active three your old my calendar usually looks something like this:

• Morning: Chase 3-year-old around
• Afternoon: Ditto
• Evening: Ditto

Come to think of it, I could probably also have a calendar pre-printed while I’m at that print shop getting a notepad full of the same resolutions!

I’ve had lifelong aversion to those planner notebooks that break down every day by hour with a little slot next to it. Why would I need one of those? I’m not an attorney or a hairstylist. I’ve always had a long list of items that need to get done, but not at some particular minute of a certain day. I finally figured out that I have lots of tasks but not a lot of appointments. And being the right-brain artsy-type, I feel a strong resistance to the idea of scheduling every task in a little slot of time on a calendar.

The idea this guru put forward, though, was that until you put your tasks into those little slots you don’t really know how they are going to get done. It’s just a list until you assign some time to make those things happen. (I guess deep down I’m still harboring hope that magic elves will come during the night and knock out a few items on my To-Do list!) But I’m trying to push past my resistance to scheduling.

Certainly there are busy moms who manage to get a huge amount of creative work done. Yes, Joanna Gaines I’m talking about you! (See my post on how I feel about Joanna Gaines here.)

My mind has accepted that scheduling tasks is a good habit in the same way  I understand that you can’t really tidy up your house unless you have assigned a proper place for all of your belongings– and yet… I struggle to put both those concepts into practice. (Oh Marie Kondo, I dream of doing better! But that’s a whole different blog post for another day. I can only focus on one avenue of self-improvement at a time!)

And today it’s this one: carving out a tiny slice of time for a creatively fulfilling activity. Just ten minutes a day to write. I can spare ten minutes a day– the world won’t end.

Anyone care to join me in taking a baby step toward something that makes you happy? (Locking it in on a calendar is optional!)