Amy tells us that doing the things that we love to do is far from a waste of time — it’s necessary for our happiness and well-being! She encourages us to spend time every day, even if it’s only 10 minutes, doing something for ourselves that we love to do and that feeds our soul. Our homework for today was to track our activities throughout the day, rate them on a scale of 1-10 based on how they made us feel, and add any comments to note how we felt about those activities.

This will help us see how much of the day is spent doing things which drain/invigorate us and where we might be able to adjust our day.

I am still catching up, so I didn’t keep track of a particular day, but I am going to write down my thoughts on some common activities that I typically do.

Making the Bed (3): I find this more tedious than necessary. No one sees my bed and it really doesn’t make me feel better or worse if it’s made or not. I have a pillow top mattress, so it always looks lumpy.

Commute to Work (6): This is kind of a neutral-to-good activity for me. In the morning, traffic is usually fairly light and if I leave the house early enough, I can enjoy a Starbucks on the way. I typically will listen to a Podcast or Audiobook on the commute.

Work (varies): The atmosphere at work has been stressful lately, but I am staying hopeful. I am happiest when I feel that the work that I am doing is really helping people and when I get to be more creative and analytical. Very routine work or answering the same question over and over is not my favorite thing to do.

Gym (2, then 8): I hate going to the gym; I love being at the gym and having been at the gym. It’s just getting over that hump of trying to talk myself into going. I always think of things I’d rather be doing, want to be home sooner, not want to get stuck in rush hour traffic, not have gym clothes clean and ready to go, etc. But once I’m there, I love it! I love working out on the Lateral machine and lifting weights. I like that I am doing something good for my health. I like the achy muscle feeling after a good workout. So, why don’t I go more?

Post-Workout Face

Reading (7): I love reading, but it tends to happen in spurts. I will be on a real reading kick for a while, then I’ll fall off and not pick up a book. I cannot help but pick up a ton of books when at the library or in a bookstore. Right now, I’m in another bookish phase, which is great. Although, I’ve found that I’m in the middle of a book that is not engaging me the way the first two books in the series did, so I’m reading that one a lot more slowly. I find that I’m stopping reading sooner and turning to other activities because I don’t want to finish that book, but I feel obligated to finish it before I move on to another book. Hmmmm.

Email (3): It’s more about deleting spam and ads than actually reading anything in there that is useful. And this is with programs like Unroll.me to help filter out the junk. Ugh. But if I don’t stay on top of it, I’ll miss things or have an Inbox with thousands of messages that I need to go through. Just another chore.

Dishes (1): I hate dishes. The only thing I like is the smell of the dish soap. And when they are done.

Laundry (5): I don’t mind laundry too much.

Putting Away Clean Clothes (3): Tedious and tiring.

Blogging (7): I like doing this. I have lots of ideas of what I want to write. But I get in my own way a lot. Either physically, because my office is a disaster and it’s a bit of a pain to get to the computer (although I finally arranged the power cables so that my laptop stays charged), or mentally because I’m looking for just the right image to go with a certain post and am having difficulties uploading the image, etc.

Photography (?): I remember that I loved doing this, but I haven’t had time to really do it in so long that… I don’t know?

Traveling (9): I love this! I’m excited to go to Austin, Texas soon! I would do this all the time if I had unlimited funding and time away from work. Of course, it’s a million times better with a friend (or 1,300).

Commute Home from Work (2): Practically nothing redeeming about this. Slow, traffic, frustration. Why can’t we have teleportation devices already?

This 3 hour commute can bite me.

Cooking Dinner (3): Most of the time I really don’t enjoy this. A lot of that is due to the fact that I also hate doing dishes and that means that I have to clean dishes in order to have dishes to use to make dinner. My dishes are all clean right now, which makes it easier, but it’s still a chore.

TV (6): It’s entertaining, but I find that once I sit down, I will binge-watch until I fall asleep on the couch and I never end up getting as much stuff accomplished as I wanted to.

Spending Time with Friends and Family (10): I love this! I need to schedule much more of this time into my day-to-day.

Squishie and Sissy

Final Takeaways: So much of the barriers to doing what I want is environmental. I need to get rid of the physical and mental clutter that is holding me back, so that I can have more time, freedom, and mental space to do and enjoy the things that are meaningful and make me happy. I need to prep better and stay on top of the things that I don’t enjoy doing so that they don’t take over and become large burdens.