After 30 days of habits...

January 26

I drafted some words for my book Summer Broken today and when pasting them here, I thought - why not make it into stanza form instead and rewording slightly to make it into poetry? So here are words from 'Summer Broken' in a poem. This was actually super interesting in making me reevaluate my words and notice repetitions. I noticed the word 'up', which I've now entirely removed, four times!! I'm wondering, is this a new editing technique for me? This breeds a lot of thought...

The inspiration is gone; I look out of the window.

A line of trees assembles

in polite formation; this morning, they are well behaved,

bobbing their heads in curtsey.

At night they wake me with wild fits, the wind stoking them to the brink

tearing their leaves out with wide-eyed frenzy.

And this paragraph:

Big Father, I can hear you in the kitchen. The sounds that represent you. Slipper scuffle. Footboard groaning. A merry kettle, boiled and unpoured. Popped toast (too late - I can smell the char under the door).

One month ago, when I finished the book 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear, I made a list of daily 2-minute habits I wanted to do. My aim was to try and do these as early as possible in the day (which doesn't always happen) and to focus on what James Clear calls 'the habit of showing up', rather than results. Additionally, I'm moving house over the next three weeks, so I deliberately want no more than the bare minimum!

Here's the progress on each of these:

2 minutes of...

Yoga: I used to do yoga daily and wanted to get back into it. I started with basic stretches, then moved to a downward facing dog, then worked on 1-2 sun salutations. I haven't worked in a full yoga routine daily, but I've gone to a few classes and had some longer sessions. I'm feeling a lot more limber and I'm inspired to stretch during the day too, whereas before I might not have bothered to move during the day. My next step will be the first 2-5 minutes of a yoga video per day.

Meditation/Positive Writing: This is starting to get more consistent now. Although it's hard to notice big differences, I am finding it a valuable 2-5 minutes to clear my head. I've set up apps on my front page of my phone to get access to this straight away. I think my mood has improved slightly.

Exercise: Less of a 2 minutes to be honest and more to check I'm climbing, going for long walks, or swimming every day. What this is more making me realise is to ensure I get rests too - because I'm exercising a good 5/6 days a week anyway.

Vitamins: I really dislike taking vitamins (I'm not a happy pill swallower!) but after three weeks of grumbling through it, I'm finding it physically becoming easier. My skin is looking clear and my hair healthier, and physically I feel better.

Reading: This is oddly one of the hardest. Reading was traditionally a night time activity for me, usually on my phone as I really like the Kindle app and I’m trying to not leave my habits to last thing in the day as it’ll feel like a chore. Weighing up different ways of doing this - maybe I could wake up and read while still in that dream state, to replace my usual activity of looking straight on news.  Maybe I could put a physical book or Kindle on my pillow, rather than relying on my phone to read.

Languages: This is by far the most productive. I took a long break from learning Japanese for a few months and was quite scared to return it. I went straight into an Italki class, and it was so successful that I ended up scheduling in a 30 minute conversation 4-5 days a week (I can’t really have a two minute conversation with a teacher, nor do I want to return to Duolingo methods which is the only sort of system that would fit into a 2 minute habit). So I take Japanese classes 2-3 times a week, and French classes 2-3 times a week. My conversation is a LOT better since doing it every day, and I can think of words quickly now - and if I don’t know the word, I can structure it into a sentence and the rest of the grammar around it. I want to watch my energy with this - my Japanese teacher said yesterday I sound tired.

Story writing: This was the hardest one. For a week all I could manage was opening the word file and looking at the words. In the second week I started writing a couple of sentences at a time. In the third and fourth weeks I’ve started editing old words and re-writing them, and I’m starting to gain momentum, usually writing a couple of paragraphs a day. I plan to keep a steady acceleration on this momentum, because I want to spend more time on story writing, but never missing a day - always turning up even if just to look at the document.