Saturday attitude and gratitude :)

OKAY Wisco weather, very funny. Today I woke up to a real temperature of -6 and my iphone cheerfully informed me that the wind chill was -20. AND, this time, it is also snowing. How can it even snow when it’s that cold?? I thought that was like, a meteorological impossibility. Ah, well. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. A regular heat wave is headed our way by Wednesday. 🙂

Grateful that:

a) I don’t actually “have” to go anywhere today (although I really want to run out to pick up some Valentine’s Day treats for the boys!!! We’ll see.).

b) Ivan doesn’t have to work today either (occasionally works Saturday mornings…~25 minute drive in what today would likely be icy roads + frigid temps. So I’m glad he also will not be venturing out.)

c) My house is toasty warm! Furnace kicking, fireplaces on…It may be below zero outside but I wouldn’t know it! Thankful to be warm.

Continuing on the gratitude train, a few other things I’m grateful for today:

d) My parents are getting the VACCINE today!!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!! I’m so happy!!!!! “Finally!”

e) I had a majorly dumb lightbulb moment yesterday and realized that I can walk on the track at the gym!! I’ve mentioned we live literally a block from the gym. 30 seconds by car. I’ve been feeling all out of sorts without my regular outside walks this week with these cold temps. After school yesterday the boys had a workout session scheduled, so I decided to walk on the track while waiting for them. WHY did I not think sooner to hop over there this week to walk instead??! Such a great option. Duh. I listened to my audiobook and it was great.

f) I’m really grateful for starting a weekly review process. (Post here with details, where I learned about it, etc.). I now have the steps in my planner for reference, too.

I don’t really follow these steps exactly, though, in practice.

My current process has mostly been:

Friday afternoon:

-review to-do lists in Google Tasks, decide what items need immediate attention/in the next week and add to my “this week” or “do now!” lists (and update in planner).

-Review my monthly calendar and add any updates/events as needed (lessons, practices, appointments, etc). I also add the upcoming week’s events to my Google Calendar if not on there yet (For me Google Cal is supplemental/ used for my daily time blocking mostly, so I only add things 1-2 weeks in advance. Paper planner is primary for me for any long term planning).

-EMAIL inbox zero!! Review all email/ anything I left as “pending”/ to deal with later. Sort email, follow up, delete, etc.

That’s basically it for Friday. The rest of the items (physical inbox/mail, make meal plan, plan workouts, etc.)- I usually just deal with at some point over the weekend.

For me the main key is having a dedicated, scheduled and planned time to review my big 3: to-do list items, update my planner/ calendar and deal with any and all email items by end of day on Friday!!! This process has been WONDERFUL for me.

I would ALSO really like to add to this eventually:

-a weekly clean out of my podcast feed (delete unwanted/not interested episodes. They take up a lot of space on your phone!)

-Do a weekly photo review! (delete screenshots, duplicates, bad photos, etc.) and then do a scheduled, weekly back up of photos to my external hard drive/Amazon photos. I think if I could get in a weekly habit of this, it would be AMAAAAAAZINGLY helpful. Doing it weekly means it would only take a couple minutes. I really want to do this!

Daily Gratitude:

All of the above. 🙂