Assalamualaikum
Life update - do I still like to work from home? Yes I do, very much. I like the fact that my workstation is only few feet apart from my bedroom, I like the fact that I don’t have to waste both time and money to drive back and forth the office, I like that I am home as soon as I finish work. For someone with a lot of hobbies, this arrangement allows me to spend more time doing other things that I love.
However, as much as I love WFH, WFH has cluttered my mind more that I think it would. I thought transitioning from office to home would be easy. I'll have more time for myself, I said. While I do save some time by not driving to work etc etc, with various changes I have made to my life to adapt to the current situation, I now have more things to sort on a daily basis compared to before. Things like fixing my own breakfast (which I will otherwise skip when I am working from office), more laundry and dishes to wash, tending to my increasing collection of plants and many more. While I love some of the new tasks, having to remember to do them periodically sometimes give me anxiety.
Have I water my plant? Have I hang the laundry? Have I this? Have I that? Sometimes, when I realized that I haven't completed a task, it's too late in the day that I could not do it within the day itself. I got demotivated, scolded myself, I think too much about it to the point that I can't sleep.
I was exhausted both mentally and physically.
I recognize that this problem and was finding ways to automate and declutter my mind. That was when I was re-introduced to the concept of to-do-list. lol, it's a simple concept I know I've tried keeping one myself, multiple times actually, and every single time, after a certain period of time, this too, slowly become something that I forgot to maintain. -___-
What changes this time around?
1. My mindset.
I enter into this journey with the mindset that I need a better life. I sat with myself and we had a serious talk on commitment, on how I wanted this process to last, on how I wanted this process to actually be my way of life. I promise myself that I'll commit.
2. I keep it real.
One of the major reason why I fail my previous attempt was because I tend to complicate things. I add a lot of things into the list. I even added things that I don't even do on a daily basis just because they are supposed to be the "better way to live life", things like exercise, read books etc etc, I added them to the list. Of course, they are indeed good for your life but if in reality it's not me, I might do it for the first day or two, but faking things has it expiration date, soon, I left the items untick from my to-do-list, in the end the list become just another list that I can ignore rather than complete. This time, I keep it real. No more exercise in my list lol. I stick to the real tasks that I need to complete within the day.
3. I automate the process.
For things that I'll repeat periodically, I'll schedule it to repeat based on their interval. This is more on the decluttering my mind part. For example, since I only water my outdoor plants every other day, I make the list to repeat itself every two days. This way, I eliminate the mental space of having to remember when to water my plants, the apps will tell me that it's the day. You have no idea how much I use this function. I use it for even simple things like when to wash my hair, when to change the sheets, when to charge my watch, basically everything routine that I need to remember, I pin it down.
4. Do it digitally.
Of course, for me, point no 3 will only work digitally. If I were to do it on a physical paper, I still need to remember the days of when I need to get it done, which is not quite long term for me. Plus, since I carry my phone everywhere anyway, I love the convenience of having it close to me all the time. I can check and tick of the list whenever I want.
How has it been?
This has improve my life, tremendously, especially through the automation process. With the automation, I now have the day all plan out for me without the fear of missing anything. My life become much smoother than before.
I now have clearer mind as well. I wake up with only one thing in my mind, to check my to-do-list. With clearer mind, gone are the anxieties as well. I am a much happier person overall.
Plus, I recently schedule to update my cash flow tracker weekly as opposed to monthly (payday), in return, I am now living a much more conscious financial life. Why is this important? Well, the short story is, I have a credit card. hahahahahahahahahhahaha. so yup, like any other irresponsible credit card owner, I spend spend spend lavishly monthly without even caring whether I am in the position to actually spend that much. Then, when the monthly review comes, that's when I realized I spend a lotttt more that I have, I'll regret the whole thing, but I'll repeat the same thing in the following months, regret, spend, regret, spend. -___________- Now, with this weekly cash flow update, my credit card has been ZERO for the past two months say whatttt.
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As someone who used to half-ass anything, I just want to take this opportunity to compliment myself for a job well done. Well done dear self for staying consistent for the past two and a half month. Let's stay consistent for years to come ^__^
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