Creating Routines

While I thought I preferred my schedule to look free of time slots, as I designate more times to do specific items, I have more completed tasks to check off my list most days.  My iTouch watch is not a great timepiece, though it is stylish.  It does make me Woke, buzzing my left wrist faithfully at 6:30AM seven days a week with a rare lapse when the battery depletes overnight.  I get up as it is still buzzing for its thirty seconds, drift over to the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom for some dental care.  Coffee comes next along with retrieving the newspaper from the end of the driveway while the k-cup brews.  That's a great opportunity to empty the kitchen recycling box when I go outside.  Weather is not an object.  Then usually some dishes to do from the previous night and check the moisture of my three chia plants.

Take coffee upstairs, review the task list, making any quick additions, then turn on the computer.  Check email and FB messages, then enter a furrydoc.blogspot.com thought and for the last few weeks work on that day's Washington Post free crossword.  Read my daily two chapters of the Book of Mormon, completed this week.  The rest of the time is mine to piddle at the keyboard until about 8:30AM when I return downstairs for my treadmill obligation.  Then something to eat, then get dressed.  Now more unstructured time until my scheduled OLLI classes which take place at mid-mornings the middle of each week.

Time remains unstructured until 4PM when I have been breaking for a mite of alcohol, varying between port, sherry, and since returning from what I learned on the bourbon trail of Kentucky, some spirits on the rocks.  All measured, all with a main purpose of demarcating my day.  At about 5:30PM I make supper, eat around 6:15PM, retire to My Space for more unstructured time plus planning out the next day while identifying three achievements to enter into the orange marble composition book purchased for that purpose until returning to bed, though not to sleep around 9PM.  

Many of these set time routines have been introduced since my retirement, as working imposed its own set of time obligations.  While each of my current designated times contributes relatively little to my most important initiatives, other than faithfulness to the treadmill, they define the times that do not require structure to select the more important items for their defined work on times, often with a timer.  As a result, I seem to flounder less and focus more.  It's been a clear upgrade in getting the most of my waking time and feeling a little better about the things I've done.  Also less harsh on myself for what I have not done.