I don't know about you but in my world there never quite seems to be enough hours in the day to get everything I need to do completed - especially when it comes to things to do with this here blog.
I am so behind on publishing posts that I sometimes get a little sinking feeling that I may actually never catch up and certainly that I won't be able to stick to the "this situation now requires me to daily post to get everything done" list I seem to have going on.
And when I think about it properly I really don't now why I'm in this situation at all, I mean I managed to post regularly when I worked full time and obviously I was a Mum then too (but to just the one child), I went to the gym - a lot - and I kept the house clean and tidy...
So why am I so behind now?
So why am I so behind now?
Well, here's why...
This little fiery ball of energy.
I totally forgot how much time a toddler can actually take up you know - not that I'm complaining about it, I absolutely love being able to stay at home with Willow everyday - but it would seem that my daughter has this impeccably timed switch that tends to keep her happy and fine as long as Mummy is on the move, doing housework or playing with her but the very second my backside so much as threatens to grace the sofa/a chair/the floor everything changes.
Willow's Level Of Demand hits sky rocketing levels of neediness, and so Mummy never gets a moment to herself.
I totally forgot how much time a toddler can actually take up you know - not that I'm complaining about it, I absolutely love being able to stay at home with Willow everyday - but it would seem that my daughter has this impeccably timed switch that tends to keep her happy and fine as long as Mummy is on the move, doing housework or playing with her but the very second my backside so much as threatens to grace the sofa/a chair/the floor everything changes.
Willow's Level Of Demand hits sky rocketing levels of neediness, and so Mummy never gets a moment to herself.
Which is fine, it comes with the Mum territory but it means getting anything "bloggy" finished during the day is impossible.
Right, so day time is out of the question, but there's always the evenings, right?
Obviously after I've eaten tea, tidied around, bathed Willow and put her to bed of course, then comes the time to attack the blog post list...
...but I've been so busy all day, surely a cuppa (a hot one) with my feet up is justified...
...but then Netflix calls, and, well I was up at 5am wasn't I, so maybe just one episode is deserved...
...but then Netflix calls, and, well I was up at 5am wasn't I, so maybe just one episode is deserved...
...and then that one episode leads to two, to three, to six and before I know where I am my eyes are shutting, it's two hours later and there really is no time to even glance in my computer's direction.
I know it can't just be me that goes through this spiral of procrastination and Monarch Airlines are actually so certain about the amount of time Brits waste doing menial, time wasting tasks that they have set up a new campaign.
The campaign highlights this total amount of wasted time, collates it up and then gives various different worldwide locations which could have been reached in the same amount of time - it's really blooming interesting actually.
The campaign highlights this total amount of wasted time, collates it up and then gives various different worldwide locations which could have been reached in the same amount of time - it's really blooming interesting actually.
And with this in mind, to help me on my path of "getting the blog stuff done" I took on the Monarch Challenge and put something that could be viewed as time wasting on the back burner for a little while - just for a week - to see if this could help improve my blog pages.
So, what did I give up?
Well nothing in full - a habit like that would take far longer than a week to break - but I decided that rather than our three-episodes-a-night Netflix programme binge (we are currently on season four of Prison Break) myself and my son would settle on watching just the one episode an evening and the rest of the time I would spend writing and getting post ideas noted down.
And do you know what, it really did help, it was such a small thing to do too - we sacrificed a tiny part of our evenings and a whole lot of things actually happened...
~ my son started going to bed earlier, and managed to get a really good nights sleep
~ I re-found my love of writing and found myself genuinely enjoying prepping posts every evening
~ my blog benefited no end - I mean have you seen my blogging history lately - there are way more posts being published and I'm loving it
~ I feel more on top of things than I have done for a while and there seems to be so much less pressure on my shoulders and I'm not forcing myself to sit down mid-day anymore, Willow clambering all over me, in a feeble attempt to try and piece together posts in a mad, crazy rush
I mean whoever would have thought that such a small change as switching off the TV a little earlier in an evening could have such a huge impact on my daily life and my daily routines.
And what's even better is that it now means our Prison Break episodes won't all be binge watched quite as quickly as we thought they would be and we can drag it out even longer - hurrah.
Goodbye Procrastination and Hello to getting things done
* a collaborative post - words, thoughts & images 100% my own
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