Keeping up appearances.......

Dolphin1

HappyNow wrote: »

Dolphin - wow you're focussed! Well done you, and having the weekend off was probably just what you needed.

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Go, Dolphin, Go! You're rocking it this month, aren't you?

Thanks both, I am really trying hard this month especially with the healthy eating and the meal planning.

Not doing as well with the not overspending on other people but at least I feel that it is more controlled and I don't regret any of the unplanned spend.

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear wrote: »

There's a technique I heard about a while ago which states that if you do the three most important tasks first every day, the rest will fall into place. I'm therefore limiting msyelf to those three tasks as a 'Must Do' and whatever elese I achieve is a bonus. Some days, nothing, some days, things I've been meaning to do for ages and have been procrastinating about forever. Much more is being achieved, less effort is being expended. Excellent arrangement.

This is pretty much the key to my healthy eating which is the most important thing to me right now. My first task of the day is looking at what we are having for tea so that if there is something that needs to come out of the freezer then it has time to defrost or if there is veg to prepare then I will do that first thing so that it is all ready to cook. I wouldn't care if nothing else got done that day.

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) None eaten.
2) Light off at 11.10pm.
3) Meal plan for the week already done.
4) No spends on other people.
5) Not done.

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) I had a raspberry eton mess dessert from m&$.
2) Light off at 11.30pm.
3) Meal plan for the week already done.
4) No spends on other people.
5) Face and neck moisturised.

Mint1955

There is a theory that you can try

Must should and would love to each day.....

Must This is that one job you can't leave I.e bathroom deep clean

Should is the guilt job you have been putting of I.e make that awkward phone call you would be suprised that it will take far less time than you think and whatever the outcome its of the list.

Would love to is easy I.e I would love to read a book for one hour or sit with my coffee and switch of etc etc

Plan it, and see it through everyday and don't feel guilty about anything not done as you can add them to the diary another day.

Also however quickly (or badly) you do a task remember it's better than it was before you started. Don't get bogged down in a mega clean and get hot tired and frustrated just pick a section and complete it quickly against the clock is fun you would be suprised just how much five minutes of cleaning will get you then stop and appreciate things and take time out.


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[*]Give myself a couple of hours every day when I don't feel guilty about not doing more. This is turning out to be much simpler than I'd anticipated after years of thinking I should be flat out from the moment I get up, to the moment I stop to eat dinner. There's a technique I heard about a while ago which states that if you do the three most important tasks first every day, the rest will fall into place. I'm therefore limiting msyelf to those three tasks as a 'Must Do' and whatever elese I achieve is a bonus. Some days, nothing, some days, things I've been meaning to do for ages and have been procrastinating about forever. Much more is being achieved, less effort is being expended. Excellent arrangement.

[/LIST][/QUOTE]

Honey_Bear

Well done Dolphin on your meal-planning. If there is one thing that has been driven home to me since Happy started Fabulous February it is that by tackling areas of my life where I've been putting off cracking a bad habit over a month I've finally found a way of tidying up some of my scruffier edges. I'm still in a muddle, the house needs a lot more attention than I will ever devote to it and I have a To Do list as long as Twizzle's arm, but I don't feel I'm floundering all the time any more.

Today's scores on the doors:

1. Lights out by 11.30pm five nights a week. Hopeless again, but OH now switches his light out at midnight (picked up from my previous target) so that's always a useful reminder and means most of the time it is at least off then.
2. Maximum of five mugs of real coffee a week. Cracked!
   
3. Five fruit and veg a day. Success; the summer fruit is just fab.
4. Get Kelpie to come to call reliably by the end of the month. He's forgotten absolutely everything I'd achieved before the first GA. Hasn't got a clue what the clicker means, doesn't pay attention when we're walking, nothing. However, he does remember after two days that he loves the slicker brush and settles down very happily to grooming sessions and his coat has yielded enough undercoat to stuff a decent sized pillow. His crate is back down from the attic and set up in my office and he ate breakfast this morning of his dog food without having to be hand fed. He's a little star.
   
5. Give myself a couple of hours every day when I don't feel guilty about not doing more. Thank you Mint for your helpful suggestion. That's sort of what I'm doing at the moment but without the structured listy idea; useful way of doing so I think. I've already made 'the phone call' that has been hanging over me for about ten days and as you say, dealing with whatever it is is always quicker than you imagine. On the Flylady Thread we call it Eating a Frog. Everything I do is calculated to avoid my biggest Frogs while allowing myself a sniff of virtue. Having said that I'm still basking in the afterglow of having frog-munched earlier this year, and a mega-massive one I ate last year that had been hanging around for five years. For a couple of days afterwards I couldn't work out what I felt so happy about, unencumbered by guilt.
   

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) It was such a lovely day that I decided to ignore everything for a couple of hours and go for a walk and I just happened to be tempted into having some ice cream. Oh well .
2) Light off at 11.50pm.
3) Meal plan for the week already done but need to think about next weeks.
4) No spends on other people.
5) Face and neck moisturised.

Honey_Bear

It would have been a real waste not to have made the most of the weather Dolphin and, to be honest, one ice cream to celebrate the fabulosity of the day doesn't seem excessive to me. Can you allow yourself, say, three or five guilt-free treats over the course of the month to avoid feeling deprived?

Today's scores on the doors:

1. Lights out by 11.30pm five nights a week. Hopeless.
2. Maximum of five mugs of real coffee a week. Cracked!
   
3. Five fruit and veg a day. Success; the summer fruit is just fab.
4. Get Kelpie to come to call reliably by the end of the month. Hopeless. I should be upset but the fact that he flings himself down to thoroughly enjoy our grooming sessions when I appear with the slicker brush means some things that looked totally impossible at the start have been so successful I can't begrudge him his joyous foraging while we're out. It'll take longer than a month, that's all so I'm resetting this Goal. There's also a super-urgent need to curb his barking; he's found his voice. I can't stand it so we're focussing all our training and distraction energies on that. At least he's stopped barking at motorbikes which is just as well because we have This going on fairly frequently as well as This and every single bike goes by within 10 metres of the house. There are 1,000s. It's totally wonderful.
   
5. Give myself a couple of hours every day when I don't feel guilty about not doing more. Trip to the garden centre yesterday with OH for a rare, very rare, day out together. Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, bought lovely pots with a shred of the savings from not drinking for 51 weeks (yesterday) and treated OH to a rather better lunch than I was expecting them to do. In other words, total success on this goal.
   

Missing Mrs Happy's updates and hoping that Mr Happy's healed and back to work.

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear wrote: »

It would have been a real waste not to have made the most of the weather Dolphin and, to be honest, one ice cream to celebrate the fabulosity of the day doesn't seem excessive to me. Can you allow yourself, say, three or five guilt-free treats over the course of the month to avoid feeling deprived?

I think I'm probably eating more than this, maybe 2 a week so I certainly don't feel deprived but I feel that if I put that as a target then it will turn in to 3 or 4 a week .

Dolphin1

Update for yesterday...

1) I had 3 (very small) biscuits.
2) Light off at 11.30pm.
3) Meal plan for the next week done and shopping will be delivered soon. It took me ages this time. The problem is that as well as me being gluten free, my OH is diabetic so I try to keep the carbs down where I can. It's a fun job, not! I think I need to spend more time during the week looking for potential meals.
4) No spends on other people.
5) Face and neck moisturised.