Ever tried to actually pick apart the thoughts keeping you up at night?
If the answer’s no, I get it. Generally, it all just turns into static anxiety for me, as well. However, not long ago, I had some success trying to dissect the thought pasta plaguing my attempt at a reprieve from the business of living from the comfort of my pillow. And you know what a lot of it boiled down to? Pondering the past and ruminating about the future. Two things that weren’t even happening at that moment. (Along with sleep, apparently.) It took me a while to realize how wasteful contemplating past events (which you can’t alter) is enough to stop doing it. And you can’t well handle the future, either (not from under a fleece blanket with your contacts out and invisalign in, anyway.) But what you can do is set a good intention. Or list of them. And, no, not just in the hippie, law of manifestation sense either. I mean, that’s great if that’s what you’re into. But I suppose what I really mean is molding the shape of your next day the night before – so that all of your tomorrow’s to-do’s are outlined already in the form of a brief itinerary come sunrise. Window blocks of time to take a bite outta every task you missed today, yesterday, and last week (which was when the deadline on about half’a them actually was.)
But first: why should you blindly listen to my advice?
Well, you shouldn’t. But what may make you want to is the fact that I’m a reformed black belt level procrastinator. Any task – no matter how simple – was no match for my avid sloth, numerous excuses, and compendium of well intended promises that I’d “get to it tomorrow”. Press me on it, and I’d get angry at you. I didn’t just shoot the messengers. I’d emotionally eviscerate ‘em. Once I had a bit of a wake up call and realized that sort’ve life was leading me in the opposite direction from contentment (and financial comfort), something dawned on me. My M.O. wasn’t working. I needed a new one. So, one day, when I had to wake up for an interview, I noticed how I’d sort’ve programmed my whole day around a task that was crucial, fitting in other stuff that was important to me peripheral to said priority. By the end of that day, I felt fulfilled, happy, and accomplished. A step closer to my ultimate life goals. There was my usual work I always did, yes. But I’d also fit in a bit of me time. And usual procrastination things like house chores, errand running, and finally emptying my mailbox. (Or trying to at least. By then it’d filled up so much that they returned everything to their senders. I digress.)
So what had I done differently, exactly?
I’d set an intention itinerary. An agenda for my day, broken into time blocks, and bordered by tasks and goals.
And all of the stuff mentioned above was written in it. Like a futuristic diary.
Except instead’a recording today’s musings, I’d map out tomorrow’s plans. Write reality into existence.
“In Soviet Russia, dear diary writes YOU.”
Realizing how effective this momentum based day planning was on my “big days”, I began trying to implement it into my every day routine. By taking ten to fifteen minutes each evening before non-electronic time, I changed my whole life’s productivity level and curtailed the cognitive mattress crap that keeps me up. Thus far, the most effective way I’ve found to do this is by typing it into the notes section of my phone. (Some of you might prefer pen-to-paper lists, though.) I call it an intention-erary. Why? Because you design it with life in mind. Life happens and you won’t always get the full list executed perfectly. The point is that at least you’re adding all your usual “let’s table this” tasks on there, along with the salient stuff, to be taken care of during a certain time tomorrow. So, when your day gets derailed by some d-bag fender bendering you, it’ll still be there on the list. And thus, it’ll at least be on your mind to get it done by some point. Even if you don’t do it right at 2:30, you wrote out the intention to do it, making it less easy to forget. And the rest of the design is super important too. It can’t all be drudgery; you have to inject a few rewards of some kind into it to fuel your own momentum fire. For me, this is how I keep myself on task and willing to follow my own agenda. It could be something small like a matcha latte I allow myself when I work. It could be a run I look forward to doing. It might be kickboxing class. Whatever it is, find something you enjoy and tell yourself you get to have it after the tasks’ve been attacked. This practice keeps me more focused on said tasks, more able to enjoy my reward during my days, and less fettered by decision fatigue come morning time.
But, most importantly, it’s stopped blocking nocturnal holidays away from consciousness.
And that’s an intention-erary goal itself I now can anticipate every evening.