Week in review – 5-11 January

I was back at work all week. Because it’s school holidays I don’t have to work school hours, and I can put a full day in. I decided to work longer days while Slabs is on holiday so that I can have few of days off later in January.

It feels weird to be working a full day instead of leaving at 2.30. But these days are a lot less stressful than my 5 hour days, where it’s go-go-go from the moment I get up. On those days I often feel like I’ve just started the day when it’s time to leave. Having done part time days (3 days a week) and part time hours 5 days a week, I’m sure doing fewer days a week is easier than working every day but doing fewer hours.

This year I’m determined to find ways to make those short days less stressful, because I feel like I barely have time to take a breath.

Slabs and Juniordwarf went camping during the week, so I had a nice night to myself at home.

Juniordwarf left Zoe with me to keep me company, and I was under strict instructions to take her to work with me. He said she could help me typing on the computer. I’d type one sentence and she’d type the next one. I’m not sure that’s a great model for efficiency at work, but I tried.

20150107 Zoe at my work 2 editI’m not a great believer in New Year’s resolutions, but I guess a week off at the end of the year is a good chance to sit down, catch my breath and think about trying to take steps to get me to where I want to be. Last year I felt like even making small changes to my lifestyle was impossible, and it felt like I was taking one step forward and two steps back. It wasn’t my best year at work either. In a way, the end of the year was a symbolic way to shut the door on everything that had gone wrong in 2014 and start again.

One thing I did succeed with last year was quitting sugar. I’ve been back on this since the beginning of December, so I think this is Week 6. It’s been a lot easier this time than when I first did this in 2013. I think I did the really tough work back then, because I’ve had no withdrawal symptoms and very few cravings. The hardest thing this time was starting – and getting through the first few days without having an afternoon chocolate or cake. Once I’d got past that, it was easy and I haven’t been tempted at all. Not even at Christmas.

Just before the holidays I read an interesting article about habits and a book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, They have both helped me to start to introduce the small changes into my lifestyle that I couldn’t do last year.

This is a long-winded way of saying I’ve started walking again. I’ve been getting up at (some stupid time very close to) 5am and the reward for this is being awake for the sunrise.

20150108 Sunrise editNow I just have to introduce the corresponding habit of going to bed earlier than midnight, and I just might get the sleep I need to function normally.

It’s been a good week. I hope you’ve had a good week too.