Week 22/2022: Recovery mode

Week of 30 May 2022

Recovery mode

I’m not very good at resting when I’m sick. My usual approach is as soon as I feel a little bit better, I start right back where I left off without making sure I’m fully recovered. Sometimes it’s been okay but, as someone older and wiser than me recently said, as we get older we start to realise we don’t “bounce” any more. She was talking about recovering from falling over but she could just as well have been talking about getting over a cold.

So normally, I’d have made myself get up early in the morning to go for a walk on the first day I started to feel better, which would have been Sunday, or maybe Monday. But I didn’t. I let myself sleep.

I did, however, go for a walk after working at home on Monday at my normal shutdown time of 5.00. This was nothing more than my normal 25-minute walk, but it was cold and dark and I think it was a mistake. I felt terrible afterwards and I thought I was going to collapse.

I was clearly not better and I took that as a sign I needed to rest more.

The next morning, I didn’t go out. It was too cold and I figured if I wasn’t well, I wouldn’t be doing my health any favours by going out. So I decided if I couldn’t walk in the morning I could go out at lunch time. It’s my plan B and at least I’ll get one walk in each day, which is better than no walks.

Not going out in the morning isn’t failing. I’m responding to a situation that is beyond my control and changing what I can. I can’t change the weather, the temperature, or how dark it is at 6 am or 5 pm but I can change when I go for my walk so it isn’t as cold and dark when I do go.

And that’s what I did. I didn’t go out for a morning walk until the weekend, and even then it wasn’t 5.30 or 6.00 am, it was closer to 7.30 or 8.00. And I didn’t go out again in the cold and dark at 5.00 pm. I went out at lunch time, when, while it wasn’t warm, at least the sun was out. So I went for at least one walk every day this week. That’s enough.

What did I want to do this week?

• Tweak my morning routine
• Finish TAFE assignment 3B
• Work on TAFE assignment 3C (and 4A if I get the opportunity)
• Work on the 4000 Weeks blog post
• Do the final part of the daily pause blog series
• Work on Mindspot week 4 activities
• Work on the Deep Work toolkit

Did I do it?

I can’t say I really tried tweaking the morning routine because I haven’t been following it and I’ve been waking up later. The “routine” is a bit of a mess at the moment.

I got a lot done for my TAFE work (thing 8). I handed in assignment 3B on Monday, I handed in assignment 3C early and I submitted 4A for review before I hand it in next Monday.

I didn’t work on the blog posts or the deep work toolkit (thing 12), and I didn’t do any more work on Mindspot (thing 1), so I’m not really sure what I did this week other than the TAFE work.

Oh! I did one thing, which had been on my undone annoying things list for ages, which was to take my office chair back to the supplier to get re-gassed before the warranty ran out. Small achievements!

I started a six-week online course at work about measurement and evaluation, and one week in, I’m feeling way out of my depth. I hope the next couple of weeks will spell things out for me a bit more clearly or I’m going to get completely lost. I think it’s great timing though, as I have a piece of work coming up I think I can apply this to, if I actually get to the point where I can understand it!

And there’s other stuff, that I can’t write too much about as it’s not my story. This has taken a different turn, one that I was expecting at some point, but now it’s happened it’s brought a whole new series of problems and things to worry about.

I have to keep reminding myself that thinking “when this is over I can get on with my life” is not helpful, because “this” is my life, right now. If I hold off on living and being happy until I get past this hurdle, I will never live my life because there will always be another hurdle put in the way.

My life is whatever is happening right now. I need to be okay with that, and just that.

22 for 2022 summary

• Things completed to date: 5 (10, 11, 13, 18, 22)
• Things completed this week: 0
• Things I worked on this week: 2: (8, 21)
• Things in progress: 4 (1, 8, 12, 21)
• Things not started: 13 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20)

What do I want to do next week?

I need to

• Finish assignment 4A and submit that
• Complete the learning session for assignment 4B
• Go to the optometrist and get my new glasses fitted

You know what? I don’t want to do any more than that. There’s too much other stuff going on that needs my attention and is taking a lot of my energy. The other stuff on my list can wait. I need to deal with what I have to deal with, do the bare minimum of the other things that I absolutely have to do and I have to rest.

Weekly summary

What did I learn this week?

I really loved this saying from the chef Marco Pierre White on Masterchef this week.

If you work with your hands, you’re a labourer. If you work with your hands and your head you’re a craftsman. If you work with your hands, your head and your heart, you’re an artist.

I also learned what an oxymel is. I was supposed to go to a workshop on “Innate Health and Wellness” for winter with Lil Sis last weekend, but I couldn’t go because I was sick. And this week she was kind enough to bring me the handouts from the workshop, along with my own oxymel, which is a herbal concoction with apple cider vinegar and honey and is supposed to be really good for you in winter. I have to let it infuse for a few more weeks before I can test it out.

What was the best thing about this week?
Watching the currawongs in my back yard. They are so beautiful.

What I’m reading this week
American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Habit tracker

• Days I went for a walk in the morning (Goal = 7): 2
• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 5): 5
• Days I did controlled breathing (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did my post-work pack up routine (Goal = 5): 5
• Finish work by 5.30 (Goal = 5): 4
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 2
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 5): 6
• Days I shut my computer down before 9.30 (Goal = 6): 5
• Weekly review at work: Yes
• Weekly review at home: Yes