Routines Continue

It has been nearly a month since half of the U.S. had its expectations upended. There is plenty of speculation as to why this happened, and people way smarter than me are welcome to continue wondering. It is, I suppose, historically important. But for those of us who are not employed in a way that requires us to keep up with that, we must, as they say, keep calm and carry on. For me, I learned the lesson after the last debacle election and deleted as many quick and easy ways to doomscroll from my phone as possible. If I want to look at the news, I have to actively use up a whole desktop computer screen for it.

I've also started keeping more information in my calendars and planners and notebooks. Any idea I have or thought that I want to explore later, I write it down. If the notion comes back to me later without having to look it up, I'll give in to the urge, and look it up. 

My brain does not work this way normally. I simply must know, most of the time, but I am starting to let go of that urge, because about half the time knowing makes me upset. And if I'm going to be upset, I want there to be dedicated time for it.

Another thing, and this is today's action item for me, is that I need to itemize my regular habits. Not so I keep doing them in the exact routine I'm doing or anything like that, but so I can tell if I start to spend too much time on doomscrolling or the like.

For example, I usually would some sort of chore(s), my d&d game, and cook something tasty for dinner on Saturday, but because d&d was cancelled, I literally did not do a single one of those things, and instead shrimped at my computer and played games all day instead. Not necessarily a bad thing, but noteworthy since I'm trying to be a little more community-focused. Instead of the videogames, I probably should have found some sort of community event to attend. Saturdays are great for those and my Saturdays are usually busy with d&d. 

So today I'm going to start tracking "the typical" and see what parts I can shift toward community action. We'll see if any of it sticks!