Lyrics: “Vital Sign” ~ Frank Turner, 2007
One more day to go till the weekend. Sleeping in (or at least trying to). I had some busy days at work and the heat on Monday and Tuesday didn’t help. I skipped the scheduled run this morning, because I just couldn’t get out of bed in time. Other skipped / cancelled plans today: running some errands. I had planned to head out after I finished with work, just to have a unexpected (as in not on the forecast) rain stop me. I started a few other things at home, got distracted as it happens so often, while it stopped raining. When I thought about finally heading out again, it started to rain again. So the errands got postponed for another day.
Work | Today was a lot of puttering around at home, figuratively also at the office as in work from home, but only on bits and pieces. Too many work phone calls and urgent to deal with mails to properly focus on something that would have needed my focus. One of our new staffers started at the start of the month and there is still so much to explain to them and introduce them to how we do things. I might have overstepped today when I suggested a task for them (in an email I copied our supervisor in anyway), because they are not actually working in my field and usually it’s only our supervisor who is formally allowed to ask / tell any of us to do stuff. But the new coworker was willing enough and seemed happy for a concrete tiny project to start working on. I’ll check in with the supervisor tomorrow about it anyway. I’m clearly overthinking this.
Yesterday had two meetings on the agenda: one is a quarterly one on project-management level with various departments to keep us all in the loop about what’s going on where. The 2nd one, which had kept me busy with preparation for days now, was the start of the ‘organisation wide’ climate action team, which I / we are sort of leading. It’s all still a work in progress and I’m so not used to being in charge, but “fake it till you make it”, right? It all went well, which was such a relief. And I think we’ve got a good group of people. But yeah, my mind needed a bit of a “puttering around” day to de-stress so to speak.
Overthinking (less and less) | This week was a good example of how over the past year or so and probably due to the therapy I finally dared to get, I managed to keep my overthinking and worrying and rumination over the tiniest stuff at bay. There were a few moments – either with friends, family or at work – where someone said something or disagreed with something I said or said something which until recently I might have taken as “attack on my person”. Until recently I would have spend so much time being upset about that. Feeling worthless and stupid and spending hours replaying it in my mind and worrying about it and just letting it drag me down what I call “the negative spiral” or “spiral of negative thinking”. Not this week though. Yes all the things that have been said, did annoy / worry / upset me, but just for a moment. I then always managed to take a step back. Examine what actually has been said. What it could / should mean. And what it definitely doesn’t. Life is so much easier this way, let me tell you.
Books | It’s not news that I’ve got way too many (unread) books on my shelves or my ebook readers. I do appreciate the variety of genres to pick from when my mood strikes. These past few days I’ve forced myself to go back to those books which I have either started at some point and hadn’t been in the mood for then. Or books I’ve bought a longer time ago. It’s not an exact science. What I might make into some kind of science though is how much time (aka pages) I’ll allow myself to decide if
(a) I am in the mood for this book at this moment = first 10-20 pages
(b) if I can actually see myself finishing this book = 1/4 of the book
I’ve decided that especially with the books I’ve either tried at some point or have bought a while ago, this latter rule will also mean that I’ll either finally finish the book or give it away. There is no going back on the “not in the mood for” section of the shelf. If that sounds like a complicated, nerdy system, so be it. I need to make up my mind about some of those books on that unread shelf.
So far I’ve read and enjoyed one I had before given up on, because I had just not been in the mood. “Flying Solo” by Linda Holmes. I’ve given up on “The Reading List” (b) and “As Far As You’ll Take Me” for a combination of (a) and (b) and checking the reviews once more to see if it might get better.
Running | As mentioned above I skipped the run today and had planned to do it on Saturday morning instead as I head into the office tomorrow and there is no time to run before that. I realized that Saturday might not be the best morning to do it, which I know would mean I’d postpone it till Monday. Not the best way to keep a routine, I know. So… I’m now planning to run tomorrow after work, as Friday is a shorter day. Run somewhere near where I work. Which means I need to bring all my gear and such, but that’s all doable. I’ve sort of mapped out the route of the ~ 3km which the next run schedule will add up to. It should be fine. Yes, I might need to change into my tracksuit pants in my car (or next to my car behind the open car door), because I need to run some shopping errands after work first and won’t do that in a tracksuit. But it’ll be fine. And I admit I’m glad I am planning to do this and not postpone it till… whenever. Accountability and such. This might also be why I include this in this post. I did go out to run on Tuesday morning, while it wasn’t all that hot yet and I tried yet another track around here. Not the closest option (like out the door), but a nice quiet one and I had to fill up the car anyway, so it was ok to drive there (close to the gas station).
To-Do-List | The way I’m working with TickTick as my to-do-list and time slots to do stuff seems to be working fine for me still. Especially after I’ve figured out how I could easily integrate my digital calendar (which I’ll keep on my nextcloud) via CalDav. This definitely helps just as to really schedule small tasks in the to-do-list/calendar. For now anyway; let’s see how long this works. One of the to-dos I just had to schedule for tomorrow is “print out the gig ticket for Saturday” 😉 I’m not at the desktop with the printer right now so I can’t do it right away.
