Clever title incorporating "habit"

I haven't been taking my vitamins nightly. Then the next morning I realize that I forgot them AGAIN. You might ask why I don't just take them in the morning, but morning vitamins make me feel ill. Not sure how to solve this one. Maybe a checklist on the bathroom mirror? Hmmm

Progress is showing itself on all other fronts. I'm still procrastinating a great deal, which is due to my summer coming to a close as much as it is to a natural proclivity. I did my hair this morning; forced myself into the bathroom and made note of the time before and after - it took 20 minutes. Not bad.

Today I will accomplish an occasional habit, one that I'm actually pretty good at, having incorporated it into my life over the past 10 years. Every 4 to 6 weeks (admittedly less often in the winter), I wax my legs. I do this for three reasons: 1) Smooth legs feel awesome but 2) I have insane body hair that shaving just can't handle plus 3) I hate spending more than 10 minutes in the shower anyway because it is boring and the time is better spent on eating breakfast, amirite?

For those of you for whom shaving is just dandy, let me tell you about my life: Shave at 8am, stubble by 10am. And the hair is dark, dark brown, while my skin is translucent white, a combination that I'm pretty sure is punishment for some heinous crime in a previous life, or possibly just a result of Irish genes. Before waxing, my legs never, ever looked smooth or clean shaven, even immediately after a smooth, clean shave. Now, for merely an hour's work, I get to enjoy that feeling for up to a week before the wee little hairs start to sprout, which are sparse enough to ignore for several more weeks.

Waxing is just more efficient, and I love efficiency. (Probably because I procrastinate so much.) That's probably why it's stuck as a habit. Well, efficiency and the fact that I can watch a movie or Mythbusters while doing it. Yup, an exciting afternoon!

Making pretty: good habit

"Make pretty" is something I've been trying to add to my morning routine. I've mentioned face washing and the putting on of skin stuff at night to battle the skin issues slowly creeping onto my face, and this morning routine is the flipside. 

Of course, I've always washed my face in the morning; it just helps me to feel awake. But "making pretty" involves things that my face seems to benefit from at this point in my life. Curling my eyelashes, putting on a bit of eye liner, perhaps a bit of blush, caking on the undereye concealer... it all makes me look a bit fresher, a bit more polished and, dare I say it, a bit more adult. And of course, having some slap on my face encourages me to wash it off at night.

The other part of "making pretty" is doing my hair, and this is the reason that I almost never cross this step off my list. I actually get off easy here; my hair is super dry, so I only wash it twice a week (trust me, you cannot tell on the 3rd or 4th day that it's not freshly clean; these are actually the days I get the most compliments on it), dry it straight, and if I want a lasting style, I just flat-iron the ends a tad. Voilà, days and days of styled hair.

But my god is doing hair boring. It takes at least half an hour, which is time I could spend asleep or eating. And then of course it involves using hot tools that dry out my hair even more, requiring the addition of product, etc. So I usually let it air dry into waves and then shove it in a ponytail for the next few days.

I don't want to continue on down this path. I don't want to be unkempt or sloppy looking.  I admire ladies who are stylish and well-groomed (and well-maintained), and I want to be one.  So "Make pretty" is on my daily to-do list, and I'm trying, really, to stick to it.

What this means in practice: I need to budget time on those mornings when I'm washing my hair to allow for drying and flat-ironing. I should listen to something I enjoy while I do it so that it doesn't seem so godawful boring.  And I should use needing to wake up earlier to further encourage me in my pursuit to go to bed earlier. 

So many of these good habits are tied together, aren't they? Those of you who were taught these things as kids, as just regular routine, are lucky. Learning them all as an adult ... well, it could be very difficult if I let it; thankfully it's still new enough to be interesting.

And now I'm off to do some of my sewing projects. I will finish something today, really!

Very bad habit

Before I start talking about my very gross habit - the only one I'm really not sure I'll be able to replace with the habit of not doing it - I'm very pleased to announce that I posted my ebay items. It all makes me a tad nervous, but mainly just proud that I finished that item on my projects list.

Anyway, I've talked about daily habits and weekly habits, but how about an every-five-minutes-habit that will likely take me weeks to shake / replace with a new habit? How about I have no idea what I'll replace this gross habit with?

I'm talking about picking at the skin around my nails. I just can't stop; it's a near-constant nervous habit. I don't bite or pick at the nails, mind you, just the skin. It is all torn up, you guys. To the point that even manicurists are like, omg gross when they see it. 

In the past, I've tried battling this with keeping my actual nails very pretty and polished. They look so nice that I want to look at them rather than pick at the skin surrounding them. This has never worked longterm, however, because the upkeep is not a good habit of mine, plus my work requires them to be chip-free if polished, yet the work itself makes it almost impossible to keep them in that state. 

I think in this case I just have to bite the bullet and be determined to keep them pretty and polished, even if that means nightly care to keep them nice for work. It's the only thing that's worked in the past, and experience has shown that the only flaw was my own laziness, so that's what I can correct. Right? Right. Maybe just working on my nails can be what replaces picking the skin as a habit.

In short, "manicure" is going on my daily to-do list. Right after I knock off another project or two on my list.

Habit: Skipping weekends

I should just exclude weekends from this "post every day!" plan. My weekends are too full; it is impossible.  So... that's settled.

For daily tasks, I'm finding igoogle (which I keep wanting to call igiggle) very helpful. I have a standard list of to-do items for every day, and just add on stuff that's unique to that day. 

I like the flexibility of planning each day in the morning, which is what I do. Previously I tried to plan daily tasks ahead of time, designating certain days as The Day I would, say, vacuum. It doesn't work for me. I see a long, never-ending to-do list when I do that, which causes mild hyperventilation. A shorter list, made that morning and responsive to the immediate needs of that specific day? That I can do.

This is not to say that I do no long-term planning. I do.  I want to make a comfortable home (we're finishing up remodeling that we did ourselves) so every day I have a task to further that goal.  I want to make better habits and use this space as a way to facilitate that, so a constant item on my to-do list is "blog". Etc.

I put out some goals last week, such as taking vitamins and finishing projects. I made progress on the projects, I'm happy to say, and today I've chosen one more to finish up; it would also meet the goal of making a comfortable home, so ... yay. Vitamins? Not been good. But new week, new chance to make a habit, right?

This is also the last week of my twenties. It's put me in a reflective mood, which I normally find insufferably boring but which fits this week. I used to think I needed to push myself all the time, and I did, and it worked in that I accomplished a lot but didn't work in that I was miserable and constantly felt like I was running just to keep up. I've learned (and am still learning) to go easy on myself, to give myself a break sometimes. And funnily enough, it's this attitude that has resulted in more progress. And you know, I feel pretty good.

Failing to succeed

First week of blogging and I've already missed two days. Good thing this isn't a job or I'd be fired, right? 

Ah, well. Yesterday was spent in a mad dash of cleaning to prepare for having people over last night. I'm not a very good housekeeper and, though this is technically a bad habit, I'm not going to rectify it. Sure, I'll try to improve individual issues, such as laundry, but on the whole? No. 

The very second we can afford it, we're hiring a cleaning service. I don't like cleaning, I don't want to clean, and I don't see how becoming a better cleaner would improve me in any way. Plus, we (husband and I) like our free time, and it's worth it to us to essentially buy more free time by paying someone else to do a job they are good at.

But enough of that. This little project has forced me to think about my bad habits, and one that I do want to address is my inability to complete projects. Here's my pattern: I start something, I get 95% done, at which point I freak out a bit because maybe I'm worried it won't turn out "right" or maybe I see that it definitely isn't what I'd planned, and so I step away for a moment to assess with the intention of returning once I've figured out how to fix it.

Of course, I almost never get back to it. Things I've walked away from recently: a dress I made that only needs the hem done, but I don't like how the sleeves look; a bulletin board which I want to cover in fabric but can't pick one; a very easy wall decor item ready to be installed, but I can't decide on the best method to do so; ebay listings for which I've prepared the items and written descriptions, but need to take photos; a pillow which is ready to be finished but I can't decide on trim; and the list goes ON AND ON.

Today I'm going to pick a couple of these things and just finish them, damn the consequences. The reason this became a bad habit is that I'm uncomfortable with unknown outcomes; they make me nervous. Theoretically, I know it's ok to "fail", which is my word for something that isn't perfect, but actually allowing myself to fail? Hard. I need to take more risks and be less hesitant, and this habit seems like a good place to start.

Night-time routine

Last night, I went to bed early. Yes, I had the wherewithal to just say no to another episode of Futurama, and instead head to bed at 10:20pm. Please hold your applause until the end.

Of course, then I had to do my night-time routine: brush teeth, floss, wash face, apply useless face cream, apply useless lip treatment. This is a new routine for me.  Like most everyone else, of course I would floss sometimes, but not every night. And then, I don't really wear make-up and never had any issues with acne, so face washing was never really on my radar.

Everything changes. I knew that I should floss every day, so it was a resolution for 2010. And my skin was no longer baby-smooth, so I thought it was probably time to start paying attention to it.

Flossing stuck; after those first 21 days, I was so proud of myself I couldn't stand it. So I added the face washing. And it didn't work out so regularly. I'm not good at keeping up on laundry (yup, bad habit) so about every 10 days I'd run out of clean washcloths and decide I didn't really need to wash my face that night.  Rinse, repeat.

To support the formation of this face habit, I created a laundry system. So far that laundry system has worked through two rotations of towels and wash cloths, so I feel optimistic. I always have a fresh washcloth to use AND a place to put it until all are dirty and ready to be washed. Just like a grown-up!

My skin looks better, too. I have no idea if the face stuff I bought actually does anything, but I've read that it's more (most?) important to have a routine, ie that the routine matters more than the products. I don't find myself worrying too much about this, though.

The enemy of forming habits is overloading the system, which is why I've gone slowly with myself, adding something new only after I feel comfortable that the last new addition has taken root.  I'm almost there with washing my face, and already know what I'll add next: taking my multi-vitamin and calcium. The excitement never stops, does it.

For now, I need to make a menu list for the month and freeze some potatoes - this is non-daily habit I'm working on forming, and I think it just might work.

Good habit the first

A great habit to have is being early to bed and early to rise. I've (obviously) never formed this habit.

I have a great deal of nervous energy that keeps me from going to sleep when I should. My to-do list never feels complete (and to be fair, usually isn't) and in turn that makes me feel like I cannot - or may not, as in, "not allowed to" - go to sleep. Plus, I also enjoy late nights and feeling like I'm the only person awake, so there's that.

This wouldn't be an issue except that I love to wake early, funnily enough for the same reasons that I enjoy late nights. When I was younger, this was no trouble at all. In college, I had the world's most obnoxious roommate, so I frequently stayed away from the apartment between 6:30am and 11pm, coming home only to shower and sleep. Six hours was fine. More than fine; it fit with my sleep cycle precisely and I was so productive that I finished a dual degree in three years.

But as I've gotten older, 6 hours just doesn't cut it. Now I really need about 7.5 hours, a difference I attribute to a stretched sleep cycle. Any less and I'm tired and pretty down all day, but any more and I'm a head-achey mess. It's been hard to admit to myself that my increased sleep need is ok, and doesn't mean I'm lazy.

By getting to bed earlier, I'm going to make those early mornings more pleasurable. But I think what's more important in my case is learning to let myself relax and understand that sleep is not something one earns, but is, in fact, a need. And since it is a need, fulfilling it shouldn't make me feel guilty about whatever it is I imagine I should be doing instead.

To those without sleep issues, this probably sounds nuts, but for me, forcing this habit might be the way I learn to relax. And it might help with the bags under my eyes, too.