It’s Sunday evening at 8pm as I start to write this. I never usually leave my weekly blog post this late in the day. But for the first time in a very long time, I’ve had a life and a busy weekend. On Saturday night we met friends for a socially distanced dinner and had a glass or two more than was sensible. Today, we’ve had a family swim and a leisurely outdoor lunch. It’s been glorious. But boy, am I out of practice!
And this evening I am feeling both refreshed and completely out of routine. By routine, I mean the lockdown routine of very little to do, especially at weekends, and this has meant that I’ve allowed work to encroach further and further in.
It’s only this evening, as I find myself prepping the decks for the 5 webinars I have this week, (I know I won’t have time to do this once the week starts in earnest) that I realise I need to start re-thinking my routine for this new normal so that I can relax and enjoy it.
To counter the tedium of lockdown I filled the void with work. Now that there is fun to be had and my FOMO is kicking in, I want to be a part of the action which means I’m going to have to re-find my discipline. It’s going to mean better concentration and focus during the week, but the upside to that is work-free weekends packed with enjoyable family activities.
So, as the kids lay out their uniform and pack their bags for the return to school tomorrow, I’m feeling in quite a back-to-school mood myself. I’m ready to find a new routine for a new normal. It’s going to take discipline and focus. And just like the school routine I know I’m going to find it challenging at times. Ultimately though I am going to reap the rewards with the fun times ahead where I get to go out and see friends I’ve not seen in months, let my hair down and unwind.
I’m moving out of the nebulous space I’ve been in for the last year, where work has been constantly on at some level. There hasn’t been any point in having a defined on and off as quite frankly work gave me ‘something to do’.
But now I, once again, have real life things to do, that I want to make space for, and fitting it all in is going to take discipline.
