A man of habit

This is going to be the last of these internal-facing posts for the 'day'. I'm covering up posts for yesterday because it was the first WFH day and I was having trouble getting organized, so skipped all the posts for the day. But now I'm back, and need to get things done etcetera, so covering up for everything that's happening. Which is all related to the title of this post!

There was a time, actually an era rather, that lasted until perhaps a year ago, perhaps 6 months ago, maybe even a little bit now, when I saw myself lacking in self-discipline, dislike structure and order, and one with more of an 'artiste' mindset than an organized thinker. Then I started writing these blog posts, made the checklists, started writing my personal journal (because this personal journal is not personal enough, haaah) and generally gave an order to my life. Which is not to say my life's organized to the 'T' or even is at where I want to be, but generally speaking it's more or less more organized than I was before. This is all a repetition of the post I made on structure and organization a few posts ago.

Where I'm getting at with this: it's clear to me know, it's clear now if it wasn't before, that I enjoy daily habits, sticking to them and going along with them. In fact, when they're missing, I feel something in my life missing, feel unproductive disorganized and can't get back to my daily schedule. There are plans to have routines for non-work days (working on that). The anxiety that was caused by missing daily tasks was actually a reminder of the growth I've had as a person in the last few months.

So here's a question: how do I handle days where my regular habitual tasks cannot be executed? Like maybe yesterday, but weekends and travel days and holidays? One approach I've been working on is to make your habits more robust such that they can be carried no matter where you are. The blogposting from cellphone for example, I won't need a (my) laptop near me just to post several times a day on this blog and on my journal. The other way is to create more flexible but still regular tasks for holidays, for a more purposeful time. "Walk around the block" would be a good one, for no matter where I go or what I do there's always going to be a block of some kind. At this point, I really don't need to fear myself getting to rigid with my habits. It's the other way round actually. Also, adding and removing actions from the daily checklist is a proof that there's flexibility in the daily habits, also the fact that any task can be cancelled or delayed if so desired.

Here's the conclusion: I've been growing as a person in recent months, the mild anxiety I had yesterday was a proof of that. Need to be careful not to overdo this, as that could turn the anxiety into panic, but it's unlikely I'll get there soon. Additionally, just the awareness and the consideration of all these factors protects me from overdoing these things in either direction.