Personal Rhythms - Annual

This blog item is the fourth in a series about the rhythms we choose for our lives. Today the topic is annual rhythms.

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What activities do you do every year? I find that putting these on a calendar (either electronic or paper) is very worthwhile - so that I don’t forget. I’ve listed some examples below.

• Birthdays/anniversaries/other yearly celebrations. I set up a re-occurring item on my electronic calendar for these.
• Vacation. Taking at least a week off to do something completely different than the other weeks of the year helps sustain your focus on what is truly important in your life. Generally I reserve the days on my calendar well before I know for certain what I am going to do.
• Physical/medical checkup. Most medical plans encourage some kind of annual checkup. Use the data to make appropriate life style changes (and minimize medication over the long term).
• Thorough house cleaning. Many people still do ‘spring cleaning’ because it works to keep the home in great shape. Some elements of thorough house cleaning (that aren’t part of weekly or monthly cleanings) might be:
  • Cleaning windows inside and out
  • Taking everything out of a storage area, cleaning it, putting back only what is still needed, donating/trashing the rest
  • Getting all the spiderwebs and debris from the garage floor and ceiling
  • Cleaning under furniture (may involve moving the furniture)
  • Checking the pantry for old/forgotten/expired cans or boxes of food
  • Emptying the refrigerator, cleaning the shelves (hopefully not finding any long lost items that should have been eaten or thrown away long ago)
• Resolutions. Most people do this at the beginning of the year but it can be done any time. The idea is to set some longer term goals…and the ways you will measure them for the next 12 months.

 Are there other things that should be added to this list for annual consideration?

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Previous posts in this series about personal rhythms can be found here: monthly, weekly, daily.

Personal Rhythms - Weekly

This blog item is the second in a series about the rhythms we choose for our lives. Today the topic is weekly rhythms.

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There are activities that are generally done on a weekly basis…almost always associated with a particular day of the week. They serve as infrastructure to other activities so must be done sometime during the week although they can be moved to other days if necessary occasionally. The three that are nearly constant for me are:  

• House cleaning on Wednesdays
• Groceries shopping on Fridays
• Laundry on Saturdays 

If I make a batch of muffins, it is generally on Sunday. Visits to museums, galleries, or gardens are most often on Sunday afternoon.

For young children, it is worthwhile considering a weekly cycle to provide a bit of structure for activities that would become boring or overwhelming if they happened every day. The idea is to have a theme for the day that can be repeated in subsequent weeks. For example: 

• Family activity on Sundays
• Seasonal craft on Mondays
• Baking/cooking on Tuesday
• Painting/drawing on Wednesday
• Farm or other extended outdoor activity on Thursday
• Grocery shopping on Friday
• Music on Saturdays 

Think about the weekly rhythms most important to enable your life to move along the way you want. Are they firmly in place or ad hoc? Could they be honed to better meet your needs?

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Last week, the post was about daily rhythms. I’ll post an item about annual rhythms next week and there will be a final post for rhythms that don’t quite fit into daily/weekly/monthly/annual cycles or the rhythm is set by a metric other than time.

Personal Rhythms - Daily

This blog item is the first in a series about the rhythms we choose for our lives. Today the topic is daily rhythms. In upcoming weeks I’ll post items about weekly, monthly, and annual rhythms. There will be a final post for rhythms that don’t quite fit into a daily/weekly/monthly/annual cycles or the rhythm is set by a metric other than time.

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For most people, consistent and healthy daily rhythms for sleeping and eating optimize how we feel about everything else. 

• Being asleep for about the same length of time each day and starting/stopping the sleep period at about the same time is a key to feeling rested and alert during the waking hours. Generally 7 to 8 hours of sleep is required. Try this experiment for a week:
  
  • Set a timer for a bit longer than you think you need to sleep.
  • Go to bed at the same time each evening.If you wake up before your timer goes off and after you have been in bed for at least 7 hours (you can make this shorter if you think you need less) - get up. Many people will feel warm at this time because their metabolic rate has already increased to the ‘awake’ state.
  • Otherwise - get up when the timer goes off…no snoozing.
  • Make some notes about how rested - or not - your feel during the day and make adjustments to the timer if you need to. 
  • At the end of the week, make some decisions about the optimal sleep duration for you and set your alarm clock accordingly or continue the timer technique. Many people are surprised to find that they almost always get up before the timer goes off. The benefit to waking up on your own is never being jolted awake by an alarm.
• Three meals a day work for most people but not for everyone. If you have times during the day that you feel sleepy, start keeping a record of what and when you eat; make adjustments. I am an extremely early morning person and I find a small meal (2 squares of dark chocolate and vitamins/mineral supplements) first thing in the morning followed by another small meal (a piece of fruit or small muffin) is better for me than combining everything into one breakfast. I eat lunch and dinner at about the same time each day and frequently try to have the largest meal of the day be at lunch. 

 There are hygiene related daily rhythms that are good habits. There are some examples below. Think aboutyour daily habits. If changes need to be made commit to making the change for at least 3 weeks before re-evaluating since habits take time to establish (or break). In either situation - it takes conscious effort to make the change. 

• Brushing teeth
• Showering
• Clean socks

 And there are metrics that you make check daily to provide the feedback loop for your health related goals - things like:

•  Weight
• Blood pressure
• How many steps you took 

Again - evaluate the metrics you are checking. Remember that metrics can warp your actions to make sure that warp is in a direction you intend.

Annie Dillard is right: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

Rhythms that build your appreciation of the day for yourself and for others are the most important rhythms of all - intentionally look for those pleasant surprises - the serendipity - that makes life interesting. All the rest of the rhythms discussed above are the administration behind the scenes so that we are primed to live the day.