Day 41

Day 41:

(Continuing from Day 40)

I must admit that yesterday's story wasn't really a story. It was more of a social experiment, and parts of it weren't actually true, I hope you'll forgive me. When I wrote about the third day of using my new schedule, and how well it went, I wasn't recalling events that had already taken place. The third day is today. 

In James Clear's fascinating book 'Atomic Habits', he discusses the idea of making a 'social contract' in order to achieve your goals. The idea is that, if you make a public pledge to do something, you will be much more likely to go through with it. I attempted to do this, going further by expanding on what the positive results of following my schedule would be. I didn't realise I was doing this until about halfway through. It was supposed to be a kids story at first, but I felt that the tone of the writing was far more like one of the 'update' days I write, so it ended way differently from how I imagined. This has given me a reminder that, despite my seeming to get better at writing by doing this, I am still far from coherent.

So, did my social experiment work? Well... No.

I haven't really followed the schedule today, partly because it's been my dad's birthday and other stuff has happened, and partly because my modifications to the schedule may not have solved the issues. I ate today, but I realised that writing this wasn't on it, and this is a very important part of my daily routine now. I've gotten a good amount of work done, considering, but it wouldn't be true to say that I followed the schedule, and I've already deceived you once. Perhaps if I iron it into shape more, I'll get better at it.

I haven't done one of these for a while. They almost felt like a fall-back plan at first, in case I couldn't think of anything to write. I don't struggle with this too much anymore, partly through practice and partly through technique. Michael Rosen (a famous and fantastic children's storyteller and author) demonstrated closing his eyes and just letting his mind wander for about 30 seconds, then writing about the things he thought about. This has proven quite successful for me, and it's notably where that dog train story came from (Day 35). I'm still not entirely sure what that was about...

As always, I hope you are enjoying reading these, and finding them insightful or entertaining or useful in some way. I think I really am starting to.