How to stay accountable: charting goals and health

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This past two years have been really crazy for me. I’m still getting treated for Lyme Disease, I got engaged, now I’m planning a wedding, and buying a house. A lot is happening, and when you add that onto the ever present task of bettering yourself, it’s easy to let things fall through the cracks. So I’ve been working on methods to stay on top of everything and I’m going to share the few things that have worked best for me.

Charting is something a lot of doctors suggest people with mental health problems do to track their moods and anxieties. I’ve had to do it for that in the past, luckily my mental health is pretty stable at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that charting hasn’t still been useful for my health overall. I’ve been using it to track progress with my lyme disease, as well as track what causes me to feel bad. For example, I’ve started creating a little list of things I’ve eaten that day in the corner of my planner, that way I can still see if gluten or sugar is effecting me like it used to (and I’m proud to say it’s not! It’s gotten a lot better).

I also have been using my planner to write down everything I’ve done that day, and I mean almost everything. I’m not just writing down appointments or lunch dates, I’m writing down whether or not I’ve walked the dog, what hobbies I did that day, whether or not I ate out for lunch. Having your day written down like that helps you track a lot of different things. It helps me track my energy levels in response to my lyme treatment, but it also helps me stay accountable for diving back into my hobbies.

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5 Ways to Master the Art of Being Busy:

5 Ways to Master the Art of Being Busy

Flash forward a few weeks past graduation and I’m finally realizing how much free time I had in college. I meant what I said a few blog posts ago about college not being the best years of your life, but I will say, I had a lot more time to bum around on tumblr and color in those adult coloring books.

The things I’m busy with aren’t all bad, in fact, a lot of them are social and fun. It’s just everything has to be scheduled in now in a way it didn’t have to be before. So, as a beginner to this rush and go lifestyle, I’m going to share a few tips I’ve learnedĀ over the last month or so.

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The Simplest Planner Fix:

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At the end of last year I found myself using to do lists more than my planner, which wasn’t effective, because my daily stuff got checked off but I had to keep moving my “side errands” from list to list. So this year I wanted to do something a little different with my planner. Above you can see that there isn’t anything fancy going on with that week… but the highlighters? They’re coded. Purple for social. Blue for work/babysitting. Yellow for appointments. And those “side errands” I was discussing? Post it notes, as seen below.
IMG_2492One last upgrade I’ve made? Other than some fun stickers, which I’m going to stock up on as soon as possible. Washi tape for days on end. Below I’ve marked off my far in the future fall break. There’s no mistaking it.

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