June Setup (Part Two)
Grab your coffee and break out your pens, it’s day two of setup for June ‘23!
For a long time, my dedicated planner time occurred at the end of the day. I would check off my boxes and begin to create my lists for the next day. Now, my routine is to connect with my planner first thing upon waking up. It gives me the opportunity to ensure I always have the opportunity to begin my day in a positive mindset by reflecting on my wins, big and small. Plus, it’s an excuse to make an espresso before I do anything else.
Holographic sticker available from ScienFae
While one of the best things for me about Silk&Sonder compared to some other planners I’ve used is the pre-made sheets that provide guidance on my self-care routines, I will say that one of the first things I did exploring the community within their app (another great benefit) is look at ways that other users were repurposing some of those worksheets. And yes, I gave them their fair shot as is. I just simply didn’t find personal value in tracking my sleep patterns, even if it did provide me valuable insight. Unfortunately, that insight that it provided me was that I was sleeping far too much, which is a symptom of depression, which I already knew was a problem. The sleep tracker, for me, reinforced a negative pattern. I needed a way to make it reinforce a positive pattern.
Enter workout tracking. I’m mostly a runner, so in my past few journals I’ve made the columns across the top into:
Goal: This column allows me to draw in a rough plan for the month. I am in the midst of half-marathon training, and following an adaptation of Jeff Galloway’s schedule that I have used in the past, where twice a week I am making conditioning runs of 30-40 minutes, and every two weeks I am adding milage to my long run distance.
Corresponding Data: In the above example, if my goal was time, I will use this column to record the milage achieved in that time. Likewise if my goal was distance, I will use this column to record the time it took me to reach said milage.
Weigh In: For me, yes, running is tied to my weight loss journey. And that’s all I’m going to say about that here because really, whether or not you choose to record your weight in a written journal could be it’s own entire blog post.
Results / Notes: This longest box is good for notes. In mine, I’ve included my pacing (I am training for between an 11:30 and 12:30 mile), whether or not there was a discrepancy between data recorded on my watch vs. the treadmill, and what artist or playlist I enjoyed that day. As a fun aside, I seem to run fastest to Disney music.
The scale from 1-5 essentially rates how exhausted I feel after a run, with 5 being in excellent spirits and 1 being legally dead.
Sometimes I pick my stickers based on exactly what they say, like this “Goals” sticker for my goals column. Sometimes I’m just trying to cover up the heading as best I can.
On to the next log. Now personally, I prefer the gratitude logs that are designed for writing. So for my second go with the gratitude jar, I drew my own lines inside and numbered them 1-25. Why not 1-30? Because last month, having both a 31 day gratitude log and a 25 day delightful moments log was extremely beneficial. I used those extra days to explore the journal prompts instead, and while I did fill it in every day, it was good to know in the back of my mind that it’s okay, you know, if you miss a day; you won’t have a blank line staring at you, you have a buffer.
And that’s just about it for setup and personalization. For the final part of my setup (are you starting to see why I spread it out over the course of the overlap week?) I’ll be creating my bingo card for June. This is a new activity for me, and I’ll absolutely be turning to the #sonderfam for inspiration as I fill out my selections. And while it will already be completed by the time this post goes live, I trust I’ll be seeing bingo again in the future. So tell me: What is your favorite item to add to a self-care bingo card?
Until next time,
Happy planning!