Time Management Tuesday: Maybe Routine Was What Got Me Off The Mat

At this time last week, I was wondering if the unit system would keep me working, at some level, through the holidays. It definitely didn't get me through this past one. By Saturday evening, the whole idea of giving up the good times I'd been having and going back to work was...hmm? Is repugnant too strong a word? I felt a little better after writing this line in Saturday's blog post, "Will our intrepid writer get back on task with cleaning her files, laying out her website overhaul, and developing lists of marketing contacts for the launch of the Saving the Planet e-book, just for starters." But for the most part, a life committed to going for walks and baking sounded rather inviting at that point.

What does Gail's failure of will have to do with time management, you may wonder. Remember, there is a self-discipline aspect to time management. Yes, there is. Last weekend, mine went down in flames.

However, Sunday morning I got up, went over a step sparring tape, did a mile on the treadmill, and, because I'm in training for January's retreat week when I will take five or six one-hour yoga classes in six days, I upped my daily 10/15 minute yoga practice by working with a 30-minute DVD that I rarely use because I find it difficult. The 30-minutes of yoga went incredibly well, and when I was finished I felt very close to being back to normal.

Eureka! I thought, or something similar. Yoga truly is a cure all! I was aware that meditation assists concentration for some people, thus helping them use time more effectively. But I hadn't heard anything specifically about yoga. So I spent some time that afternoon hunting on-line for material on some kind of connection between yoga and self-discipline or control.

Yesterday morning I was working out again when I started wondering whether it was really the yoga that brought my mind back to where I wanted it to be. Maybe it was the fact that I was working out at all, as I almost always do in the morning. Maybe it was the repetition of my regular life routines that brought me back to regular life.

Recall that I first began to feel some stirring of my normal self Saturday night when I wrote a blog post, something I do nearly every day, often in the evening, but hadn't done over the holiday. Then things really began to fall back into place Sunday after working out, something I do nearly day, also, but hadn't been able to do regularly over the holiday. I hadn't gone back to work, but I had gone back to routines I associate with work--working out before the work day and blogging at the end of it. That appears to have been enough to get me transitioning back to my work life.

Though I will keep my eye open for any yoga/discipline connections.