How are you feeling? Here in the UK, we have just emerged from a very long month of March and are now back on track with seasonal weather. I honestly thought I was going to absolutely lose it if we were going to have just one more day of rain. Hopefully things are looking up all around. 

One thing that has remained from the pandemic, for me, is a fuzziness around time. It’s not like I feel that I have been robbed of these 14 months as my 20-year-old does; no, I just forget “when” we are. The weather hasn’t helped, I must say. So when I realised last week that the end of next month would be the middle of the year, I decided to make June a truly great month with progress on my projects, lots of creative play, and first steps to do the things I used to do before life turned upside down. The experiment is to make June so good that I won’t be freaking out at the end of it when we are reaching mid-2021. For me, that meant: declutter, save money, get more done, have more fun! 

I love planning and my favourite way is to do so is to start with a mind map. It gives me more freedom to add things, create connections between activities. 

• I write the month in the middle and areas of my life I want to focus on around it. This time, I wrote themes that are specific to my June Experiment: Declutter, Deep clean, Environment, Plants, Books to read, Use online workshops/classes, Writing projects, Buy only essentials, Social life. 
• I would usually look at my yearly goals and decide what needs to happen next to be on track. This month, I have one-off goals that take priority but this doesn’t mean that I don’t take them into consideration.
• This time, I will write what I envision for each part of my June Experiment. In concrete terms, what do I want to see happen and what do I need to do to make it happen?
• Next, I create my “No” list on the side with all the things that I don’t want to have, do or be. This is easy as my inner self is always very keen to share what she doesn’t want. 
• I also create a “Yes” list to jot the things my inner self yearns for.
• Items on both lists can then be turned into mini goals, habits or rules. For instance, if I want to work on an online class that I’ve been meaning to do, I might have to decide to stop going on Twitter and Wordscapes before making dinner so I can fit it in. This become a new habit that must be written on my habit tracker. I’ll put the name of the class, duration and time of day.
• Finally, I add specific activities that serve each goal.

When I am happy that there is enough and not too much, I then schedule everything on my paper planner or my habit tracker. Lastly, I add what is on my electronic calendar. The electronic calendar is great for reminding me of scheduled events but for my daily tasks, I need a paper planner. I need to visualize and order them in a way that works for me. 

Two essential elements I factor in

The first guidepost for me when I plan is joy. There is obviously what we have to do for our life to function and this goes first, but then I favour joy for what I do in my own time. You’d think that’s obvious but I never used to look at my free time and think it’s mine to fill with joy. Too often, I let others take it over or I left it so opened that I filled it in a haphazard way which was not always satisfying. For my June Experiment, some activities will lead to deferred joy. I will be doing things I might not enjoy in the moment but that will lead to joy.

The second one is rest. This include any restful activity. Sleep is a crucial pillar but I find listening to chilled music, walking or playing with mixed media to be restful. Even a walk around the neighbourhood gets scheduled in my paper planner. Excellent self-care needs to be a priority. What restful activities are you going to plan for yourself?

My planner is not crammed; I learned that things get done and move forward when we plan intentionally not when we put a lot on our schedule or to-do list.  So love yourself enough to listen to what you really want to do and plan it. 
 

What will your June Experiment look like?

Valerie 

http://valeriemarsh.com