My boyfriend sent me this link the other day: http://m.entrepreneur.com/article/230333 with regard to New Year's resolutions and the like. As he said, it seems so obvious, and yet - why haven't I been doing it all along?
The thing that I've figured out from my August-and-right-before stint, as well as my subsequent tumble and dropoff, is that systems are hard to maintain without a proper setup. I moved to a tiny, tiny room in an apartment with a very nice roommate who unfortunately has living habits very, very different to my standards of sanitization. As in, it felt unhygienic to breathe the air in the kitchen, let alone spend great deals of time there.
I started work again at the grocery store, and I regularly make large quantities of food for lunches and then forget to bring them. I buy ready-made salads, wraps, and if I'm feeling particularly weak-willed, frozen burritos and mac n' cheese for lunch.
I don't have any working systems in place, and when I do, they're all too easily disrupted. Any deviation from routine - even for good reasons, a pet-sitting gig, a good social engagement, a show or job! - throws a wrench into my cogs and I don't spend the effort getting things running again. I haven't made things a priority. I know I talked about that to some extent in previous posts, but then it was making my goals the priority. Now I mean making a system a priority. Setting up a schedule, and keeping to it, regardless of the results.
There are foods that I routinely make that I get sick of all too quickly (fried rice, chicken vegetable soup), foods that I make routinely that probably aren't that great for me (roasted potatoes, almond flour pancakes), and foods that I enjoy frequently but just don't seem worth the effort to make in small quantities or last in bulk (salads, kale/vegetable chips, fish dishes). The few foods that I don't seem to have gotten sick of yet that aren't that bad for me (lox, eggs and spinach in the morning; beef/onion/sweet potato stir fry) should maybe just become my standard, routine foods. Then I don't have to worry about creativity and pricing - it's a lot cheaper than eating out, or buying readymade food from work!
Then there's the amount of time per day I ought to be spending on my career. Whether it's looking at the audition listings, reading plays, or researching casting directors, studios, and shows, or writing, I need to be setting aside time, scheduling time, to getting shit done. Results will follow. I have evidence of that from 2013. It's simply time to make this happen.
