I spend Monday mornings reflecting. Here’s what the past week has taught me.

The downsides are way less than the downsides of decision fatigue and chasing whims

Sometimes it does feel like a chore. But then I remind myself that this is the stuff I’ve wanted the time to do my whole life: meditate, exercise, write, reflect, learn a new language.

And when it seems like I’m getting too attached to the checklist, it’s because I’m hanging onto my guardrail for balance; I’ll take structure over poor decisions any day.

Reframe and rescope

Just as the feeling of anxiety can be reframed as excitement (Mel Robbins did some excellent stuff around this), I’m trying to reframe overwhelm as I care so deeply. Because, usually, I do. And, honestly, the physiological signals are tremendously similar — it’s mainly where my brain goes that feels icky.

Structurally, I’m going to rescope my days whenever I eat a meal. I plan my days the night before. I try to plan based on how much time I (think I) have available. Of course, things pop up and this changes throughout the day, but I rarely adjust my expectations. This can result in trying to squeeze more out of the day. But that’s just stealing from tomorrow. We’ll see how this goes too.

I didn’t know I had a great week until I reflected on it

This is why it’s so important to have scheduled reflections and reviews. My memory is so coloured by how I feel today. My memory of last week was that I thought I had dropped the ball, that nothing got done, and I feel very unproductive.

I actually had a great week. Here are all of the wins I found in my calendar and day book:

Can you believe I felt like it was a terrible week? Granted, I can’t see much work on there but I wouldn’t call that week “dropping the ball”.

Don’t play comparison here. What I’m trying to demonstrate is that even when you’re doing really phenomenally great stuff, you can feel like it’s not enough if you don’t take the time to celebrate your wins.

to set aside time every week or so to reflect. Celebrate wins, apply learnings, catch loose ends 😅. It continues to change my life.