This morning I lost over an hour of my life – I feel like I’ve been robbed

Last week my son downloaded a game (with little floaty dragons) on my phone and this morning I mindlessly played it for over an hour. I woke up at 4:55 to start my day – normally I read, journal, clean etc. This morning was different, I got distracted, I thought I was on it for maybe 20 minutes (saying to myself “it’s OK to be doing this because I’m still awake early”

It wasn’t until my husband told me it was 6 am – I was still in bed at this time. Arghh, a sense of panic, frustration, annoyance and self-loathing hit. I had 10 minutes to get up dressed and out of the house for my body pump class at 6:30am. Should I still go I thought to myself. Absolutely was the response, “you know that exercise keeps you balanced”.

This mornings events came flooding back when I was watching a video which talked about getting things done and the first hour of the day being the most important. I agree.

If I get out of bed with an idea of what I want to achieve I start the day off on the right foot. If I get myself excited about the day ahead I have a sense of purpose, a reason to keep up, out and at’em.

If you were to build a wall, you wouldn’t be thinking about the kind of sofa you would have in the lounge when the house was built. You wouldn’t pop to the sofa shop first. You start off with one brick at a time. You would focus on what you can achieve and what you CAN do, not what seems like an endless task.

Yes, you can get exited about the end result, but you start off setting goals we you achieve.

Another aspect of this video talks about brain waves and how awake /alert brainwaves are different to sleep waves which are different to the brainwaves when we deep breath/meditate. Brainwaves when we’re on our phone are different again. They seriously affect the way we function and frankly, I’m thinking that they contribute to poor mental and emotional health. We’re overloaded and bombarded by peoples opinions, thoughts. We’re always on high alert, ready to answer a call, text, message, check comments, etc. Twitter/instagram makes me anxious when I checking to see responses to my posts.

Anyhoo, I digress, in order, to get the day going I have decided not to look at my phone for the first hour of the day. Why, because it’s not helping me be happy, healthy or successful. I’m not looking at emails, social media, games, news or the weather. I’ve also decided to limit the times I check it. I’m going to allow my self the first half hour of the working day, half an hour at lunchtime and at the end of the working day. No more checking, posting, retweeting, replying unless it’s at the allotted time.

Why, because I work on putting my happiness and health above all else, and my phone doesn’t help me achieve either. I decided a long time ago the procrastination was just a state of mind, and one that I wasn’t particularly fond of. That sense of “I know I shouldn’t be doing this” never made me happy, and I wasn’t ever sure why I was doing it. When I decided what I would rather be doing, it opened up my mind to getting on and doing it.

I have a few signs that remind me of my lowest point. One is staying in bed and feeling exhausted, another is saying to myself “I don’t care” and the third is the sense of “I can’t”.

Instead now I makes sure I sleep, eat and drink well – and practice mindfulness. Now, I’m rarely tired.

If I say “I don’t care”, I remind myself of all the things I do care about.

If I say “I can’t”, I ask myself what would need to happen so I can.

I don’t say, “Why am I doing/not doing this”  I say I’m going to do it.

We have the choice to procrastinate and we have the choice to act. What I focus on is how I will feel. If I just focus on the after event, on how good I’ll feel when I get it, I know I will do it. Just as importantly I give myself praise when I’ve done. That starts the ball of action rolling and I get that sense of momentum (which is much better than the sicky feeling of procrastination)

Then we can make new, successful habits that stay.

You can make the commitment to yourself to make the right choice, to do the actions required, right now.