Well, I certainly tried, but it seems that despite sleep being my friend, I am not a very good friend with sleep.
Yesterday's accountability list:
- Stay on my phone for <1 hour X
- Exercise ✓
- Stretch ✓
- Meditate ✓
- Search for new glasses ✓
- Draw or read an art history book ✓
- Get off the internet by 3:30 p.m. ✓
- Go to sleep by 12:30 a.m. X
- Watch a TV show or movie with my family ✓
So I did manage to get off the internet at 3:30 p.m. yesterday (and yes, this includes my phone). However, we ended up making it to the optical store around 5:30 p.m. Too much nonsense to describe, so I'll just summarize it as "lol." I did manage some stretching and meditating in the interim, but the meditation session was very unsuccessful. Although I tried to focus on a specific image, my thoughts throughout were very random, almost like a dream-like state and without any negativity or positivity. Maybe that's a good thing?
Anyway, back to the list. The point here is that I actually made it to the optical store, finally! Even though the store was closing soon, we managed to examine virtually every pair of glasses that I would consider, and we found one which we sort of liked. It was not definitive. We'll look online for further options to see whether we can bring a more favorable pair with us to install my new lenses.
Speaking of lenses, I also made an appointment with the store's ophthalmologist to obtain my new prescription. Here is the kicker: I already had a recent prescription, but I do not believe it was correct. When the first ophthalmologist wrote it down, I felt a significant difference in sharpness between my left and right eyes. That's not normal, and I am certain would result in eye strain and headaches. I communicated the difference in sharpness to the doctor but for some reason, the prescription was not adjusted. Hence, a second opinion is completely warranted.
Thus, I'll be coming back on Tuesday to get this done. This time it's an appointment, so I will NOT miss it! Hopefully I'll also have a pair of chosen frames in hand by that time.
Next, we ended up going to a store to look around, which was not really on my itinerary. We ended up getting hope around 9 p.m., a couple of hours later than I had anticipated. My Mother had some conversations about the day with some family members (there was an altercation with a genuinely crazy driver which comprised a significant portion of the conversations), which took place while I was drawing, and we ended up eating dinner late and going to sleep between 2-3 a.m.
We just can't help ourselves lol. We're both Owls. It's a problem, especially considering the fact that we do want to get up earlier.
OK, I'm going to treat this as a real accountability problem. We can help ourselves. It'll just clearly take more effort.
Moving forward to today's accountability list. I'm going to place going to sleep on time as my #1 priority for today. This is especially important since I actually have an appointment in the morning tomorrow.
Today's accountability list:
- Stay on my phone for <1 hour
- Exercise
- Stretch
- Meditate
- Draw or read an art history book
- Get off the internet by 5:30 p.m.
- Go to sleep by 12:30 a.m.
- Watch a TV show or movie with my family
I don't recall how long I spent on my phone today, but it was likely less than an hour. I know I fell asleep with it for a while this morning (yes, it's like a girlfriend), so the numbers would be off.
I'm also going to start adding another item to the list from now on: waking up and getting up at a a certain time. Although I've had an early alarm for a while now, it's common for me to turn it off and go back to sleep - often not quickly.
Thus, adding the specific point of getting up to my accountability list will (hopefully) help me establish a habit by keeping myself accountable. After all, these lists do seem to work to a good degree, even if I'm shouting into the clouds and talking only to myself!
Let's see what will happen. Until next time, folks.