We are about halfway through 2021, and that just feels wild to me. The so far, 2021 has been just as messy and full as 2020, and sometimes it feels like 2021 has been worse than 2020. I feel like I’ve been flailing and stumbling through this year, and June felt more disorganised and disjointed than any other part of this year for me. After I finished the Star Gazing quilt, I’ve really felt a bit of project burn out. It’s not because it was a particularly hard quilt, and I don’t think that it was the thing that burned me out. I have several projects floating about in various states of complete, and I’ve not made the progress on them that I’d like. While I usually have multiple projects going on at the same time, I like to actually finish them, and this year I don’t feel like I have really finished much of anything. I’m taking the month of July to recuperate, regroup, and reset so that I can make the projects I want to make.

Recuperating

I’m building out my July bullet journal right now. The last several months I haven’t been using my bullet journal in the same way that I was in previous months. Sure, I’m still using the weekly planning pages, but I’ve not set monthly goals or intentions. It’s made me feel less focused and less intentional about how I spend my time. I try to build myself some sort of structure in my life, no matter how loose it is simply because I know that I can give myself the best existence by giving myself some pretty loose structure. I have discovered that I really enjoy having a quiet hour before I start my actual workday, which is not something I ever had to think about intentionally. I found that by June I was leaving this behind, and that’s not been great for me. This was ultimately a symptom of me not paying attention to what I need to feel content and accomplished in a day.

Here’s how I’m working to recuperate this month:

Taking the time to have a morning cup of tea: This should have been my first clue that I was no longer being kind to myself in the morning. I find that not giving myself those 10 minutes to make a cup of tea that I can enjoy while I start my day was really setting me up for feeling frantic and rushed during the day. This makes everything feel big and overwhelming for me, which ultimately leads to me wanting to hide in my bedroom because I just can’t contemplate what’s happening.
Taking time to stretch or do some yoga: This is a small, gentle way to be kind to myself. Like many of you, I sit in front of a computer during my working hours. The first half of this year has found me moving from sitting in front of my computer to sitting in a chair when I wasn’t doing something for work. I’m not doing things around the house as often, and I’m not taking the time stretch my legs at the very least. I feel better when I move around more. It makes sleeping and eating easier, and it helps my mental health.
Start winding down earlier: I have trouble sleeping. There are things that I know help me wind down to sleep, and I’m not doing them. I’m not shooting for 8 hours of sleep every night – I legitimately don’t feel good when I sleep that long – but I want to have uninterrupted sleep. That means limiting liquids and certain type of light before bed.

Regrouping

He’s staring at me pretty judgmentally, and it mirrors my feeling overwhelmed with life.

I have so many ideas for things I want to do floating around in my brain constantly. I could line up projects for years. That said, I only have finite resources. I need to have space for working, projects, socializing, house cleaning, etc. As things are opening up and people are getting vaccinated, we are able to spend our time with people who are important to us, and that is something that I get to factor into my time again. This is wonderful, and exciting, and something that is very much needed. That means I need to take a look at how I’m structuring my time and seeing what projects I want to accomplish. I’m choosing to take July to really regroup so that I know what I have, what I want to do, and how I can accomplish those things.

Here’s how I’m regrouping this month:

Assessing my workspace: My workspace houses both my work and my crafting space. We don’t have space for a dedicated crafting area, so my space is multi-functional. I need to see what needs to be put away, filed, cleaned out, etc. I have filing that I haven’t addressed in a couple of months.
Work on a task list: I have things that are halfway organised all over my space right now. Some things are “filed,” which is just a way of me being able to put it out of sight, even if it’s not in the place I’ll need it later. It’s creating an illusion of complete that’s ultimately creating a sense of foreboding every time I turn my back.
Build a brain dump list: This is something I stopped doing because it no longer felt useful, but since everything feels so scattered it’s something I’m starting again. The idea is just to sit down and write out everything floating around in your brain. They can be thoughts, feelings, projects, tasks, recipe ideas, you get the picture, anything that is taking up residence in your brain. This helps me acknowledge my thoughts in a meaningful way. It helps me choose how to focus my time because having everything in front of me helps me see there is something that is creating a pain point that needs addressing, and it helps to clear my mind.

Resetting

I struggle with resetting a lot. I know that this can mean a lot of different things to people. What resetting means for me is that I have a clean-ish slate. Since I work from home, there is a lot of grey space between my work and home life. This broadly doesn’t bother me because I don’t tend to need to decompress after work, and I can shift in and out of work mode pretty easily. What I do struggle with is taking the time to make sure that I feel like I have “closed the door” on work or a project or what have you so that I can start my day, or evening, feel like I have the permission to do so.

Here’s what I mean:

How my desk looks this morning. I’m already feeling a bit all over the place.

Clearing my desk: It doesn’t matter if it’s work or a project. I need to clean off my workspace when I’m done for the day or night so that I can enter a clean space the next morning. When I leave piles of paper on my desk without putting it away, I feel like I haven’t stopped working, and it makes me feel like I can’t work on a creative project. If I leave a creative projects spread out all over my desk when I go to bed, I don’t feel like I can start work the next morning.
Using time blocks: This is a bit more than just setting a timer as I often like to do. This means that I’m dedicating certain days or hours of those days to certain tasks. It also means that I’m creating a loose boundary. This means that I can focus on one area of my life without worrying about when I’m going to do something else because I have time set aside for that. For example, I can choose the time 1pm-2pm every day to set aside for chores. This means that even if I wake up and realise that I need do laundry, I can safely put it to the back of my mind and start work because I know I have the space to address it later that afternoon.
Choosing to engage with others in social situations: I am an extrovert. I find social situations and large groups of people incredibly relaxing. We have several social things planned for July. I find that I am more ready to tackle my workload and more energized when we engage in social activities. We have some game nights planned as well as a tubing trip so far. Hopefully, we will continue to add to this list.

That’s how I’m planning to spend my July. What sorts of things are you doing to recuperate, regroup, and reset?