Time is passing for me in all kinds of strange ways. March seemed to go so slowly, but now April is flying by. I have no idea what May will bring.
I tend to have a pretty bad memory (it’s part of why I write down so many lists), so I’ve been trying to document this time so that I can look back and remember how I was feeling in the midst of everything. With things passing in a bit of a blur, I don’t trust that I’ll be able to recollect with accuracy what this season was like. These documentation practices have also served as helpful reflections so that I can process emotions.
Right now, I document each day in a range of different ways:
- I journal three pages each morning as part of my morning pages practice
- I keep to-do lists of completed actions
- I share some visual elements of my day on Instagram Stories
- I add an entry to my five-year journal
- I talk through the day with my partner
Early in April, as part of my newly formed daily yoga practice (today is day 17!), I also began to keep a separate journal to help me capture what I was learning. I also note any takeaways I had after each day’s practice. Here are some examples of the short takeaways that I’ve written down so far:
- Balance (in all areas of life) takes time.
- Yoga is a meditation in patience.
- A life practice continues even in the hard times.
- All good things take time; patience is needed to advance with consistency in order to build a strong foundation.
- There are always incremental steps to making big changes.
- 1% increases and improvements will add up over time.
- Progress in yoga takes as long as it takes since the journey is its own reward.
I found this practice so helpful that I’ve also integrated a version of it that’s focused on affirmations and intentions into a reflective exercise I’m using to close down each work day. Here are the elements of that practice:
- I list three words that describe how I feel about the day
- I share a highlight from the day that I want to remember
- I note something that went well about the day and something that would have made the day better
- I list three things from the day that I’m grateful for
- Lastly, I note an affirmation or intention (I will.. I can.. I am..) that I lived out that day (one example from this past week was “I can change my priority list to emphasize self-care when I need it.”)
These steps take about 3-4 minutes to complete and they assist me in transitioning out of work mode and into my evening by closing out my thoughts on the day’s activities.
As you can see, documentation is something that I highly value, so I give it a good amount of time each day. What kind of documentation are you using in this season? What do you think your future self will benefit from remembering?