Time to start planning a new routine

 So, it’s time to start making some plans for (temporary) solo living. Mr VV has departed for Blighty, leaving me – theoretically – footloose and fancy free for several weeks, or even months. Of course, having sole charge of the two aging chiens, one with severe separation anxiety, does somewhat limit the possibilities. I’ll also need to keep very close control of the purse strings. Given all these factors, I started to think about how I’d like my life to look during this period. Not in terms of what I could ‘achieve’, because I’d like to move away from this goal-oriented, ticking-things-off-a-list, yoga-every-day, target-driven scenario that has governed in the past to a more considered intentional approach.

I asked myself: if you had no responsibilities at all how would you arrange your day? And, what activities would you enjoy doing every day, or every week? Note the emphasis on the word ‘enjoy’. I wanted to focus on doing things that are enjoyable rather than doing things for the sake of it, or because I thought it was expected of me. This was my approach. First: brainstorm. Write down ten things you’d like to do each day (doesn’t have to be ten). This was my list:

1.      Yoga in the morning, soon after getting up

2.      More meditations

3.      Writing and journalling

4.      Working on my Vivez-Vegan website and research

5.      Do some French every day in some way: reading, podcasts, radio, writing, vlogs, maybe even a bit of grammar

6.      Get back into the fitness routine that felt so good in 2020

7.      Nice walks with the dogs (probably with their cart)

8.      Have breakfast later

9.      Eat soup (Mr VV hates soup)

10.   Eat more seasonally and get back into vegan nutrition again

There, I came up with ten things really easily. The first thing that occurred to me was that I could incorporate most of these wishes by changing the morning routine. Currently, this is largely governed by the need for two humans and two dogs to get up, eat breakfast and do their morning ablutions. For me, one problem has always been that at seven or eight o’clock in the morning I am just not hungry. I can just about manage four spoonfuls of muesli and a mug of coffee, and then by 10.30 I’m starving. Then, there is the delicate issue of showering. Mr VV has to shower first thing every morning, without fail, even in the campervan. Whereas I am not averse to what he calls a ‘Coventry Cat-lick’ and leaving showering until later, when all the dirty, sweaty tasks are over.

Having given the question of morning routine some thought, I reckoned that by switching things around I’d be able to cover at least six of the points arising from my brainstorm. Because it won’t matter if I don’t go out shopping until lunchtime. The supermarkets are now open ‘en continuation’ and no self-respecting French person would go shopping between 12 and 2, so the roads should be clear for my sorties in the Battlebus. My provisional plan is to start the day with some meditation and yoga immediately after the dogs’ first wee-wee break. They both usually go back to sleep for at least an hour, so I should have plenty of time to add in a little bit of WalkFit or some Lucy workouts. Then, bung a fleece (or raincoat) over my yoga kit and take the dogs for their morning walk before we all come back for breakfast – dogs first, of course. Once everything is tided up, it’s time for a shower and to start work.

On the work front, I must remember the importance of not sitting down all day! I’ve just proofread a paper on this very subject, and the research was targeting students. What hope then for us oldies? The target should be to at least stand up and move around for a minimum of five minutes in every hour. My Fitbit even gives me a ten-minute alert, but I seem to have trained myself to ignore it or else I am so engrossed in what I’m doing I don’t feel or hear it. No longer! I read this tip: do something physical in that five-minute break – vacuum a floor, dust some shelves, hang out some washing. Anything as long as you’re standing up.

I reckon that’s enough targets to be getting on with, and I started by saying I wasn’t going to have any more targets, lol. However, I’m not looking at this as target-driven, more the establishment of a new routine, which research shows takes at least 21 days. In next week’s blog I’ll report back on how the new routine worked out. Maybe we’ll have settled into the routine naturally, who knows?