For Just One Week Update

Well, another week has come and gone. Life passes us by so quickly, and if we don't write down our goals and commit to them, it's easy to grow older without growing any better. I, for one, don't mind my advancing age as long as I'm improving along the way, like an expensive wine or aged cheese. It's only when I stop to realize how long it's been since I've been talking about accomplishing something--without making any progress--that I begin to get discouraged.

The Book of Mormon tells us that "the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors." In other words, we don't get a do-over in the next life. We need to make this one count.

That's one reason that I am enjoying not only our exercise and scripture study 10-week challenge, but also Ice Cream's For Just One Week challenge. I can accomplish some of my smaller goals, or those that I'm just not ready for a long term commitment with, and try them on for size.

I had two goals for this past week: the first was to stay off the computer for non-school reasons until at least noon on school days. On the weekend, I was to be off the computer until I had exercised and read my scriptures. The second goal was to get more out of my workouts.

Well, I did accomplish my goals on school days, which was the most important to me. As I expected, it made a big difference in my ability to keep our school morning on schedule, to give my children my full attention, and to generally be more productive. On the weekend I did manage to stay off the computer until noon, but as for getting in my workout and scripture study first . . . well, that didn't happen. But I did get them in. The weekends can be pretty crazy around here, and I finally decided to just drop that part. Lame, perhaps, but I feel like I accomplished the PURPOSE of my goal--to spend less of my productive time on the computer.

In terms of getting more out of my exercise, I definitely did that this week. Most days I got in an hour instead of the minimum 30 minutes. I went walking several evenings with a good friend and we cruised around the track at top speed, clocking in over 3 miles each time, while gabbing away without the interruptions of kids. I got to my early morning spin class on Thursday, which is always a fantastic workout. Whatever I did, I pushed myself harder than I have been in previous weeks and it felt great.

This week, I want to adjust my goal for computer use a bit. It is: no computer (except school related) before noon AND before I've done my scripture study. I noticed that last week, I had several days when I was reading at bedtime and I just don't get as much out of it then as I do earlier in the day. I am not going to have exercise be a part of this, as some nights I like to exercise in the evenings and don't want that to penalize my computer time.

Additionally, every day I am going to take care of one paperwork-or-phone-call-related chore that I have been procrastinating. I have a stack of things by my computer, and sadly, at least one of them has been procrastinated for over a year. Yikes!

How are your goals coming along? Care to set an extra one for just one week? Leave a comment here or post about it on your blog and link back to Ice Cream's post. Don't let another week of your life pass you by without doing something to age well!