The Urgency of February

January is in the books, and we’re now at the mercy of February. It’s a new month, which means it’s a time for reflection and planning. I started something new today: I compiled all of my entries from January into a single PDF and read it all on my iPad. I’ve never read these many of my entries all in one go, and I learned a lot. I learned my moods really dictate what my entries end up being about. If I’m sad, I write a somewhat reflective, somewhat longing entry. If I’m pissed, I write with profanity and an energy that is kind of lacking in my other entries. I also started the month in California, drove back home to Montana, built and lived with my new furniture, got sick for the first time in 4 years, skipped a week of working out, my car broke down and was repaired again, spent a week trying to figure out why the internet at my work was down, fixed that issue earlier this week, and spent this past week building my house. Pretty awesome month, if I do say so myself.

The momentum I built up yesterday carried over into today. I had the most productive weekend in a long time. I checked off so many tasks on my todo list, finished so many projects and started just as many more, and I was still able to watch some TV and even the Super Bowl. I finished another book today, my third for the year. I start the last week of “easy” Insanity Max: 30 tomorrow. I also renewed my Lynda.com subscription today after realizing that I needed to be more educated in certain areas of my job. I also went grocery shopping, staying under budget, did my laundry, and cleaned up the house. What a weekend.

There were times today where I didn’t know if I should be doing what I was doing, so I looked at my calendar — which had my routine broken down by minute — and realized that since I haven’t broken down my weekends from 8-4, which is my work schedule during the weekdays, I could do whatever I wanted. The fact that I had my day broken down, and the fact that I went to look at my calendar for guidance, I think reflects a shift to my routine and habits that I’m excited for the future. There’s a lot I want to do, obviously, and if I can get a lot of that done or even just started this month, then I’ll be super happy. I don’t know why working so much makes me happy, but it does. I’ve definitely noticed that when I’m lazy and don’t get anything done, I become restless and depressed. That’s when I indulge in all my worst impulses and fall into a rabbit hole of misery and despair. By working, I’m kept busy, I accomplish things that I know will make my life better, and the simple feeling of accomplishment feels good. Why wouldn’t I want to feel that all the time?

So here’s to February: you may be the shortest month of the year, but that just means I need to work with an extra sense of urgency to get everything I want done in a month done.