Not Exactly Resolutions

For the last three years I’ve spent my days at a desk, on my butt, in front of a screen. My partner Andrew is a health conscious guy and the two of us have been trying to figure out a way to exercise together for all three of these years. Finally, a month ago, we broke down and joined the local gym, I switched my work schedule to 8:30 and we made our goal to be out the door by 6:30.

I’m bad at routines. Which is part of the reason I’ve never successfully had an exercise regimen and is the main reason that I’ve never followed the one piece of universal writing advice: have a writing routine. My writing, like my exercise, has been hodge-podge, wherever I can fit it in.

But last week I deviated from the new exercise routine and left the gym a little early to go sit in a café and write for forty-five minutes. For the fiftieth time, I began the same chapter I’ve been working on for the last two months and in those forty-five minutes I busted through all that self-torture and finally wrote something I liked.

I altered the exercise schedule. Now we leave a half hour earlier for our physical exercise and then I go sit in a café for forty-five minutes of writing exercise. So far, things are looking good, and now that my day starts so productively, I end up on such a high I barely need a cup of coffee!

Being the dork that I am, I googled how to establish and maintain routines. Apparently it takes about three weeks for something to officially become a part of your life to the point where you feel obligated to maintain it.

I’ve got two weeks to go, but I’m feeling confident.