When I started out all I could come up with were work goals (I think I am a WEEEE bit anxious about having the audiobook PLUS BLP Live PLUS impending book launch coming at me all at once, but you know what — it will all be okay).
And I did definitely recognize that this month has plenty to offer.
Breakdown of “types of days” next month for anyone curious (this is part of my monthly planning ritual):
- 7 open “work” days (that includes today, which I would call a quasi-work day since it’s actually a holiday — but I took off from clinical work)
- 2 FUN weekdays (on girls trip!)
- 14 clinical days (this number is HIGH the past few months but will go down next month precipitously – I’m taking a FOUR paid leave days off between BLP live and Thanksgiving, and I have no call weeks)
- Weekend: 1 “me call” weekend, 1 “Josh call” weekend, 2 weekends with at least some travel, and one regular old weekend with no one working or traveling
Anyway, here we go!
I feel like most of the above are self-explanatory, but date nights deserve a mention here.
When A started being able to babysit, we stopped going on them because we no longer needed to plan them. This is so BACKWARDS!! We used to routinely shell out $100-200 for childcare (depending on length of date) to go out together, and now we can’t manage to take a casual adult night out every couple of weeks?
Part of the issue is that the kids HAVE become more pleasant people to dine with (well . . usually). But honestly I do think going out just us is good for us, plus it’s fun. Going to work on getting this back into the routine and something planned in advanced.
(I even have a free massage I earned from starting a Massage Envy membership that I want to use for a massage date night – that sounds super relaxing right!? Lots of casual restaurants in that shopping center so we could easily do that and follow it with margaritas or pizza or whatever.)
The second note is skincare. I kind of . . . stopped doing it. Here’s the thing: nothing really happened. Which I suspected. I wouldn’t say I have any specific skin issues at the moment like acne or rosacea, so it’s not like there’s something specific to fix, so my main goal is just anti-aging. Well, erasing sun damage/sun spots would be nice but I don’t really have faith in products to do this — was thinking that would require a laser (please let me know if I’m wrong!). I do get Botox (it’s normal to just admit things like this now, right?) and definitely think that has an impact, but all of those serums — well, I mean maybe it’s subtle?
That said, there was something nice about the ritual of caring for my skin and I would like to get back to doing it. I have products I can use up so I don’t plan on doing any major skincare shopping sprees or anything but I just want to get back in the habit.
All right here we go! About to make the Big Apple Crumb cake, will let you all know how it turn out!
14 Comments
Thanks Sarah for sharing your post. My question is where do you capture/store the important administrative things that need to be done that are not part of your desired Personal, Relationships, or Work goals? I seem to have multiple outstanding admin tasks, for example: call my dad’s insurance company or his cardiologist to see what medical group they work with, call my life insurance to understand the benefit and decide whether to cancel or continue, complete open enrollment, deposit a check, transfer my school Google Drive to a personal account, find an optometry to get glasses, find a dentist that works with my insurance, look into a school program.
Usually those would be assigned to a week as they come up – either the current week or a future ones. I often think of weekly and daily lists containing “tasks” and monthly/seasonal/annual containing goals!
Thank you for your input. This helps me.
I’ll chime in what I do with stuff like that because I really love my system for this, too…
I have a list titled “Upcoming” in my Google Tasks list where I will dump anything I need to do in the future, but not like, right now (and may not be time sensitive). I look at this week at least weekly, so I know I won’t forget about anything. On my weekly look at it, I’ll usually pick out a few things I want/need to move to my “This week” list and/or assign them to a specific day. (I also have other lists for more obscure things that I don’t even consider “upcoming” but want to do eventually- so like for example I might put something like, “Check out new dental options” on my Household list. I do a flip through of all of my “lists” (I have a bunch- Household, Kid Stuff, Swim Team Board stuff, etc.) at least weekly and then either leave the task on that list, if I’m not ready to deal with it yet, or if I’m ready to work on it, then I escalate it to one of my main lists: 1) Do Today 2) This Week or 3) Upcoming.
Basically this ensures I have only one single place to ever record my tasks (google tasks- I have a widget on my phone, so it’s super easy to add from there, too, or from my computer). I usually at least update the Do Today, This Week and Upcoming week lists every single day so I (very rarely!) miss anything crucial, and it helps me to actually act on some of those random “Upcoming” tasks (by eventually deciding to put it on my This Week list!).
That’s so interesting about the date nights…something to be said about how paying for things makes us more likely to actually do them. Doesn’t work 100% of the time (like unused gym memberships) but I think it’s still a thing. And Botox is 100% normal to admit now, which is great. I thought I just worried more than everyone else before people started talking about it more openly (and now I get it, as well). Only somewhat related, I just finally listened to the BOBW episode on wellness trends – so well-done, thank you!
I would love to get date night too for early morning risers. when do you schedule those “dates”? don’t you feel low energy when you leave the house past 6pm?
weekly walk talk sounds lovely! call me! hahaha….
This is random but you recently mentioned a financial projection website that you had seen recommended on Reddit. I’ve read back through a few posts and tried searching but I couldn’t find it. Could you let me know what the website is please?! Thanks!
Projection lab! We have only just started playing with it but it seems like a cool tool!
Thanks!!!
Yikes, I have not done any October planning yet! Granted- my life is not as complicated as yours. But still- it would really help me to sit down with my planner (and my Fall Playbook!) and figure out the big and little things that are happening this month.
Enjoy your couples massage! Maybe get some aromatherapy to make it even more special (it’s not an expensive add-on!)
For skincare I swear by prescription tretinoin- I think it works!
Agree it’s totally normal to discuss Botox now! I was at book club last night and, besides our book, it was one of our topics of convo, along with dying our hair to hide/blend greys!
re: skincare – I was about to tell you to follow mrs.derm (Melissa Coleman) on instagram – her husband is a derm in New Orleans and they have a compounded arbutin cream that is amazing for sun damage/spots/brown/melasma. Then I remembered you aren’t on instagram! She recommends layering with tretinoin for max effect. I don’t think it can replace a laser but several friends and I have had great results using! Link to the specific product: https://90e1a2-3d.myshopify.com/products/coleman-compound
Re: skincare. I definitely think it makes a difference, but the difference it makes is only obvious if you’re tracking specific issues. My biggest skin issues are hyperpigmentation, dryness, and dullness. I don’t have acne, but even the smallest and most insignificant blemish is likely to scar, so my every day skincare routine is built around hyperpigmentation. I definitely noticed a significant improvement in how quickly scars fade once I switched my routine to include multiple products with active ingredients targeting hyperpigmentation. The dryness was super noticeable as I went into menopause. I’ve also incorporate a few Korean skincare steps that improve hydration. And I exfoliate once a week for the dullness. If I exfoliate more than once a week it messes up my skin barrier and I’m more prone to breakouts. If I skip it, my skin gets noticeably duller and my pores are more clogged. The exfoliator I use also has active ingredients that help with hyperpigmentation so it tackles multiple issues.
I think if you aren’t noticing the impact that skincare can have I think it’s probably one of two things. First, it’s entirely possible that you have very easy skin in which case a very minimal routine of facewash, moisturizer, sunscreen, tretinoin is sufficient. It drives me crazy as I do my 500-step skincare routine that my husband washes his face with bar soap in the evenings, but he has great skin and has never felt compelled to do more.
Alternatively, you’re not identifying the “issues” your skin has as an issue – i.e. something happening with your skin that could be improvable with skincare doesn’t register for you as an issue so you’ve never tried to go out and fix it. (This factor also influences my husband’s nonexistent skincare routine – I think he should at least moisturize because I can see that his skin is dry but he does not care.) The skincare products you’re using might not have the active ingredients (or the right ingredients at the most efficacious strength or combined with other actives that boost the performance of one another) that could change your skin’s appearance. If that’s the case, not noticing a difference when you stop using them makes sense – they aren’t really doing anything for you.
If your concern is aging, I loved this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0zuot7iZPA) from Dr. Shireen Idriss, my favorite youtube derm. She talks about what facial aging really means from a medical/scientific perspective, and what are the different ways to treat the different signs of aging. Topical skincare absolutely makes a difference for some signs of aging, in office procedures work for other signs of aging, and then there are some signs of aging where there’s no real solution.
Regarding sun damage/sun spots, it’s not my particular skin issue so I don’t know a ton about it, but yes, lasers are incredibly effective for it, but I do believe that there are active ingredients in topical products that do make a difference and likely should be incorporated into a regular routine to use in conjunction with laser treatments as maintenance/prevention. I think this is an issue that Dr. Idriss has herself, and has a number of videos about the treatment.
super super interesting! I am going to watch it!!