It’s interesting to look back at my first post of the year and see which promises to myself I’ve kept (so far), and which ones I’ve broken. I recently moved house and started a new job, and these changes have clearly had a big impact on my successes and my failures.
Most of the ‘rules’ I did manage to stick to actually took no effort at all - a result, it seems, of being in a working environment where the pace is a lot gentler, and - in my opinion - much more fair. That’s not to say I’m not working as hard as I used to, it’s just that the chaos factor (read: dealing with members of the public) has been removed, and I now have just one deadline a month to worry about. It’s the first time in my design career that I’ve been able to work at my own pace, and take time to do research and share ideas with other designers. The knock-on effect is that I no longer feel under pressure to work through lunch to get something finished. Over-time is actively discouraged, and I have the freedom to get into work a little late if I need to, as long as I put in sufficient hours elsewhere to make sure my work is ready to go to press on time. I’m proud of the work I’ve done in the last two months and want to show it off, and it’s really not like me to feel that way. I don’t think I’m just proud of the work because it’s better, I think it’s also because I feel less negative.
I’ve not been doing so well with my eating habits - again, I think the change in work and home environments has had a big effect on my daily routine and I’m still trying to find motivation to stick to a schedule. Unfortunately I’m regularly going without breakfast (despite always having suitable breakfast foods in the house), and I’m also eating far too much take-away food. I’ve started getting a bit squishy around my middle, but I can’t find it in myself to panic about gaining weight, I’m only concerned that it’s a visible sign of a (possibly negative) change in my health that would be going undetected if it wasn’t for my new wobbly bits.
When I posted in January, I’d just seen my GP to have a chat about how tired and low I’d been feeling, and I was waiting to hear back about a blood test. I went back to discuss the results early January, and was told that my blood iron level was very low. I started taking ferrous sulphate to treat anaemia, 3 tablets a day taken with meals - but with breaking my meal-time routine during moving house, I began forgetting tablets so regularly that in the end I just gave up trying to remember them at all. I’m booked in for another blood test in a couple of weeks, so I’ll see what that brings - depending on the severity (and possibly on just how much of a ticking-off I get from the doctor), I’d like to use the result of my test to help me get in the right frame of mind to set a new routine for my eating.
Testing
testing again..