A Week In Confronting Review

Try writing down your work week and you might come to the same conclusion as me.

Mar 27

Monday.

Every Monday starts much the same; hunger.

After a weekend of eating and socialising, enjoying the lack of routine with my work and diet, my body doesn’t realise we're back in beast mode.

It’s time to refocus myself and align my mind with the goal.

Basically, it’s my kick up the ass.

Most Mondays I promise not to let the next weekend be as reckless and anti-goal laden as the last. And it’s always on a Monday I intend to keep to my word.

I'm such a cliche. But pretending I have this all figured isn't helping anyone.

Where I'm winning is the way I make Monday the day to put the puzzle piece together.

I spend my solid hour with Asana plotting out each day, what tasks I’m going to complete on what day.

Some weeks are relatively normal, in that all I have ‘booked’ for the week is my work.

But other weeks I’m weighed down by personal appointments, and some professional meetings.

For the last two weeks, for example, I’ve been my mum’s sidekick during the sale of her house. Meeting with real estate agents, talking strategy and likely buyers.

With such a lot on the line, I have zero regrets giving my time to this personal project, so to speak. But it meant I had to re-gig my weeks to fit it all in and balance work

I used to align my week on a Sunday, by the way. It made sense waking up and going straight into the week, knowing exactly what I needed to do.

But it seemed to be most Monday mornings where things went awry, or changed, or became cemented in the calendar. For all my weekend planning, Mondays had a way of throwing it all out the window.

Most Mondays I spend writing 1 Lovelock Drive. Three articles, drafted and edited. And loaded for publishing on Substack and Medium.

There’s something damn good about getting a significant and imperative task completed by the end of day one.

Tuesday.

Like every workday, I start Tuesdays with walking. That is my chosen exercise purely because it's something I can actually do and sustain daily.

I used to weight train but a mixture of the pandemic and body changes means I haven’t picked up a weight in a long time.

Bodyweight exercises, now that’s different.

But I do miss throwing around the dumbbells.

I walk for somewhere between 6 and 8km (4-5 miles) per day but I eventually want to get to 10km (6 miles) per day. I know I can reach it, and more so, my body wants it.

But Tuesdays aren’t like Mondays, all straight, serious and professional. That wouldn’t be any fun. Instead, I make time in my schedule for Raw, one of WWE's weekly shows, along with Smackdown on Saturday, Melbourne time.

Those are the Street Profits with Riddle. Yeah, I’m that wrestling nerd.

I keep working through watching it, sometimes on my phone at my desk, other times on the couch depending on how I’m feeling.

I’ve quit feeling guilty about working whilst watching wrestling. I get my work done and get to watch something important in my life.

It’s my business, my career and my employment to manage. And I don’t care for conventionality to appease what other people think I should do during my workday.

Wednesday.

My aim by the end of Wednesday is to have all my written content for next week ready, edited and loaded. As writing is my primary product, the object my business sells, I’ve found it vital I spend my days doing this well.

I’m sure there are other writers out there who tell me I’ve spent a day too long creating my work, especially as it's only 9 articles and I’m not working on the next War and Peace.

But every word I write is etched into internet history, so best not to fuck it up by rushing.

Would I like to shave time off this process? Absolutely.

The dream is to condense this down into Monday. But I would need to let go of perfectionism and add more to my week to make it happen.

Yep, you didn’t read that wrong. I have so much time up my sleeve I have the luxury of taking as much of it as I need to get the writing 99% before publishing.

I need the pressure to increase my speed and maintain accuracy.

Thursday.

Aka overflow day. As much as I should be able to have everything written, edited and loaded by the close of my business Wednesday, there are no guarantees.

As each day progresses, I move further away from my original plan and often need Thursday as the buffer.

But if everything has worked out well, and distractions and other events haven’t monopolised my time, I start my marketing.

Pinterest, Twitter, idealisations about TikTok and returning to Instagram.

I struggle through this.

I question everything I’m doing.

I create Pins for my articles, slave over them all day, and then don’t end up using them.

The interface at Canva must be laughing at me. I create so much and then hit delete on it two seconds later. I’m surprised they haven’t written to me to see how my indecision is going.

An example of such scrapped Pins.

Friday.

As I get to the end of my marketing efforts, which concludes on Friday, I realise something about my marketing and writing.

I find so much comfort, enjoyment and ease in writing, and so much hesitation, reluctance and apprehension about social media, I realise something isn’t right.

I quickly discover the ratio of writing to marketing, to being social and developing my online persona, is all wrong.

I can be quick, masterful and accurate at writing, I can smash it out in one day with dedication. And I need more time to work on what makes me feel uncomfortable.

So why do I keep this routine that isn’t working?

There is the realisation. On Asana, my plan looks pretty good. But in execution, I’m only just scraping by, and not quite hitting all my goals as I hope.

Something has to change. Ouch, that hurts to say.

I guess you could say, when you come to a conclusion like this, it's been a good week. Because coming to that realisation is the toughest thing of all.

This journey isn’t the same without you. And I sure know you can’t find success without support, somewhere to vent, and people just like you. Join me here on The Frolics as we grow our careers together!

Ok, so this isn't enough for you?! Damn, I love your style! You can reach me and get more right here 👇

The Frolics