Reflecting on My Habits : What I Maintain Despite The Pandemic

Habits and routines are what makes you a successful person in your own ways

Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash

I realized I have a set of habits that I have built up probably since I was at the boarding school. We are talking about 12 years of habit built up. Some of the habits I built up when I was at the college, but one thing for sure — it is never too late to start defining your day.

I learnt seriously about habits when I stumbled upon James Clear’s Atomic Habits. I definitely would recommend others to read the book in understanding how to ultimately undo bad habits, how to build good habits supported by a system, and how to build an alter ego of someone you wish you would be and build habits upon it.

Admittedly, I have serious bad habits I need to unlearn. But one thing I am proud to describe myself is I am a self-development geek. I value knowledge and levelling up , something I would recommend to anyone to do in building a purposeful life. After all, life is short right?

I have divided my habits that I can think of into daily, weekly and monthly habits.

For me, habits that I would never miss to do every day would be :

1. Do my bed every morning
2. Track my expenses on BudgetBaker Wallet App
3. Set my to-do lists on Trello
4. Journal my gratitude

Whilst I also maintain weekly habits :

1. Setting my week to come to-do lists, meetings and socials I will be committing and my study plans.
2. Write down my upcoming weekly goals to achieve i.e. book to finish, weight to reduce and/or article to write.
3. Find a me time by going out to a cafe and do a self-reflection for the week.

My monthly habits would include :

1. Checking my investments, savings and expenses I have incurred for month and reflect for a better lifestyle next month.
2. Self-introspection on the progress made on my 21 Goals for 2021.

3. Prep my laundry and my clothes for the week to come.

4. Deep cleaning my room.

I understand that in the times of pandemic, we may fall short to being productive. But I often remind myself that taking rest from doing anything is also part of self-care.

I would also remind myself that I have responsibilities to myself(career, education, and self-development), my family, my friends and the society.

Thus, my life reflects my time with my work and studying, organisational tasks on causes I believe in for a civil society and social time with my friends and family. It is never an easy task in quantifying how much should you spend for each and all, but you should be able to say no where need be.

I would also like to be honest that I am trying to build up habits on the following :

1. Sleeping early
2. Waking up early
3. Weigh myself everyday
4. Have (a healthy) breakfast everyday before going off to work
5. Workout everyday
6. Write on Medium.com every Sunday
7. Read two pages of Al-Qur’an everyday

A confession that I must make is I have been slipping off from doing physical activities since last December. I am definitely guilty of slipping off from previous ability to make running and physical activities as part of my routine, but now it seems hard to get back on track. But I promise myself February would be an awakening month.

Divide your time accordingly. But also remind yourself to take breaks and rest where necessary. You owe it to yourself some time for self-care too.

Take care.