By MarthaFitat55
I love planners of all sorts. I have a handy purse-sized diary used for tracking work milestones, business appointments, work and family deadlines etc. I have my own online calendar and a shared one with my partner. I use monthly planning sheets to map projects. I also have a whiteboard where I map out my day. Oh, and I used to have a wall calendar where we tracked everyone’s primary activities before we moved into the online calendar.
Several years ago, after I went through menopause, I realized I had also relied on an internal calendar. I had always tracked periods but I didn’t appreciate how it helped me manage time until they finally ended.
The first change was that I had to start scheduling breast self-exams for the first of the month since I no longer had a period to remind me to check in between.
The second was the way the absence of periods restructured my whole approach to time management. While periods never stopped me from doing things, period cramps often had other plans for me. Thus I was used to planning around their possible manifestation vs. an actual period’s appearance.
The third thing was what my planning around a period meant in reality. It meant I rested; I took it easy; I treated my body with tenderness and kindness. I still got a lot done but I have given myself a lot of grace.
The internal clock meant I was multi tasking by shifting the emphasis I placed on things from one month to the next.
These days I find my electronic calendar takes on that burden. I get a reminder for my HST and tax returns, so I decided why not schedule reminders for other things too? So now my calendar has notes to remind me to make appointments for things I need to get done.
The challenge is tracking the followup. In the days before menopause, I was aware if I missed a month in terms of scheduling but the arrival of a period would signal that time had passed.
These days the signal I get is when I have had the forethought to schedule something. It’s not because my internal clock was tracking the passage of time.
So how is this connected to fitness? My calendar notes two training sessions a week. The training intervals give me a structure I can use to track my often over-scheduled life. As I look forward to retirement in the fall, I wonder what new ways I will use to track time?
Martha Fitat 55 lives and works (for now) in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Good luck making that adjustment. I admit I find it tricky to schedule my days, or, rather, to make sure I actually do what I plan to do if there is no one else involved. Retirement time is elusive – sort of slips away.