This post is about more than just writing, though it’s applicable to that as well. Goals are a part of daily life… unless you are a perfect human being. If you happen to roll out of bed, exercise, perform all your self-maintenance routines, cook and clean and improve yourself, all without having to force yourself—then, well, you are not me.

When I let myself just run my day (and thus my life) based on whatever I want to do in the moment, I inevitably end up reading and watching TV and listening to music and eating whatever I can throw in the microwave with no effort at all. After that, I look back and wonder where all the time went, and why I can never get it together enough to eat and exercise and clean my apartment.

But even just acknowledging that I need to do something is not enough. I’ll lie in bed before falling asleep and tell myself, “Tomorrow, I’m going to exercise. And learn to cook. And clean my bathroom.” I bet you can guess what happens tomorrow.

So I have all these goals, all these things I want to accomplish, and no will power to see them through even though they’re good for me.

My new tactic is to plan. If I know ahead of time what meal I’m going to make tomorrow, I’ll know to lay out the ingredients and do the prep. If I know what time of the day I’m going to exercise, I’ll know to put on my exercise gear and prepare myself. If I know what day of the week I’m going to do what cleaning task, I’ll be ready to do just that.

It may sound simple and obvious, and it may not work. But already today I exercised (which I haven’t done in months), and I shopped for groceries (which I tend to put off until all I have left to eat is ramen and toast). I want to start learning a foreign language, and learn to knit.

I want it all.

Though I must admit all of this productivity is a bit of procrastination for my lack of writing productivity. >.>