You know when you need your basic tools or self-care tips and you just. Can’t. Remember?
Me too. Far too often.
Let me introduce my latest creation:
Oops, I mean…
I’ve been thinking about this object for far too long, with lots of complications.
One day, some of those complications may make sense, but, right now, I needed to start with foundations: simple, legible, achievable tasks, with little boxes and numbers to check them off easily.
There are some things paper is better at. I’ve tried sooooooo many tracking apps that I’ve developed a riff about using them.
Apps for tracking allergies,
Apps for hacking maladies —
Working only 1 by 1.
Complex care is just no fun!
Apps for what you need to to buy
Or what to think of when you cry.
Apps for how your bowels go;
Apps for what your numbers show.
Some send info to your doctor!
Others keep it in a locker.
Turn-key claims are such canards
I have to customize them hard…
And therein lies a shocker.
Some apps let you set your own parameters. Great!! Can you write one in, drop it in the right spot, attach its rating box, and carry on?
Nope. Of course not. You have to walk through every blessed step of the engineer’s own logic, digging down to where you even have the option to create a custom line-item, apply its various associated characteristics either before or after you declare it custom (because each app is different), then figure out what system it should be rated under, and at this point were still a long way from done and we’re only 1 line-item in… so I exhale very hard as I vow not to throw my phone into the document shredder because it hasn’t done anything wrong.
I then delete the app and run cool (not cold) water over my wrists and pat it onto my forehead until the flames stop bursting from my nostrils. And then I try to forget the whole experience as completely as possible…
Until the next time, in the desperate hope that this time there might be an app worth one tenth of its set-up time.
With pain brain. And roaring ADHD. And allergies turning my mucous membranes inside out, which, as we know, is a great help (not!), all while my stomach is contemplating rebellion.
So…
I dug out and updated some old tracking sheets, which I once had printed up and glued into a tablet. (That was fun, and another effective format.)
I added a weekly tracker I developed later, and re-formatted it as a brag-sheet to feed the sense of accomplishment. (We’ve got to celebrate our accomplishments! Any reasonable opportunity for joy is key!)
7 days plus a weekly summary makes 8 pages.
This fits very neatly into printable formats.
So… I turned it into a booklet.
And, on every 8th page, I get to pause and take credit for the week.
Fundamentals.
It is never too late, or too boring, or too anything, to work on fundamentals.
Here I go: back to fundamentals.
Isn’t that a sign of strength? 🤣