Mindfulness Project - September Update

Another month has flown by. While I'm so happy that the temperatures are finally cooling off and summer is looking to be behind us, I'm reminded of how fast time flies.

September's mindfulness goal was to focus on distractions. By this I mean, how I spend my time - at least in the ways that seem to be mindless, unnecessary or even unhealthy.

The things I think I do as distractions that I was looking to modify are:

1. constantly checking my phone - for emails, texts, phone calls, etc. While I don't text and drive, I do talk and drive and will text at red lights and both are unnecessary. Why are we so available all the time?
2. watch tv without purpose. I've done this less and less since starting to date Carl b/c he rarely watches tv but when he's out of town I fall back into my old habits.

To address the above two items I thought I'd try out the following things:
1. leave my phone in my purse or another room in the evenings, especially when Carl is home.
2. not talk on the phone when I'm driving.
3. not turn on the tv in the morning before work or after work, unless watching something I taped on my dvr.
4. turn on music instead of tv.

It was both a good and bad month to do this in b/c I had two vacations scheduled. My thought was that I'd be able to relax on those trips and not think about work. That didn't exactly work, especially on my first trip due to some unexpected deadlines. But working by the pool was still certainly much better than working at my desk.

During Sonoma I was able to disconnect. While I couldn't figure out how to turn email off on my phone, I practiced good will power and didn't work for 3 days.

I've done a good job with changing my tv habits, though (although I'm watching tv as I type this) but I no longer have it on (as background noise) in the mornings and have been listening to music instead when making dinner.

So while I didn't have any big goals for the month, I think I did ok. I'm glad that I am aware of what I use as distractions and will continue to monitor them and try to change them.