I enjoy detailed exercises like radar charts, What Color Is Your Parachute, Design Your Life, to give me a snapshot of where I am. Much like close financial or food tracking, step counting, and so on. Useful and can be fun. :)
For longer term success and satisfaction, it works best for me to then back off tracking details and enjoy "good enough" habits and routines. I've found it's really important to me to enjoy the journey or process and avoid over-focussing on any particular outcome. So I've designed my life around a few core routines and a few core checkins - and then I take a zen approach. Being retired really helps with this! I wish I could have been so relaxed while working...but no. The sense of unlimited time in retirement also helps, as others have commented. And having companions and not bosses, colleagues or subordinates! I freakin' love being retired.
So here's what this looks like for me at this point:
Financial: DH and I have a very good idea of our baseline expenses vs our income/nest egg so spend happily with no need to track closely. We will need to plan how to spend/donate a surplus. (!)
Food: two years ago I revamped my approach to food to avoid any calorie/points/fat/other tracking whatsoever and to focus on a healthy and satisfying structure of 3 delicious meals per day, no processed food, and occasional snacks and sweets. I've slowly lost 15 % of my bodyweight (25lbs), never feel hungry, control my blood sugar, and feel great. People here on the Forum pointed out that this sounded a lot like the No S Diet and it is!
http://nosdiet.com I also discovered 10 Principles and her approach is even more right on for me.
https://www.the10principles.com/blog/Exercise: I walk 45+ minutes most days, usually as part of errands or other planned trips. I track loosely by time/route and not by number of steps. Kneecap pain sent me to physio, which got me to Aquafit, which encouraged me to add length swimming, as I was already wet :) I took lessons and learned bilateral breathing for the crawl after 50 years of one sided breathing. I still can't believe it. I focus on stroke improvement and only count laps as a side interest. I've been enjoying Total Immersion Swimming's zen approach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Immersion My goal with all exercise is to do nothing painful and to do something everyday. In it for the long haul!
Time: I volunteer with a school reading program twice a week and attend a weekly language conversation group. These activities are giving me the right amount of structure and socialization beyond close friends and family. I read a lot (20+ books /month) and have found the best habit has been to read regularly for 20-30 minutes every morning before breakfast - and before firing up any screen. This has helped me focus on some books I've "always meant to read". Moby-Dick, anyone? :) I make a point of doing something with a friend at least once a week and with family every two weeks or so; lunch, dinner, movies, walks, art gallery visits. I like to explore neighbourhoods and parks on my own as well and I mean to get back to Julia Cameron's idea of weekly solo "art visits" (from It's Never Too Late).
As you can see, I'm feeling pretty good about my time and my life at this point. But in case I sound too smug I still have a very large Achilles heel - too much random screen time, whether internet or TV. I don't want to schedule all my time because I want to leave time for daydreaming, creative writing, random pleasures. But this free "creative" time can slide all too easily into mindless scrolling. I think I need to do some close tracking here to see the scope of the issue and then need to come up with some "stealth" habit changes like I did with food and exercise. "No screens before breakfast" is working very well but so far my Inner Rebel has blown past other guidelines I've tried. This is a work in progress!
Habits and routines that might be of interest:
- The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
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https://thoughtcatalog.com/koty-neelis/2015/01/10-famous-writers-and-their-daily-creative-routines/I like the simplicity and focus of these writers' routines. They aren't trying to "do it all".