The power of a checked box

I have a page in my planner that is two sided and  gets printed out every two week.  It has boxes of things I want to do on a daily bases.  I made this the first of the year and sometimes add or subtract from it.  It’s sort of like my daily goals for the year. 

It's a pretty simple list and has room to grow.  Some of these boxes get checked regularly, yeah me!  These could be removed as they are now a habit but I like the feeling of checking off a box (and you list makers know what I am saying here).  If I removed them then I would feel the need to add more and I still have room for improvement with the ones that are there.  Most of the boxes get checked off most days and I love how they remind and motivate me.  There is the box that only gets a check once or twice a week, lots of room for improvement there.  Then there is the box that haven’t seen a check mark all year. Enough was enough, today was the day to do it.  It was the first Monday of a new month so no more excuses, just do it. The item that I chose to check off was exercise.

I have been wanting to ride my bike again but had every excuse in the book not to. 

So today I powered through the I don't want to excuses.  Did I have to think about it, no because I decided to do this yesterday and had everything ready that I needed.  I did have to do it alone, yes as my friend who I was going to use as a crutch called to say she couldn't make it.  Was it calm with no wind?  Nope but I had a route picked out in case of this that didn't involve me riding into the wind.  Did it hurt?  Not really as I took it easy and only rode 4 miles to get started.  Did it feel good to check that box off?  You bet it did.

I guess, want I really wanted to say was if that box hadn't been there I wouldn't have felt the push to just get it done.  There has been many a night when looking over the day that I realized something hadn't been done.  I love having a last minute chance to finish off the day with a check.

Now on to those other boxes and getting more checks marks.