Why is it said: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again,’ but also: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got’? Why is accepting defeat considered a bad thing, but facing up to reality a good thing?
I’ve been doing the same thing for years now: at the start of the year (or, if I’m organised, the end of the previous one), I buy a specific kind of desk diary: page a day, ring bound so it can be opened flat. Over the years, I’ve discovered that The Works sell exactly this kind of diary, slightly larger than A5, for £4, so that’s where I now get them from.
The intention is that I use it to write upcoming appointments etc, but also check at the start of each month/week/day and write in things that I need to do, things that I will do, and cross off things I have done.
Only, if you know me at all well, you’ll realise that it never works out like that. Scattered around my nightmare study there are neat little books dating back several years and full of blank pages for the days that have gone by unplanned and unmanaged, because, of course, I can’t bear to throw them away, because I know that NEXT year will be the one when I start organising my life.
And tomorrow will be the day when I start writing again…