This year Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday—was on February 13. The following day, which happened to be Valentine’s Day, kicked off the Lenten period during which some folks fast from a behavior, food item or drink for spiritual purposes.
I’ve always used Lent as a time to revisit and reinforce any new year’s resolutions. Since Lent is quite a bit longer than the traditional 30 days it typically takes to break a habit, it’s an excellent time to tackle one of your bad ones. There’s still a few weeks of reflective winter time left before spring in all its glory might distract you from self-improvement goals.
A fast of any sort usually frees up a lot of time. I often think about all the stuff I could be doing if only I wasn’t indulging in one of my bad habits. Usually, a bad habit leads to a corrective behavior that also soaks up your time. A big example is procrastinating on a project that creates chaos for you and everyone else when you scramble to finish on deadline. A small example is gardening without gloves and later having to deal with broken, dirty nails and rough skin.
Any addictions—food, drugs, shopping, social media—can suck time, health, money and productivity from our lives. If you have an addiction that you want to take a break from, plan for things that might come up to tempt you to break your fast. If you want to take a break from social media, don’t just leave the apps on your phone. That’s a recipe for failure. Delete them for a while and add them back if you choose to at the end of your fast.
If you’re addicted to sweets, don’t allow them in the house for any reason! I know that when I bake or buy cookies “for other people”, all too often it’s two for me, one for them. I just can’t have them in the house, period, and that includes the freezer. If you wonder what eating has to do with organizing, you aren’t a food addict.
The time you take off from an addictive behavior can be used to do an organizational project you’ve been putting off. If you’re not on Facebook and Instagram three hours a day, think about what you can do with that time. If you don’t want to use your credit card for a month, think about how you will spend the time you would have spent worrying about your finances and use it to create a realistic budget that makes you feel optimistic and in control.
Maybe you don’t need to quit doing something so much as start doing something, like meditation or exercise. Both can be mood stabilizers and enhance clarity of mind. To help ensure success, try just five minutes of meditation or five minutes of exercise. Every day is better than a few days a week. Something done daily really helps build a habit. After the 40 or so days you can increase the time and maybe decrease the frequency.
Winter tends to magnify bad habits because seasonal depression brought on by cold, short days can make it easy to over-indulge ourselves. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to come through the winter ready to rock spring and summer without having to first overcome extra pounds, a stiff, unexercised body, the guilty conscience of hours wasted on Instagram, or worrisome credit card debt?
Take a break from bad behavior and set up some treats for yourself like carrots on a stick. Promise yourself a visit to Napa Bookmine for every week off social media, an hour massage for every 10 hours spent at the gym, a new item of clothing to celebrate a zero credit card balance, a professional car wash to celebrate a cleaned out garage. Come April or May, be your own Easter bunny and reward yourself with a few of these treats like a well-deserved adult Easter basket.