Image by zigazou76 via Flickr
Really?
You don’t really have to be perfect. I’m not. Today I barely managed to get 4 of the 8 things in my Daily Template post accomplished.
- Brushed my teeth with my weapon of mass destruction (tooth brush).
- Showered and got dressed.
- Ate a healthy something.
- Was thankful for not having a migraine headache like I did Saturday morning.
I did not stretch, listen to music, clean up after myself, or be loving to those I live with (well, my housemate was out of town so I did not have an opportunity).
So I managed about 50% on my list. At least I am somewhat keeping track. I am really trying to monitor my own habits. By recognizing my shortfalls I can try to show improvement tomorrow.
You obviously do not need to follow my list, but you might want to make one of your own and see how closely you can follow it.
Start of a New Day 
I like your daily template. Have you thought of making a weekly one? I’ve never had much luck with lists, so I don’t even bother to attempt them, any more. However, I hope you stick with yours!
I am really not naturally a list person either. I have just observed a few things about my style that seem to have benefit. I only look at the daily template as a reminder of what I find useful. I don’t know if I could handle a weekly list but thanks for the suggestion. Probably I should try it.
As for the list of things to do today, I am pretty bad at following through and actually making one, but when I do, I definitely get more done. I go to my google docs check-in collection folder that I made and create a new doc called for example 2011-10-26-Self-Check-In and start a little meeting with myself and kind of blog to myself. What time it is, what I had for breakfast, what I am going to try and do today. The name of the doc makes it easy to sort. Later I can view it from any computer with internet. Kind of my own personal online journal. You might give it a try yourself.
Keeping track of progress is good. After a while, you can really see you’ve accomplished quite a bit just by creating a record for each day, but I have difficulties forming good habits, and an ease for forming bad ones. I will attempt to put together a daily template of my own: just a few simple things that improve the quality of being.
I like the way you said “meeting with myself”. I did something similar for a while, where I made a daily journal that addressed my concerns with useful questions to evaluate myself, primarily regarding whatever endeavors I was attempting. Unfortunately, after moving to my new home, I dropped a lot of good habits.
“I will attempt to put together a daily template of my own: just a few simple things that improve the quality of being.”
Awesome! You totally get it.