Last month, I made a goal to reduce my screen time. I promised myself that I’d be more mindful of how much time I was spending on my phone and watching YouTube.

This past Sunday, I wrote a post about how goals can sometimes be harmful. I discussed my often problematic relationship with goals, without explicitly sharing that some inspiration for that post drew from my WIP Wednesday series.

This series has become unproductive for me.

Every month, finding a new task seems like a chore instead of a positive challenge. Then, practicing that goal becomes an inconvenience that I’m not integrating well into my life. You could say that I’m just failing at implementing my goals, but the interpretation I take is that this is just not working for me.

I am not a goal-driven person anymore. I don’t like putting myself under that pressure. I don’t like boxing myself in. In fact, I’m more prone to freeze and feel trapped than I am to step up and get things done in circumstances like that.

What Has Been Working for Me?

One word: therapy. After my therapy session yesterday, I realized that I’m already working on enough as is–I don’t need to set a goal for myself each month. I want to focus on bettering myself with my therapist, and I don’t want anything to get in the way of that.

This series has been getting in the way. Well, or I’ve just been ignoring my goals in the midst of trying to work on things in my everyday life. Either way, it’s not serving the purpose that I had hoped it might.

How I Did Last Month

Two words: not well. I didn’t really succeed in reducing my screen time all that much. The first week was good, and I did reduce my time by about 30% compared to the previous week. But after that, I just fell back into my previous routine, and honestly, I didn’t think about it much.

I know that the time I spend on my phone and computer is higher than I’d like it to be. But truly, it’s not getting in the way of my life enough for me to want to change that right now. It’s just not one of my top priorities.  And that’s ok.

Pursuing monthly goals makes for great content, but half-assing them for several months doesn’t. I don’t want to present that to my readers, and I don’t want to lie about my progress either. It’s just not worth it to me to continue this series in its current form. So I’m taking a break from WIP Wednesday until I decide what I’d like it to become.

What Could Be in the Future

I’d love to write more posts each month, but I think I’d like to add a new type of content to the blog. I’m thinking that in addition to my main posts on Sundays, I’d like to have occasional midweek posts that are less formal and are more like check-ins with my readers.

I can still picture these as WIP Wednesday posts. But perhaps instead of detailing a monthly goal, they’d discuss things I’m currently working on, or anything I’d recently learned that I’d like to share. I won’t make any promises about this though. What I can promise is that I’m going to think this through and find content that I’m proud to publish, that is helpful or interesting to you, and that isn’t a pain in the butt for me to produce.

Thank You

Thanks to everyone who followed this series in its current form. And thank you to everyone who reads my blog consistently! I’m so elated by the positive response I’ve gotten from so many people. It means so much to me that you all find my thoughts worthy of your reading.