Exercise, rewards and stationery!

To tell the truth, I don’t really need many incentives to get my running kit on and get out there or to do my five sessions of 30 minutes a week of exercise (I cycle 6 miles each way to/from work which takes care of ALL of that usually!).

However, I am terrible at sticking to a training schedule. I will go for the run, but instead of the intervals training I’m meant to be doing, I do double the distance but as a steady run (and therefore never get any faster). Or, I’m meant to be doing hill runs but I decide they’re not enough fun and are tiring, so I go on the beach instead. I’m doing the exercise, but when I’m training for something specific (half marathon etc) that’s not good enough.

I also buy too much quite a bit of stationery.

So, I have decided to try and use stationery as a reward for doing the right kind of exercise!

Ingredients:

Silver stars

Gold stars

Week to view diary

‘Stationery reward’ pages (see below)

Mulberry/filofax

Method:

In the weekly plan, decide what the training schedule for the week is and write it in the Mulberry/filofax.

When the training session is completed, put a silver star on the appropriate day in the week to view diary.

At the end of the week, in the weekly review, if there are ALL the silver stars there that there should be, add a gold star to the stationery reward page.

Each month, if there are 3 or more gold stars, the reward for all that exercise is the purchasing of stationery (and combine it with Bureau Direct’s monthly discount code so you get more for the same money!)

What the stationery rewards page will (hopefully) look like at the end of January!

Results:

I have pretty gold and silver stars in my Mulberry/filofax?

I spend less on impulse purchases of stationery?

I run the next half marathon in less than 2 hours?

Anyone want to join me in this lark?