Habit Stacking - I'm Not Sure About This

 I've been trying to create a morning habit stack (per "Atomic Habits" by James Clear) for the past couple of months, with mixed success. It started out good, then slowly degenerated into kind of a mess, because I wasn't clear and specific about time constraints. Some days it would go well, and some days it would get all jumbled around and out of order and sloppy, where I might be finishing up the stack in the middle of the afternoon. Part of me was satisfied just getting ANYTHING accomplished, because my mind is often a jumbled mess too. But a larger part has not been happy with letting myself get all loosey-goosey with my goal of creating good habits. Eventually, I want to have an afternoon stack also, so having the morning habits totally bleed into the afternoon has been a convenient way to not get any afternoon goals done. The creative habits. The ones I supposedly really want to do. Hmmmm.

So I've revamped my habit stack with time limits attached, and I created the other stacks I want to work toward, a little at a time, for the different times of day. Nothing is written in stone. I can always alter my lists to fit my lifestyle better. But it's a jumping off point. Creating habits is difficult for anyone. A habit is something you've done so much it becomes automatic. And I have a few actual habits, but not enough.

And here's the problem. My very being fights habits, loathes being told what to do and when to do it. I've fought myself and my chaotic ways my whole adult life. A large part of my personality IS loosey-goosey, wanting to be a free-spirited artist, doing whatever the mood dictates, whenever I feel like it, wherever the wind takes me. But another part of me, the sane and organized and mature part, the accountant in me, hates the chaotic side, because the controlled side knows that a free spirit rarely gets anything accomplished, has nothing to show for that freedom, and is not productive at all. Such a battle for dominance.

Why can't the two sides get along? When I worked full time for quite a few years, the organized side had to be in control to keep my job! But being controlled by an outside entity really takes its toll on the creative side. I couldn't figure out a way for them to coexist. I had to let go of creativity just to stop beating myself up for NOT being creative. During the last 7 years it became almost completely submerged, dormant. It's been a real struggle to reawaken it and let it come out again. For it to wake up, I had to let go of the controlled side and learn to live unscheduled again...and go through quite a bit of emotional upheaval, sorting through some heavy baggage.

Somehow I have to integrate the two halves of my personality, so that neither is in total control, but neither feels stifled or handcuffed. But how? How can I have some control over my life, my habits, my TIME, and still let that creative, fragile little butterfly flutter out to be free? It will take so much self-control, so much perseverance, and I just don't know if I have that in me. I've tried scheduling my time and creating habits before and it has been a miserable failure multiple times. Yes, I'm scared to try again. But here I go...the next installment is THE PLAN.