Day 119 - Nine out of ten dentists recommend...

Actually, I hope all 10 of the dentists recommend flossing.  Flossing is good.  Of course.  So is brushing your teeth, exercise, eating healthy, and all those kinds of things.  It's kind of a motherhood-and-apple-pie thing.  However, I certainly didn't get apple pie every day!

Despite all the reasons why I should floss, I have rarely flossed all of my life.  Luckily and despite that, I'm blessed with pretty darn good teeth and gums and that never have caused any troubles.  I have only 1 filling from a long-long-time ago. I brush twice a day and faithfully get to the dentist every six months.

I posted earlier, a little bit after I began this task.  Therefore, the task is to floss 4 times a week (easy enough) for 12 weeks (long enough to create a lasting habit, I hope).  I put a reminder up and check-off chart on my bathroom mirror as well as leaving the floss container out on the counter.

Began 24-June-2010

Completed 12 weeks, at least 4x per week as of 30-Sep-2010.

• There was one week where I only got in 3 flosses, so that week was discarded.  Note that the goal never said they had to be 12 consecutive weeks!
• There were a couple of weeks where I just barely got in the 4 flosses.
• There were a total of 76 flossing days (over the 99 days, that's a 76.7% percentage)

Overall, I declare this a grand success!  I'm certain that in the last 3 months I have flossed more than the rest of my life combined.  I'm keeping the chart up on my mirror and keeping going, despite the task on this list being completed.  The real test will come at my next dentist appointment.  I'm hoping for the fastest and easiest cleaning that I've ever experienced.  We'll see.  it's not until January.  I'll post an update then.

Day 30 - Flossing is a good thing

Flossing, yuck.  It's never something I've done all that much or consistently.  Thankfully I have pretty healthy teeth and even with out much flossing, I've only ever had 1 cavity.  But flossing is good, is important, and is to be done. OK, OK. I know all that but still haven't done well at it and so that's why it made the list.

I started Item 6 on June 24th, 2010.  This is the day I had my 6-month check-up and cleaning at the dentist.  I figured there was really no better day to start given my teeth were freshly cleaned.

Now I'm over 1 week in and I haven't missed a day.  Eleven more weeks for this item and then to keep doing it for good.  Somewhere a long time ago I heard or read that after 12 weeks a habit should be formed.  That's why I picked 12.

Also, now having read the Power of Less for Item 9 I realized that I had a unknowingly done a couple of other very good things when I set this goal that should help with motivation, namely:

• Anticipate - I set the start date a couple of weeks in advance, knowing that I had my dentist appointment. 
• Set an easy goal - I set the goal to be 4x per week, yet hoping to be doing it every day.  I figured that 4 was a lot better than I had ever done and was pretty much every-other-day.  
• Put up a chart - I put a small chart on my bathroom mirror so I can mark off each day.

So far so good.  I'm getting faster at it too.  I might actually have to buy some more floss one day.