scheduling

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 175 (on impulse control and self-help junkies)

For a self-help junkie who's short on impulse control and frantic to accomplish something BIG, I have manna from heaven.  

About a month ago, Victoria Trestrail, a genius singer-songwriter (whose music you've heard over the credits in all three seasons of The Louise Log), sent me an audiobook. Not being from the big techies, it took me until two days ago to overcome my anxiety and follow Victoria's step-by-step instructions on how to download it. 

The morning after my post about the Lesson from the Lettuce, I started listening to this audiobook, The Power of Less.  And it's total synchronicity!  This book is all about doing more by doing less - just like my tiny lettuce which, when given the space, grew from a couple of small leaves to be bigger than my head.  For the part of deciding how to spend your time and energy, Leo Babauta, the author, takes my rather thin explanation ("decide what must be done today") and lays out precisely how to determine what is essential and how to work backwards to make up daily actions.  It all has to do with what you want, with what your goals are.  Or, with recognizing that you don't have goals and figuring out what they might be. 

For an anxiety-puncturer, it's as good as a day at the beach.


Go Big or Go Bust: Day 112 (free time, to-do lists and prioritizing them)

As some of you, my dear friends, are already aware, I'm somewhat of an 'all-or-nothing' person.  Though I'd planned to spend a solid hour today on Facebook and another solid hour on Twitter, today is getting written off as what I think the corporate world calls a Personal Day.  Just to be clear, I'm calling it a Mental Health Day. 

For once I didn't even bother to number the rest of the list.   #sanity  #Freedom

For once I didn't even bother to number the rest of the list.   #sanity  #Freedom

It's been a while since I pulled out the old vacuum ... so long, in fact, that Mr. Green and I have been coughing and clearing our throats non-stop.  The tell-tale layer of dust had moved in from the corners to pretty much stand, hands on hips a la Wonder Woman, in the middle of every room.  And it started affecting more than my airways: I could hardly fall asleep last night for dirt and disorder induced ANXIETY. 

Fourteen hours after making my to-do list this morning (there was a lunch and a dinner break and a lot of laundry to do too) I am a new person in a sparkling and transformed house.  

Words can't tell you how much I loved knowing what had to happen today and doing it.   But deciding on priorities is rarely so stark unless I'm working or there's a deadline.  In the good old days, pregnant and/or the mother of small children, it was all so clear. (I forget that the time and energy were oh-so limited). 

BURNING QUESTIONS:  How do you decide how to spend free time?   How do you justify doing something frivolous when there's always work you want to do? ... when there's ALWAYS social media you want to catch up on?  Thank you in advance!