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Seeking Balance: Projects and Habits

by | Aug 31, 2013 | Creative Life

So, have you come up with your areas of focus?

If you’re anything like me, once you have these shiny new buckets, you want to put the system in motion, feel as though some new breakthrough is happening. You need to SEE movement, growth, or evidence of this new-formed balance.

This post is going to be very practical. Before I go into specifics, though, I want to point out that research shows new habits take thirty consecutive days to form. Not thirty days helter-skelter. Thirty days in a row. So, if you really want to create a new thinking habit in which you stop berating yourself for all you’re not doing and you start celebrating the very interesting balance of the many factors in your life, you’re going to have to commit to it and stick to it for at least a month. When those pesky, “ACK, look at all I’m not doing” voices begin clamoring, you’ll have to assure them that you’re in process, you’re doing things one at a time, and that ultimately, balance is the measure of success, not the amount of tasks done.

I bet you’re nodding your head, saying, “Yep. I’m going to do this.” Unfortunately, nodding your head isn’t enough. You’ll forget that head nod when the going gets rough. You’re going to have to write an agreement with yourself. Here’s what should be on your agreement:

1. What are your areas of focus?

2. How will you know if you’re tapping into each? Will you journal at the end of each day, or do a mental check in before you fall asleep? Will you blog about your journey?

3. What will you do when you lose focus or balance? How will you move yourself back onto the course you’ve set?

4. How will you feel in 30 days after you’ve stuck to this commitment and given yourself daily acknowledgement for your successes?

Put this agreement somewhere that you can access easily, and look at it each day for your 30 days. The reminder will keep you on track, especially when things go awry.

Okay, now that you have your commitment, you need a more specific plan.

You’ll probably want to look back over your list of to-do’s that you used to figure out your areas of focus. I bet a lot of things on your list are parts of larger projects. Some may not be able to be done until others are done. See if you can make the list more manageable by naming the projects and listing any to-do’s you’re currently thinking of under those projects.

For instance: Write the Novel will likely have tasks involved, such as do a character interview, make a pinterest board to explore my setting, write chapter one, etc. SIDENOTE: Do not get caught up here trying to detail all the tasks you can possibly think of that go with this project. The point here is to make sure that anything that’s on your mind now, clogging up your mental space, is written down and in it’s proper place.

Once you’ve sorted projects, you’ll have remaining tasks. Some of them are just miscellaneous one-off things. For now, you can ignore these. Others are important things you want to try to do on a regular basis. I call these habits. For me, some examples are: run, write, sketch, choose a new book, plan meals, email friends to check in, etc. These are the things that aren’t on my t0-do list, and consequently, the parts of my life that suffer when I’m busy. Also, notice that they are the things that are most likely to help me stay healthy, creative, calm and connected. It’s no good to cram all of these into a day and then ignore them for another two months.

For each of your areas of focus, you should have at least one habit, and you’ll probably also have projects.

Use colored markers or pencils or a fancy program to categorize these. In a future post, I’ll share some of the techie tools I use to manage these kinds of lists, but for now, the important thing is seeing your life on a macro level.

Here’s what I want you to do. Focus for the next week on the habits. Make sure you get to each of them at least once this week. We’re all used to completing tasks and taking care of our to-do’s, and most likely you’ll get around to the projects on which you can make reasonable forward progress. But make the habits a priority. Do that, and stick to your commitment, and see how you feel after a week. I predict that your feeling of success will lead you to commit even more fully to your 30 days, and then what? Possibly a true life-transformation. A life in which you prioritize what matters to you. Worth the work? I’d say so.

photo credit: AForestFrolic via photopin cc

Seeking Balance-It’s in the Thinking

by | Aug 26, 2013 | Creative Life

SONY DSCI want to pause before elaborating on how I use these categories in my own life.

I was asked a good question about overwhelm and how I do so many things. It’s true. I do a lot of things in my life, mostly because I wear many hats. But what we’re talking about here isn’t about doing more things. It’s about the way we think about the things we do. The brutal truth is, no matter how many experts write books on task management and how many researchers explore efficiency, no one will ever discover a magic solution that will allow one to write a chapter of a novel while also answering email, paying bills and working out. I know, it’s disappointing news. I remember my similar disappointment as a child when I finally accepted the fact that short of recording multiple tracks, I would never be able to sing harmony with myself no matter how I manipulated my vocal chords. Being human… it’s tough.

Sometimes one can order tasks differently to speed things up, but in the end, we can honestly only do one, or maybe two things at one time. (If, say, we’re listening to an audio book and running at the same time.) But wouldn’t you say that attempting to pack more into every second is the opposite of balance? For me, balance is having a steady measuring stick that reassures or challenges me. I can easily look back over my day or week and say with clarity: I’m paying attention to the things that matter. I’m not a puppet being pulled by the strings of my life. I’m taking stock, adjusting, and while I’m never going to be perfect, I’m rather proud of myself for where I am right now. And perhaps, tomorrow, I should pay more attention to that big-picture priority that I seem to be avoiding.

I believe that overwhelm also starts in the thinking. It starts when you wake up with the to-do list scrolling through your mind, and that tiny inner voice whispers, I’ll never get it all done. You’ve started your day already behind, and you race through, trying to get to everything, and when you lay back down at night, you scold and berate yourself: I didn’t get it all done! I’m a complete disaster-mess.

Here’s the truth: you’re not going to get it all done. There’s far too much interesting, exciting, important stuff to do in our lives, and we’re just not capable of experiencing or accomplishing all of it. I used to tell myself this in one breath and in the next wave it away with a: Yeah, but I’m different. I might just be able to… Maybe you’re superwoman or superman, and you’re different from all the rest of us. But unless that’s the case, every day is going to be a fail until you change the way you think.

What I wasn’t willing to do was to simply accept that I wouldn’t get it all done and let myself be buffeted by the winds of chance and my overflowing inbox. Other people shouldn’t have the power to determine what you do with your time. Other people probably don’t want to. They haven’t sat quietly and set overall life goals for you and thought about priorities and considered your whole life. They’re just trying to make it through their own. The person who needs to reflect and consider and pray and contemplate to determine what’s important is you. And once you’ve set your priorities, you can ensure you’re dealing with the important things with the frequency they require. So, that’s why you need a list of your core priorities. But please don’t think of this list as a new to-do list. Call it your priority list or your essentials list or your “what I can’t live without list.”

I’ll write more soon about how I use my list in case you want tips for what to do with such a list once you have it. Until then, peace and balance to you.

 

photo credit: Vvillamon via photopin cc