Speed lunch blog again. GTD and TB FTW.

 Time for another weekly last-few-minutes-of-lunch update.

Thanks to the polar vortex and what is being called “snovid 2021” here in Texas, I had several days off from work, during which I jumped on the opportunity to work hard on setting up an organizational habit framework. If you’ve heard of “GTD” or “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, that is approximately the long and short of what I’m trying to set up, but it was and is easier said than done. I had to make a whole bunch of important decisions that would effect how easily I’d be able to implement and stick with this protocol, and how useful it would be. It is nicely flexible and agnostic to what you use to organize things, be it paper, digital, or any subset. But that means I had to make those choices, and then, choosing paper, had to actually create a phyisical notebook (or three) that had all the sections I wanted. Deciding, and then doing it, along with the initial research and refreshing on how to go about doing that, took hours and hours. But finally the basic framework is in place, and now it is a matter of turning the necessary daily and weekly actions into habits. And creating good habits is something I’ve spent a lot of time learning about and practicing.

So now I’m at the habit formation stage, and it is exciting, because it’s starting to work. I’ve got a long, long way to go before the habit is automatic enough that I don’t have to keep it at the forefront of my priorities, but I know I can get there. And already the habits and organizational system is starting to pay dividends in making things less stressful and more productive for me.

I’m also planning on implementing some version of time blocking and deep work, which is an important additional component after the GTD methodology, but I’ll focus on that later. One big set of habits at a time.

And that’s all the time I’ve got. I suppose you’ll get an update on how this is going in a week, and I’ll maybe have a better idea how long it will take to get to functioning properly, and how easy or hard getting the habit established will be.

Until then, take care, and good luck with your own stuff

-Isaac

Piano's, Blindfolds, and the Polar Vortex.

 I've written a little reminder for myself, for what's on my mind, and am keeping it in front of my desk:

Prioritize

Execute

Improve

And as I was writing "Improve" it struck me that if you remove the last "e" it becomes "Improv"

Improv dance is really important to me, as an experience of flow and fearlessness. Of growth mindset and being directed by intuition, and of letting the mistakes and learning be a game, which allows me to be comfortable taking more risks, which allows me to grow faster and create better stuff, and enjoy the process. And it was an experience of action done as worship, as an act of devotion to source, to God.

Improv dance was a very specific medium to practice these skills, and they don't automatically transfer over, but the fact that I did it in one arena of life gives me a bootstrap to other areas of life, a general ideal to aim for. I've done it in a few other mediums, like writing/drawing narratives in a certain magical teachers classes, but none for as long and persistently.

I am feeling like I have more time, like I'm getting more productive and focused and efficient, so the work I am doing on that seems to be working. (Though not yet done). I shouldn't be surprised, but it's always kind of magical to me, to see personal change in action. It's like when I do a drawing from life, I'm focusing on proportion and line etc. and then when I step back and look at what I've done, the fact that it looks like a real thing is always magical and delightful to me.

I've gotten it into my head that I want to restart the piano, since we've got one that came with the house, and it keeps getting delayed. First I needed to find something to teach me, so that took time to research, and then when I finally set up my ipad with the app, it turned out it was horribly off pitch (which shouldn't have been a surprise) so I needed to find a piano tuner, which I did, but nobody is leaving their house today because the polar vortex is down in Texas and it's done the freezing rain thing (with tons of huge branches falling off trees) and the serious snow thing.

I should be grateful that we haven't had any interruptions in power I suppose, many people have had power out in the 7 degree weather, and other have had rolling power outages to manage all the extra energy going into heating homes not designed for these temperatures.

Oh, and I had a couples weekend workshop over valentines day and the preceding days, which was quite nice as well, and I've got some new things to play with in that arena of my life.

Today was a day off from school, but I had to spend it doing planning for school anyways, since we're going to be online for a day or three while the weather is crazy.

OK, time for bed. Love to you all, and stay safe.

Multi-tasking self-improvement

 Here I am again, during my lunch break, back to the routine that seems to have been established. Lunch time is a good time for work, since by the time I get home a) I'm really tired in a brain-fried kind of way and b) when I finally get home I want to spend the hour or two I've got, for time with my wife, or doing household upkeep things that need to get done.

I'm working on a lot of things right now, self-improvement style. I'm working on getting rid of the feeling/belife thing-y of 'there's never enough time.'

I'm working on being more efficient and productive, with ease and focus.

I'm working on being more joyful in life, in work.

And I'm working on letting myself be myself, finding my own idiosyncratic methods of doing a good job at my work, while letting myself focus and act on what I value.

Partly to help with the other element I'm working on, of enjoying work more/being less exhausted at the end of the day.

That's a lot of balls to juggle, perhaps. I'm trying to follow the advice that if you try to do a whole bunch of things well, you'll do none of them very well, but if you focus on a few or one, you can really do that to a high level. Also, when implementing new habits, it's best to focus on as few as possible, until they are well established. Each new habit you add makes the likelihood of sticking with any of them lower. Once they're established, then you can add new ones and it won't compromise the one's you have. Though there is always the limit of how many hours there are in a day.

So, that's where I am right now. I'm looking forward to the weekend, since I'll be doing a virtual couples retreat, and that means I'm taking Friday off, and it happens to be a school holiday next Monday as well.

I think that's all for now. Oh, no, one more thing, I'm thinking about what kinds of activities I can do, to play and rejuvenate myself, that are high quality. Meaning they offer long-term positive benefits. For the most part watching TV or playing video games doesn't offer a lot long term, it's just fun, but learning a skill and or creating things offers more bang for my time buck, while also potentially being refreshing.

OK, I Out once more

love   ^_^