It's blog time! I appreciate the fact that it's on time! I am currently feeling pretty good about being on top of things. It's a nice feeling. Gratitude for past me for going down in the number of classes I'm taking. I keep coming back to how nice that is. If I ever stop being grateful for it, I need to make myself super busy again (not for too long), so I can feel and appreciate the contrast.
I also need to make good use of the time, so it's not wasted. How to do that? I like the idea of deciding what is really important to do, while outside in nature. Being away from technology, distractions, etc., allows me to more easily take a larger, more comprehensive view of things, and set my goals based on what is truly most important to me. And just what is most important, for me to get done now. It's easy, once I'm in the midst of things, to lose track of that, and just do the next thing I see in front of me.
The other element is having something ambitious to be working on. I've heard that in actualty, SMART goals are not actually that smart. Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Time-bound. It's kinda a dumb acronym. Yes, it should be Specific, but that really should already include time-bound and measurable. And yes, it should feel possible, but actually it's missing an essential ingrediant: it should be a stretch.
Just like Vygotsky talks about with his "zone of proximal development" and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in "Flow" talks about appropriate challenge, if our goals are too easy, then we may do them, but we're not doing our best. It is only when something is within our reach, but challenging, that we mobilize to give our best effort. Lack of challenge leads to stagnation boredom, and underachievement. So basically, I need to make sure I have clear, inspiring and challenging goals, for when I've got some spare time.
Or else use it for some positive recreation/rest activity.
I've gotten into the habit, at the inspiration of some spiritual text I read, to pray morning and eveing, "for the strength and courage to stick to the right path" with a few specifiers for what I'm particularly focusing on. I do it with a visualization/symbol ("the hourglass") from the Cutting Ties work that I really like (someone from a Jungian perspective crossed with my favorite spiritual teacher) and it seems to be really helping be to do that. It's always exciting when I find something that's really effective for me. I'm also continuing to enjoy the "personal kanban" system I've been using to track my tasks and projects, so that's in the same vein of "something that's working for me."
What I'm really excited about is now having a little bit of breathing room, and taking the time to do some organization and cleaning of my spaces. The intention is to do this quickly and efficiently, not spending a long time on making it perfect, but just making simple, quick, homes for everything, so it is actually possible to put it all away, relatively quickly, while still being able to find things, relatively quickly. I've put this off for a long time, because there's always been a fire that needed putting out, but I finally find myself with the time to do this. Maybe. Still only about an hour to do it today, but that's an hour more than I've had for weeks if not months. This "just put it away quickly and don't get precious about it" is a new approach, so we'll see how it actually goes. There might be a learning curve.
Alright, I'm off!
With love, and prayers for peace in the world
-Isaac
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