Winter schedule update

I thought I’d mention how well I’m actually doing with my intentions to be more efficient and procrastinate less. It may not be apparent on the blog, since I skip from topic to topic as usual!

blad_0002I have a loose regime of studying/writing/doing computer work before noon and paints/fibers in the afternoon, and I stick to that pretty well. I choose a topic for study, get a book on it and work through that one or two chapters a day. Or I search for website tutorials, open up a selection of tabs, and work my way through them one by one. In the evenings I read whatever or knit.

There is some going to and fro, which is perhaps also some procrastination thing, but it seems I get ideas for one subject while I’m doing another and if I ignore it the idea goes away. So I indulge, take notes or go do the thing I’m inspired to, then come back to what I was doing before. As long as it’s not an evasive behaviour I find that it works alright. So I’m a person who writes silly poetry while spinning yarn, blog posts in the shower and beget paintings in bed. Fine. I’ll most likely always have a tonne of different ideas and not enough time to work on them. My mind keeps telling me to work on something else on the list no matter which one I choose, but I don’t think it’s so much a short attention span as a wide one. Making lists and going over them regularly does help, so that I’m sure nothing is forgotten, no need to keep repeating it in my head until it gets done.

When I do my “chapters” I do try to contain myself. I’ve also managed to stay true to the goal of getting updated on the Adobe suite, saving most other bookish subjects for later. Still working on it, it’s not like I’m making a full-time job of it for now.

blad_0003Sometimes I do have to discipline myself to stop clicking the interwebs or ignore the urge to clip my toenails, but other than that I feel like I fill up my days to the extent that I’m able as well as resting when I need to and not when I want to (which is hardly ever – you can always do just one more thing, right?). Thank goodness I don’t have a social life. <G>

All in all I think a pretty good improvement. I have some plant dye experiments on hold and I plan to do them all inside a week or so, doing that and just that, not on the side while doing everything else too. Reprogramming your brain and undoing more than 40 years’ worth of habits is not something you do in a month or two, but I’m beginning to trust that it is in fact possible. Perhaps by 50? 😉

So what about slow and simple living you ask? Yes – it is in fact something I ponder from time to time, and I do implement it to a certain extent. But I also think that one of the keys is how you think and feel about the things you do and not just cutting them down. The guilt. The hurry. The duties. The performance. Those are the things I want to cut out, not just my number of activities. Efficiency is not about doing more, it’s about doing it well and as easily as possible. Can you do more cleaning in a shorter time simply by changing your attitude and your method? Voila, that leaves more time and headroom for important stuff without feeling rushed. Or a nap.

Last week the lovely Raquel popped by with a link which accurately describes the kind of person I’ve always been. So now I’ve been diagnosed 😉 Not that I plan to let anyone cure me, I rather see it as a handy excuse as well as an incentive to work harder – my way. “Follow your heart and trust that the dots will connect”. Which is pretty much what I’ve been trying to tell myself the last couple of years. Maybe I wasn’t all that wrong.

14 thoughts on “Winter schedule update

  1. Thank you for that link! Multipotentiality – I can definitely relate to that! It’s great to hear it being described in such positive terms, I have always felt bad about the fact that I can’t stick to any one thing for very long, I’m always in the progress of changing careers and rarely progress beyond the stage of being a reasonably competent beginner. But from now on, I shall view myself as a renaissance woman 😉

    ps. Your schedule sounds wonderful and that yellow leaf photo is just amazing,

    1. I bet you’ve tried for a number of years to fit into the Specialist category as well – and I’ll bet it’s a contributing factor of landing both of us with stress and fatigue…

    1. Det er noget som optager mig en del – det her med at finde sin vej gennem livet. Og jeg er stort set blevet enig med mig selv om, at jeg ikke behøver lede, for jeg er allerede på vej, og jeg behøver ikke vide hvad der gemmer sig bag næste hjørne.

  2. En polyhistor. Det er vel den danske term. Jeg melder mig straks under fanerne. I går aftes kunne jeg ikke falde i søvn, fordi en strikkeidé rumsterede i min hjerne. Jeg må vist også se at få lidt struktur på tingene (igen) For mig er bullet notes (som jeg har omdøbt til punktform ) vejen frem. Jeg kan ikke huske om det var dig der introducerede mig for dem. Det gik fint indtil vi tog på valfart, derefter kom jeg aldrig ind i vanen igen. Nu på lørdag starter juleferien, det er vist en lejlighed til at begynde forfra. Det er da lige før, her er materiale nok til en blogpost 🙂

    1. Åh ja, de der ideer som dukker frem lige som man har fået dynen varmet op…

      Jeg indsatte på et tidspunkt et link til en kalender man selv laver med forskellige punkter, der er en fin video om, hvordan man bruger den? Har faktisk netop fået købt mig en notesbog til formålet, selvom jeg tager notater og laver kategorier, så står det hist, her og alle vegne på nærmeste forhåndenværende blok.

      Fint med et dansk navn, hvis jeg skulle finde på at snakke med nogen om det lidt mere lokalt. 😉 Og jeg har allerede kladder til 3-4 blogindlæg! Det falder jo meget godt i tråd med noget af det jeg tidligere har skrevet, jeg har blot ikke haft et etiket eller en struktur på mine tanker. Men de par artikler jeg nu har læst om det, har jeg bare siddet og nikket hele vejen igennem!

  3. I think you hit on something really insightful there – how we feel about what we do is an important factor in how well our energy lasts. Something done when I feel rushed, like I ‘must’ or ‘have to’ stresses and tires me more than something done because I feel the time is right to do it. Whilst I can’t live my whole life according to what I feel I want to do all the time, I have stopped doing things when I feel I ‘must’, which makes an enormous difference. Also on that note husband and I are learning Non Violent Communication which incorporates the idea that everything can be playful. I don’t actually want everything to be playful, but I do see the value of recognising theat we have the power to choose and that can make our feelings about what we do very different!

    Your schedule sounds great, or maybe I should call it routine? Either way it soinds like you are really shifting into working well with the way you work, rather than trying to force yourself to be different and I heartily applaud you for that!

    Btw I’m switching your blog out to a different reader, because I don’t like the wordpress one and currently i have half my blogs on one and half on another which leads to me not getting round to anything much :0 but you won’t get ‘likes’ from me, just comments. But maybe you can live with that 😉

    1. Likes are nice, comments are awesome. Thanks for dropping by! 🙂

      Must is a horrible word. And even the things which are boring and can’t be avoided, I think can be improved by changing your attitude. Is it really necessary to hate it THAT much? I read this meme the other day “Frodo could get the ring to Mordor, so you can get out of bed”.

      When it comes to art, “must” just doesn’t fit in at all. This is where having several outlets come in handy I think, if one of them is resisting.

      Today btw I’m completely knackered. I think probably because I did some heavy outside work yesterday, not much by any standards, but I do have winegum muscles. So I’m just here clicking away to see if anyone has anything interesting to share! 😉 No schedule whatsoever.

    2. About the reader, I’ve exported my WP blogroll and imported it to Bloglovin. But I’ve also found that you can circumvent the new popup in WP by clicking the timestamp instead of the title. So I use them interchangeably.

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