Yesterday, Saturday, was supposed to be very busy but things changed and it left me with a day where I could do almost anything, or nothing. I chose to mostly catch up on my reading. I’m still working, slowly, through Slow Productivity by Cal Newport. Three quotes resonated with me from my reading.
“Aristotle identified deep contemplation as the most human and worthy of all activities”
This reminded me of all the discussions we’ve had and probably will have, as an IHC team, on the value of journaling. The value of thinking on paper, which to me is also contemplation.
“You should give your efforts the breathing room and respect required to make them part of a life well lived, not an obstacle to it.”
This is another reason why I’m decluttering. I don’t want to be rushing from task to task, multi-tasking, frantic, frenetic… looking to a future that might not happen in order to be happy with my life. Life is uncertain, things change (the only certainty), and none of us know when our time in this world will end. I want to live now and live well!
When I do a thing, a task or goal, I want to give myself the best chance of doing it well.
Here I liked his suggestion of using a “pull” method rather than a “push” method of dealing with tasks. The “push” methods works by having tasks pushed at you and usually results in a ToDo list that is always growing and can never be completed. The “pull” method, if I understand correctly, is where you have a holding tank, of sorts, for tasks but you only pull a maximum of three projects from it at a time. The rest stay in holding. For really big projects, you might only pull a certain task, or part, from the project into your list of currently-working-on-tasks while the larger project itself lives in the “holding tank” until it’s done.
With this in mind, I now find myself ordering my ToDo lists by also deciding what things to deliberately put off, which is uncomfortable for me because of growing up with ideas like “never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”, but no one is able to do everything. It is still a work in progress, but my ToDo list is a little less daunting than it used to be because of this. This method makes it so you can declutter the ToDo list as well. When tasks are always kept waiting or put off then they must not be all that important after all.
“The key to meaningful work is in the decision to keep returning to the efforts you find important. Not in getting everything right every time.”
This reminds me of the IHC requirement to never quit. It also reminds me to be a little gentler on myself. I am my own worst critic, and good at feeling guilty about stuff. Giving myself permission to not having to get everything right all the time is hard for me. It is something that I need consistent reminding of.
This leads to the next thing, which is that I read instead of doing my repetitions (numbers), which I should have somehow worked into such a day but didn’t. Today, I have begun “returning to the efforts you find important”. The reading, learning, and improving myself is also an important effort, and the repetitions need to be part of that.
Numbers
Pushups/equivalent: 2447
Sit-ups/equivalent: 1806
Weapon Form: 281
Hand Form: 288
RAoK: 91
Sparring: 145
Kilometres: 1201
Memorize “Mastery”: No progress to report
Nurture Relationships: Reached out to someone today. Doing this blog reminded me to do it.
Blogging: 29
Declutter my life: have at least one more donate box worth of stuff designated to go, and two boxes of paper to shred along with another box of paper for recycle.
Great Coat project: No progress to report
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