Things I want to improve for 2006

[cjsmith]

1. foot health

First actions: make appointment with Dr. Kempeny, make appointment with that acupuncturist. Figure out where the time for all this is going to come from. It can't come from work.

2. cardio health

First actions: check out prices and times at the Y and at the local high school that has a pool. Already did the huge first step, the haircut.

3. better use of time

This means LESS TIME ON LJ. Seriously. WAY less. Need a plan for this. Block my access during certain chunks of time (a Greasemonkey script will do that)? Make a small read-every-day filter and a larger catch-up-on-people filter and then the extra for communities and feeds? Something. Advice welcome.

4. decluttering

First step: cancel several magazine subscriptions.

5. better diet

I ate broccoli yesterday. This shows how committed I am. Broccoli is poisonous. Broccoli is the spawn of the devil. Broccoli tastes like somebody didn't clean the kitchen drain strainer for two weeks and then served the results up on a plate.

6. writing

N words per day, no excuses? Or a goal of the form "write and submit this many short stories and edit that 2003 novel for submission"? Deciding soon would be good.

7. stretching

If I don't do my spine twists the pulling in my ribs wakes me up. No clue what that is, but I know stretching gets rid of it, so I'm a fool not to stretch.

8. finances

Time to look up whether I qualify to invest in a Roth IRA even if my company has a 401(k) plan, time to look over the past year's Quicken data to see where I can trim the excess, see whether my investments are right, etc etc.

9. flying

Finish the WVFC Piper Warrior checkout, get a Citabria checkout, start in on some acro, then move over to Attitude's Extra or Pitts.

OK, this list is too long now. Grump. Better pick which ones I care about most.

Comments

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Side note: do you agree that the hardest part is letting go of all the things you feel you ought to be doing? That's been my experience. Then again, doing things I love to do makes it much easier to do more, since I get an enromous amount of work done in the occasional short spurt of fun work.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for sunnydale47, but your comment about letting go of the oughttas does ring true for me. I have let go of some, but I have many others in the "someday" pile. As I age I will need to winnow that pile.

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

If you haven't already, check out Getting Things Done. Helpful book, I'm finding.

The part I'm specifically referring to for this situation is that he advocates having a list of things you want to get to "Someday/Maybe." Simply having such a list (and actually glancing it over monthly or quarterly or whatever) helps to free up the mental energy that tends to get locked up in thinking about those projects that aren't really best started soon, but which you don't want to forget about, either.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I have. My "Someday/Maybe" folder is eeeeeeeeeeenormous. I need to move on to step two: giving myself permission to not do many of the things in there. Ideally, many specific things, so I can take them off the list.

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it would be helpful to separate that list into "things I can see myself doing in 2006" and "things I will revisit in 2007"?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good step. 2006 is all about my health, productivity, and finances. 2007 can be all about fun, if I can walk normally again by then. (And if not, I'll just PERMANENTLY ditch everything that needs a healthy body. Screw it. My dreams have been on the back burner long enough; it's time to throw them away and make new ones.)

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Amen to Making New Ones. Talk about a low-stress way to uncover buried life energy.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It sure sounds good! I can think of quite a few I could bring in... ah, fun! :-) :-)

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

do you agree that the hardest part is letting go of all the things you feel you ought to be doing?

Well, you can't let go of all the things you feel you ought to be doing. Paying bills isn't much fun, but it's kinda hard to get anything written if you're sitting in the dark with no computer because the electricity has been turned off.

But yes, it's never good to "should" on oneself too much. That's part of why it's so important to prioritize one's time intentionally, rather than letting it just happen by default when you run out of time at the end of the day with things you really wanted to do still undone.


On another side note, this language is really deficient in having only one word for the second person singular, the second person plural, and the general "someone." I couldn't bring myself to write "That's part of why it's so important to prioritize one's time intentionally, rather than letting it just happen by default when one runs out of time at the end of the day with things one really wanted to do still undone" because it sounds horribly pretentious. I tried "they" and finally settled on "you," but none of them are really satisfactory. I figured as a writer you'd sympathize, and possibly suggest a better solution!

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Well, you can't let go of all the things you feel you ought to be doing. Paying bills isn't much fun, but it's kinda hard to get anything written if you're sitting in the dark with no computer because the electricity has been turned off.

Heh! Yes, well, good point :-)

But yes, it's never good to "should" on oneself too much. That's part of why it's so important to prioritize one's time intentionally, rather than letting it just happen by default when you run out of time at the end of the day with things you really wanted to do still undone.

Yes. I have been finding that tere is significant decision-making energy that needs to go into my to do list at any given time, and that separating out the decision-making part from the actual doing of things helps. For example, identifying the very next concrete action that a particular vaguely-worded to-do list item is supposed to imply is half the work. Having done that much, it becomes far easier to look at a to-do list containing that item and feel energized rather than beaten down.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

I have been finding that tere is significant decision-making energy that needs to go into my to do list at any given time, and that separating out the decision-making part from the actual doing of things helps.

That's an excellent observation. I'll have to give that more thought, and maybe I can put it to use -- I've abandoned more to-do lists than I can count because just looking at them was too enervating and it seemed easier to start over with a shorter list. (Not a good strategy, I know, but it's better than not doing anything! )